The more complex Silence and Silence Plus stands are made in standard sizes of 45 by 36 or 50 by 44 centimetres. The stands are made of painted MDF and the THIXAR gel core, but they differ markedly in design and price. The Silence is normally painted black und with five M6 threads let into the bottom to accommodate three or four spikes. As such, it rests on the surface in a similar way to the Entrance model. The Silence has an enclosed MDF housing. Inside, it is filled with THIXAR gel. The spiked base unit is decoupled from the platform and the sides above it by means of an elastic joint. This is essential to ensure that no gel can leak out when deformed by heavy loads, instead retaining its shape as a damping core. With a thickness of 4.8 centimetres, not including spikes, the Silence is twice as tall as its little sister, the Entrance. The larger size of the Silence allows it to accommodate wide turntables or large amplifiers.

The largest size of the Silence Plus costs 1590 Euros, making it rather more expensive than the Silence at 700 Euro. It is constructed in an entirely different way, though, and even the exterior immediately exudes tangible quality with its very appealing grey/black Nextel paint finish. It is set up on a surface in a different way from its sister units as well. The silence plus also measures 4.8 centimetres in height but lies flat on the surface, that is, without spikes. From outside, it looks like it is in two parts. The bottom part takes up two thirds of the height. A groove forms a mechanical division between it and the slimmer top part, and looks smart as well. Apart from the THIXAR gel, there are also single layers of natural cork and one other material inside, the nature of the latter being Mr Rüdell’s commercial secret. The top section can move slightly with respect to the bottom part. Thus it floats, so to speak, on the damper bearings, but it nevertheless remains completely stable and does not change position even under heavy equipment.

To test the stands, I put them on top of the spiked Creaktiv Audio absorber stands of my own rack. This means that acoustically they already had a pretty decent base. It makes sense to start by testing a piece of hi-fi equipment with moving parts, whereby a certain amount of disturbance is intrinsic. Therefore I initially put the Silence Plus under my turntable. Manuel de Falla’s The Three Cornered Hat played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa and Theresa Berganza from 1977 was the first piece of music I tried. The change in the musical reproduction was unmistakable. It was as spectacular as it was surprising. I always expect the differences to appear in roughly the same way, i.e. that there should be more of everything: more space, more colour in the sound, more body, more dynamic structure and fineness, more precise timing. Hearing this, I was initially perplexed, but there was a clear difference. The spatial spread of the instruments seemed to have got smaller. I put some other records on the turntable to check my initial impression. The remastered Abkco version of the Stones’ Beggars Banquet from 2003 came first, then Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald in mono on the triple album from Vinyl-Passion that came out in 2011 and Dillon’s This Silence kills. The effect was the same, even if it was noticeable to different degrees. The spatial effect was remarkable. When heard without the Silence Plus, it is as if the stage opened out at the back, the instruments at the left and right spreading out wider from the speakers. With it, they were closer together.