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Reviewer: Glen Wagenknecht
Financial Interests: click here
Source: Luxman Bird modified by Audio Upgrades to be a now tube-less, zero oversampling machine with integral volume control
Amplifier: Bel Canto 200.4
Speakers: Apogee Duetta Signature, Paradigm Servo 15 subwoofer
Cables: Signal Cable Silver Reference interconnects and speaker cables
Resonance Control: Solid Tech, EquaRack, Superspikes and Black Diamond
Powerline conditioning: Noise Destroyer power filtration
Room size: 12' x 17.
Review Component Retail: $1,295/set of four

Putting your best foot forward
Designers of vibration control devices constitute the unsung heroes of the audio industry. Unwanted vibration is a very real problem. No component can perform up to its full potential unless that problem is addressed. Many still assume that the issue is restricted to turntables and tubes. Unfortunately not. Solid-state electronics and CD players are also affected, often dramatically so. Additive and subtractive effects are numerous but all amount to the same thing. Your system is no longer reproducing the original signal. This is not what you want.

Over the years, simple and complex approaches have evolved. Better materials. Better thought-out designs. In this review, I am examining the top-of-the-line design from Weizhi Precision in Taiwan, their Gold Glory isolation feet. This company has attacked the problem with no-nonsense engineering to pack a lot of sonic innovation in a very small package. That very small package has the look and feel of a Rolls Royce. It also carries a price tag that demands it be taken serious. Who is Weizhi?

Weizhi Precision is located adjacent to the Hsinchu Scientific Industrial Park (Taiwan's Silicon Valley) where many high-tech manufacturers and design houses have settled in Hsinchu city of Taiwan. We are confident in our experience to work daily to an extreme degree on the various requirements which a highly competitive business environment presents.


Weizhi Precision has a twin focus in cultivating the semiconductor business and Hi-End audio. Our owner Mr. George Tsao has led the company since 2004. Henry Wang is our chief engineer with extensive professional experience in structural design and material applications. With both men devoting their special expertise to the hifi sector, music lovers are assured an even higher listening enjoyment. Therefore, Mr. George Tsao's slogan for our company has become Extreme Artistic Techno Sound Maker.


It drives our staff to create products where art and science meet with hi-tech know-how. Because we love music, we apply our musical enthusiasm to even the smallest tasks to make our high-end products successful. Our working experience in the hifi and semi-conductor manufacturing sectors combines with our mature knowledge of material applications to form the basic R&D concept from which we fashion our series of audio products.

We apply CAD/CAM graphics and 3D simulated tests; oversee material acquisitions, precision processing, sound adjustment, pure manual surface polishing and final quality control; and perform all these front-to-back processes at our Weizhi plant without outsourcing. We believe this vertical integration is the only way we can precisely control perfect production quality to assure excellent performance. Enjoy the music and your life.

What's in the package: 4 graphite bases. Graphite is relatively new on the audiophile scene. It is extremely hard but with an atomic structure that allows it to dissipate energy very rapidly (refer to their website for substantiation). This model is not merely graphite but an exotic German-sourced copper-infused graphite chosen to further enhance and fine tune those characteristics. The top of the base has a hollowed-out recess.

Into that fits a sub chassis composed of German stainless steel and a DuPont elastomer ring. This allows a further stage of isolation due to materials and compliance. This is topped with a grooved stainless plate containing a concave recess on top. Into that fits a G20 class top grade ceramic ball which mounts into the recess. And that is finally crowned with a damped stainless steel cone terminated in a concave recess which sits on the ceramic ball.

What's the potential? A cascade approach to controlling resonance, incorporating the advantages of a bearing-based design, a compliant elastomer approach and the mass and dissipation characteristics of the copper-infused graphite; all in a user-friendly small package. That's a lot of ambition and technology under a very small hood.


Does it deliver on its potential? In a word, yes. I began with the expectation that my first day would be spent fine tuning, positioning and tweaking in preparation for serious listening. I wound up graduating to the first listening session instead. The product performed well with just rudimentary setup. A promising sign. Weizhi Precision recommends a few days of run-in time for optimal performance, presumably for the elastomer to settle.

A few of the recordings used to evaluate the Weizhi Precision Gold Glory.
Cut 1 "Tra la Fiamme" from Händel: The Italian Years [Dorian DOR-90147]. Subtle interplay. Hall acoustic. Unforced wide dynamic range on the Julianne Baird's vocal.
Cut 2 "Woods Rocks and Mountains" from The English Lute Song [DOR-90109] also with Julianne Baird. Again, simple material but the soaring vocals have tremendous dynamics and illuminate the hall with sympathetic reverberation.
Cut 12f "Closing Credits" from James Horner's Glory [Virgin Records CDV3087]. The Boys Choir of Harlem is sometimes foreground, sometimes background in the mix. There are points where the vocal rides with the identical orchestral notes but at a much lower level. That information can easily get lost in the mix but is clear by virtue of the preservation of their unique subtle differences in dynamic texture.
Cut 9 "The Might of Rome" from the soundtrack of Gladiator [Decca 289 467 094-2]. An example of isolation capabilities. Sustained bass note in subwoofer territory, heavy drum transients plus both full orchestra and choir. It challenges the ability to preserve fine cues.
Cut 14 "Habanera Fantasia" from This is K2 HD Sound [FIM K2 HD 078]. Hall acoustic. Bell transient reverberation and decay. Castanets. Distinctive sharp attack with the character of wooden body. If the timbre and leading edge are handled wrong you'll lose the wood.

Cut 11 "Christmas Carol" from Star of Wonder [ Reference recording RR-21CD]. Large choir. Dynamic subtlety. Interplay across the stage between the various members. Hall acoustic.
Cut 7 "Concert for Oboe and Streicher in d-moll" by Alessandro Marcello from Highlights CD4 Collegium Aureum [Stereoplay 697 002]. A single-point stereo microphone recording. Also includes a diagram of the angles and distances each instrument was in relation to the microphone. Perfect for evaluating reproduction of instrument placement.

Under the CD player: The changes were immediate and obvious. A lowering of the dynamic noise floor. Low-level information was better preserved, resulting in significantly wider dynamic range. Why is this important? It is difficult for a playback system to reproduce dynamic gradation at the soft end of the scale at acoustically realistic volume levels. If a system has to portray low-level information at louder than natural volume settings, it is inaccurate and guilty of compression. With the Weizhi footers, extremely subtle dynamic cues and inflections were maintained correctly even where the material had an extreme range of complex dynamic contrast. This indicates superior control of internal component resonance and excellent isolation.

Timbre was neutral. The product appeared to contribute neither additive nor subtractive colorations. The result was a balance closer to a master tape. This is generally a sign that distortion is being reduced.

Placed under the amplifier, what were the footers contributing? Better overall broadband resolution. Better micro and macro dynamics. Better preservation of soundstaging information. Timbral accuracy. No apparent shortcomings. There was a good sense of fidelity to the characteristics of the source.

How do I quantify that statement? I know the sonic characteristics of the source component through the Solid Tech feet. That was my reference benchmark. If the component down the line passes that information intact, it is being accurate. The Gold Glory was accurate.

Overall: Any product which allows you to hear deeper into the master tape is doing something right. Good recordings sound extraordinary. Former mediocre recordings reveal themselves to be considerably better than expected. There is simply more to listen to. Complex music is easier to follow and far more interesting. Music becomes less about listening to spectacular audio and more about being drawn into a spectacular performance.

The footers performed admirably in absolute terms. In comparative terms, the Gold Glory exhibited a more accurately weighted tonal balance than the Solid Tech Feet of Silence, with better broadband resolution. Both were excellent at component isolation. In my setup, the Equarack footers are used for their isolation capabilities under the subwoofer. The object of the exercise is to keep subsonic materials airborne and not floor-borne. The sub is capable of prodigious output down to about 14 cycles. The wood floor underneath it is prone to low-frequency induced resonance and will feed back into both the subwoofer and the system in general to the point of mechanical chatter. This is a supreme torture test. Any product will eventually fail due to acoustic overload if fed a sufficient amount of low frequencies and amplitude. The Equarack has proven the most effective isolation device for this use. The Gold Glory gives that a good run, challenging the performance of the Equarack footers. This is exemplary performance by both devices under the worst of circumstances.

Conclusions: Excellent resonance control can elevate the performance of your system. These footers will do just that. Are they the best out there? I have not heard everything and Weizhi Precision's own design team don't seem inclined to rest on their laurels. But in the here and now, in my system, they outperformed the best I had on hand. As such, they clearly earn the status of Glen's current reference.


Are the Weizhi Gold Glory Footers right for you? This is not an inexpensive tweak. This is very serious fare. If you have already invested in a full-fledged expensive rack system incorporating heavy-duty vibration control, this may not be the route for you. If you are looking for a cheap solution, this also is not the route for you.


But if you are in the market for a compact, state-of-the-art product that is highly effective and easy to set up, this should be on your short list. It is far superior to standalone cone solutions. It has none of the setup demands of comparable polymer-based isolation devices or roller block assemblies. The Gold Glory incorporates their best attributes and improves on them. It is built like a miniature Rolls Royce and performs like one. I urge you to go to the Weizhi Precision website and investigate the range of products the company has to offer. From Taiwan to Cananda, I had delivery in two days and communications were very prompt and informative...

Weizhi Precision website