I am lucky with my listening room: even without special damping, diffusers or absorbers it sounds pretty good. However, the interaction of the power amplifier with the tiled floor is anything but optimal: various types of coupling are very noticeable here. Does Finite Elemente’s Carbofibre° HD isolation base bring any further improvement?

As for the loudspeakers, things don't look any better either. That's why my long-time favourites, the Kawero Classic, ended up resting on a frantic-looking mixture of the factory supplied Stillpoints and some Harmonix feet. But the ideal speaker platforms are a somewhat different matter. Back when the Brinkmann monos took care of the amplification, the Finite Elemente Cerabases – now named Cerabase° Classic – were responsible for the coupling to the floor. They also took on the job with the Ayon Epsilon. Under Einstein's The Poweramp, the Harmonix TU-666ZX "Beau Tone" replaced the Cerabase, while, later on, their noble version TU-666M "BeauTone Million" received the honours. The short, even more pleasing episode with the Harmonix "The Base" TB-0917, I almost repressed because of its rather deterrent price. Then SSC's Big Magic Base turned out to be a great help here, particularly as in combination with The Poweramp it sounded better than a set of four TU-666M "BeauTone Million", but fortunately at a lower price.

Therefore, there was no reason for me to change the positioning of the power amplifier – if I hadn't talked to its developer Luis Fernandes on the occasion of Wolfgang Kemper's comparison review of an old and a current Pagode rack. He suggested me to try out his Carbofibre° HD base under my power amplifier. Such offers usually leave me rather unimpressed. But in the last century I had already used two Pagode racks to my satisfaction. I got even more fascinated by the fact that whenever Luis Fernandes dropped by to install a supposed improvement, his forecasts came to prove true: After that the equipment supports really did perform at a higher level. Thus, I immediately ordered a Carbofibre° HD.

According to Luis Fernandes, the autonomous Carbofibre° product line is intended to offer customers the possibility of achieving a significant sound enhancement for the installed equipment, even on surfaces such as sideboards, lowboards or the floor. In addition, the Carbofibre° bases are also intended as a sonic alternative to the pagode° amp platforms, if, for example, the available space is not sufficient or special dimensions are required. The excellent sound characteristics of the honeycomb core material used for the shelves of the new pagode° MKII generation, which are made of a polymeric material, get significantly improved in combination with the carbon fibre all-round coating, as the resulting extreme torsional stiffness in conjunction with the ultra-light honeycomb core ensures optimally controlled resonance damping and dissipation. The result is said to offer improved resolution and fine detail, a wider dynamic range and a much more coherent sonic image.