Are you feeling isolated? Well if you are not, we think that you jolly well should be! Isolation is not just a wonderful track on the second and final Joy Division album “Closer”, nor is it just what you should be doing for five days after catching Covid. It is a subject that every audiophile should be well acquainted with. Isolation issues can make or break the performance of pretty much any item of hi-fi and when properly addressed will improve the sound of your system to the extent that you can forget about the equipment and get closer to the music (see what I did there?).

IsoAcoustic OREA’s

OUR STORE mascot, THE BLUE MEANIE WITH THE IsoAcoustics Orea in three of the four available sizes.

A Sneaky Peek

The subject of this months blog is the OREA isolation pucks from the Canadian company IsoAcoustics. I first came across the IsoAcoustics products at the Bristol Hi-Fi Show in 2018 while I was working in the sales room on the third floor. By midday on the first day I was beginning to get rather inquisitive as to why so many of the show visitors were coming in to our room eager to throw money at us for many and varied products from the IsoAcoustics range. I decided to take a sneaky peek to see what was going on and sat in on one of their product demonstrations. To say I was gobsmacked was a bit of an understatement. The A-B demonstrations that they were doing always made a big difference and throughout the whole show they continued to sell in bonkers amounts. IsoAcoustics have a large and varied range of vibration control and isolation products, but for the purposes of this article I am going to concentrate on the OREA range.

Ooh….Shiny!

OREA pucks in all their shiny glory. From left to right Graphite, Bronze and Indigo.

The Science Bit

The OREA’s are designed to eliminate parasitic vibrations and provide greater sound clarity and focus. They are ideal for electronic components including Amplifiers, DACs, CD Players, Speakers, and Turntables. Made of machined stainless steel, they have a low-profile design to minimize any increase in height. Each OREA model is designed with a different weight capacity. They each have a coloured ring on the bottom isolator that denotes the model and weight capacity, and are packaged individually to allow greater flexibility when determining the number of units to use. IsoAcoustics recommend a minimum of 3 units under each component depending on the weight of your equipment. The existing feet on an audio component may connect well and fit nicely around the perimeter of the OREA isolator. Alternatively, you may get better performance by either removing the feet entirely or placing the OREA’s beside the existing feet to have them connect directly to the chassis or base of the component.

The whole field of vibration control and isolation was met with a certain degree of scorn when first introduced but is now fully embraced as a nailed-on method of improving transparency, resolution, dynamics, coherence, bass performance and soundstage dimensionality.

Isolation for our demo Rega P3 with Exact Cartridge

The Music Bit

As an experiment I tried a before and after test using our Rega Planar 3 with Exact cartridge using a set of the Bronze OREAs and the differences were just amazing. I chose a couple of very different tracks from two very different albums. First on the felt mat was the track “The Bell That Never Rang” from the album of the same name by the experimental Scottish folk trio Lau. This seventeen minute long musical exploration veers from classical to folk to electro and is riveting throughout. The climax at the end has some of the most humongously deep and sinewy bass that you will ever hear your system reproduce. Now the OREAs did not magically produce more bass but what they did was to make it all sound tighter and faster as if it were coming from a huge inky black background. The soundstage became enormous with vocals just hanging in mid air and the violins viola and cello became wonderfully real and solid. This is a beautiful sounding album and was produced by Joan Wasser at the very reputable Castlesound Studios in Scotland which has played home to many of the greatest Linn Records recordings over the years and is run by Calum Malcolm (just look up his client list!).

Next on the playlist was “A Round Of Applause” by Los Angeles psych rockers Hooveriii (pronounced Hoover Three apparently).This is one of those albums that I bought because I really love the artwork on the sleeve. I am a huge fan of the artist Jean Giraud Moebius and although this is not by him it is very much in his style… So I bought it! I was not to be disappointed with the music either which is a melange of soaring psychedelically twisted guitars, glam rock synthesiser power pop and super hooky melodies. Listening to the track “My Directive” before and after the OREAs were planted under the Rega Planar 3 I was immediately aware that the song now had more propulsive power and increased swagger. Everything now being more open and all the individual strands of the song easier to follow. Just stunning.

The magnifent “A Round of Applause” by Hooveriii. Just WOW!

So…

By now you have probably realised that I quite like what the OREAs can do to improve an item of hi-fi equipment. Indeed my very own CD player at home has been improved with the addition of a set of the Graphite OREAs to such an extent that without them I think it sounds a bit meh! So if you too are even just a tiny bit curious about what they could do for you then pop in to see us here in the Cheltenham showroom and we can talk you through the options and we can even let you take some home to try before you buy. This is something that we do rather a lot with OREAs and not many of them come back! I also cannot believe I am talking about this in September but they would make great things to put on your Christmas prezzie list! They are on mine!!

If you’d like to find out the best IsoAcoustic product for your speakers or hi-fi component, you can use the Selection Wizard Here

Thanks for reading,

Andy, Jon and Farid - Audio T Cheltenham.

If you have any questions about any of the equipment featured in this article, or any other Hi-Fi or home cinema enquiries, be sure to Contact Us.

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