⌈ XACT is the latest third brand founded by MARCIN OSTAPOWICZ and joins JPLAY and JCAT, which he also runs. Formed in October 2022, it had its WORLD PREMIERE in “High Fidelity” with the S1 audio file transport. Now it is joined by two types of Immotus anti-vibration feet (Latin immobile). ⌋

WE’VE KNOWN MARCIN OSTAPOWICZ from several roles. First as a specialist in audio file playback, running a company called JPLAY, for years honing the software that serves this purpose, with its latest 2019 version → FEMTO and now JPLAY for iOS. Secondly, as a man improving the operation of computers meant to play these files. Indeed, within the JCAT brand, he has focused on hardware, namely USB and LAN cards, USB and LAN cables, and finally power supplies, such as the → OPTIMO 3 DUO model we use.

And finally there is a third way, lately perhaps the most exciting one for Martin, namely the XACT brand. Until recently, it offered only one product, the S1 file transport. When we tested it, it was known that - sooner or later - it would be joined by other full-size streaming-related devices, such as D/A converters, word clocks, LAN switches, etc. And indeed, the S1 can work both as a transport and a LAN switch.

In time, the logo of this company also began to be used for USB and LAN cables. But the truly new XACT product, which had not been present in any Martin brand before, turned out to be anti-vibration feet. As we read, their development is due to the changes that have been made to the S1 since 2022, resulting in the creation of a new model, the S1 Evo. And further:

A key innovation in the S1 EVO is the introduction of the IMMOTUS™ ceramic-aluminium isolation footers. These footers are designed to channel internal vibrations away from sensitive audio components, offering improved detail and bass precision. With this feature, the S1 EVO not only delivers superior sound quality but also enhances the listening experience with deeper resolution and tighter bass control.

⸜ XACT Audio Immotus Footers, → ADDICTEDTOAUDIO.co.nz, accessed: 21.10.2024.

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| A few simple words…

MARCIN OSTAPOWICZ
Owner, designer

⸜ XACT Immotus CRX cross-section

XACT IMMOTUS CL and CRX are mechanical anti-vibration feet designed to improve the sound quality of all audio equipment and speakers. They replace or bypass the original feet, providing a path to dissipate mechanical vibrations generated by internal components. While it may seem counter-intuitive, internal mechanical vibrations are far more detrimental to sound quality than any external vibrations, making typical feet made of soft damping materials ineffective, and may even make the situation worse.

⸜ Technical drawing of XACT Immotus CRX

XACT Immotus are designed to effectively deal with vibration problems in all audio devices. The materials and mechanics used in them are optimized to provide the best listening experience. These feet improve the focus and resolution of sound, increase dynamics and provide a deeper, darker background for music. Placed underneath speakers, they improve stereo imaging, sound openness, and provide more precise and better defined bass.

XACT Immotus CL is a basic feet model made of aircraft-grade aluminum, equipped with a single-level bearing and ceramic balls. XACT Immotus CRX is an uncompromising high-end product, made of copper alloy with the best properties for eliminating mechanical vibrations, with a double bearing and better ceramic balls.

⸜ Technical drawing of XACT Immotus CL

All XACT Immotus products are designed and manufactured in Poland. They are characterized by a simple yet elegant design, focused on efficiency, which translates into real value for our customers. The maximum recommended load per one XACT Immotus CL or CRX foot is 50 kg. MO

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WE ALREADY KNOW ALMOST EVERYTHING. Almost, because the company does not reveal how exactly the feet are made, but only reveals some clues. What is known, then, is that the basis of their operation is a rolling bearing, which dissipates the energy of vibrations through the micro-motion of the ball in the bearing’s bed. The best-known manufacturer of this type of feet is Germany's → FINITE ELEMENTE.

However, other companies, based on this idea, have forged their own way, including the Polish company Franc Audio Accessories, probably known to everyone in Poland. Gigawatt, for which it is part of AC power supply conditioners, Avatar Audio, which decouples its electronics in this way, also has its own variation of this solution, and at the extreme, in anti-vibration platforms, it is offered by another Polish manufacturer, Stacore. It appears that our country is at the forefront of the world in this slice of the audio world.

So XACT has used ‘a ready idea’, one might think. In fact, however, from idea to realization the road is far, winding and bumpy. That's why each of the products of the companies I'm talking about behaves differently (mechanically) and produces different effects (sonically). Even a small change in shape, proportions, materials, etc., even in anodizing and painting, translates into significant, and sometimes even very large changes in sound. Therefore, I perceive Marcin Ostapowicz's idea as his voice in this discussion and at the same time his contribution to it.

We also already know that the Immotus feet come in two versions - the “basic” CL and the “advanced” CRX. I don't want to call them ‘cheaper’ and ‘more expensive’, because while that would be true, it's not quite true - both types of feet are among the more expensive solutions of this type on the market; not the most expensive, but still. For the CL you have to pay 1000 euros, and for the CRX - 1800 euros, in both cases for three pieces.

Both footers are in the form of a cylindrical slice with a diameter of ø 60 mm. The CRX is taller and measures 31 mm, while the CL measures 21.5 mm. Both use ceramic balls to decouple the two surfaces, but the larger one has two layers of the decoupling system, while the lower one has one. Each of these layers uses three balls, spaced evenly every 120⁰. In the basic feet, the basic material is aircraft aluminum, and in the larger ones, copper alloy. CLs have markings applied with powder coating, while in CRX they are milled.

Both types of feet stand on a material that looks like leather and have a hole (M6) drilled and tapped through the center. So they can be placed under the device or speakers, but also can be crewed to them. However, I did not find any screws in the kit, and this is also an important part of the mechanics of such a foot. CL and CRX can be purchased in sets of three or four. They come in simple boxes made of foam-filled cardboard.

▌ SOUND

HOW WE LISTENED • XACT's CRX and CL anti-vibration feet were tested in the “High Fidelity” reference system. I always test anti-vibration feet in my system in the same way - under the signal source, sometimes assisted by other devices. This time I tested them under the Ayon Audio CD-35 HF SACD player. The test involved both models of Immotus feet, but for the sake of clarity in the description the main test describes the sound you will get by placing the devices on the CRX model, and in the table I point out the differences between CRX and CL. The reference point was the Divine Acoustics Galileo feet.

I'm moving the player during the test, so its connections must be flexible. I use Crystal Cable Absolute Dream interconnects in this role, and the player is powered by Harmonix X-DC350M2R Improved-Version cable. The comparison consisted of listening to the same piece of music (1-2 minutes) on the reference feet and transferring it to the test feet. The player and the test feet stood on the top of a Finite Elemente Pagode Edition Mk II carbon rack.

» RECORDINGS USED FOR THE TEST ⸜ a selection

⸜ DIRE STRAITS, Brothers In Arms, Vertigo/Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab UDSACD 2099, „Original Master Recording”, „Ultradisc UHR”, SACD/CD (1985/2013).
⸜ CHET BAKER QUARTET, Chet Baker Quartet, Barcalay/Decca Records France | Universal Music Company UCGU-9074, „Chet Baker In Paris SACD Collection”, SHM-SACD (1955/2024).
⸜ AL JARREAU, All I Got, GRP ‎065 082-2 | SUDL 003630, Test Press SACD/CD (2002).
⸜ ART BLAKEY & THE JAZZ MESSENGERS, Just Coolin', Blue Note/Universal Music LLC (Japan) UCGQ-9027, SHM-SACD ([1959] 2020).
⸜ MARIE AWADIS, Études Mélodiques, Deutsche Grammphon 486 5992, CD (2024).
⸜ THOMAS KESSLER, Fragile, Hypersensitive Records HRCS 004, Limited Edition CD-R (2023).

THE SOUND CHANGE that occurs when the Ayon Audio player is moved from the reference feet to the XACT fett is unequivocal and clear. The most important adjustment that then occurs is the lowering of the center of gravity. I've heard this before with Pro Audio Bono's PEEK series feet, as well as with Franc Audio Accessories' latest anniversary feet. Clearly, similar techniques bring similar - overall - changes. The differences between the two will manifest themselves in their intensity and distribution.

Which would make sense, because the sound improvement, for that is how it should be understood, that was offered by the prototype of all such considerations, the Finite Elemente feet, took the same direction. However, I feel that the feet of Polish companies are more resolving than them. In addition, it is the case that the XACT CRX, because I started my listening with them, have their own ‘preferences’, if that's what you can say about an inanimate object. These would consist, so to speak, in adding weight to the sound and emphasizing the mid-bass breakthrough, along with improving resolution.

The Divine Acoustics feet play with even more resolution, also sounding higher, showing the upper midrange in a stronger way. After switching to the CRX feet, the sound deepens, which came out momentarily with both the guitars and Mark Knofpler's vocals from ˻ 5 ˺ Why Worry, a track from the DIRE STRAITS Brothers in Arms album. I played it from the Mobile Fidelity version, which is SACD, albeit with material extracted from a U-Matic digital master tape, that is, with a 16-bit, 44.1 kHz signal. Anyone who has heard it from vinyl knows that this is its best version.

The SACD disc is also excellent but no longer as phenomenal. However, the feet prepared by XACT did something that made it sound more like an LP. The deepening of the midrange and bass breakthrough resulted in not only a bigger sound, that too, but also and above all provided very good imaging. It's a paradox, but that's just the way it is, that the bottom end has an amazing effect on how we perceive the stereoscopic musical image. With the tested feet it was big and vivid. For not only is the volume of sound is greater with them, but the plasticity is more interesting.

And not only from a finely produced album like the one we've been discussing, but also from mono recordings made somewhat ‘by the way’. This is how I see the CHET BAKER QUARTET’S Chet Baker Quartet album, released in 1955 by the French Barcalay label, and reissued this year in Japan on SHM-SACD. Recall that SHM-SACD discs are single-layer SACD discs from which, instead of plastic (polycarbonate), a material used in the manufacture of LCD displays is used, which is much clearer and causes less refraction. The surface of these discs is covered with a paint of a selected turquoise color, further helping the laser read better.

The sound of the Chet Baker Quartet disc, after moving the player to the XACT feet, lowed and slightly warmed. But it also gently filled out. These three elements, by the way, would return with each subsequent recording. Baker's trumpet had brilliance, it was strong and unmistakable, as did the metal cymbals, strongly showcased, though shown a bit behind by the producer. But the double bass was also doing its thing.

The thing is, it's a rather bright recording, in the sense that it's not very saturated. And the feet sent for the test by Marcin Ostapowicz weighted it down so that it was plastic on one side, but also open and deep on the other. It seems to me that the idea is that these feet bring order to the presentation. Although the changes they bring to the sound manifest themselves as a change in timbre and in the perspective from which we view the musical performance, at their core they do just that - calm down something that puts the sound into micro vibrations, and thus blurs it.

I listened to the ˻ 1 ˺ Random Act Of Love track from AL JARREAU's All I Got album from this angle. A delicate guitar at the beginning, immediately followed by a strong, low and loud bass sound, it all had its place in space and time. The CRX feet ‘tighten’ the sounds to their ‘hooks’. What I mean is that with them we get a smooth presentation that has no holes in the “fabric” of sound. Or to put it even more simply, it's a very organic sound.

These ‘hooks’ I'm talking about are the places where one sound goes out and a new one appears. The place of connection is the moment when for a fraction of a second there is still the reverberation of the previous one, but also the direct sound of the next one. It goes without saying that we don't normally experience it that way, it's simply a continuum. But somewhere at a lower level we have to connect them with each other in our head. The better the linking, the smoother, the more believable the sound. And, quite simply, more pleasant, because less tiring. And that's exactly what the Immotus feet do, in both versions.

This gives the effect of the instruments ‘coming out’ towards us. In the sense that the performance gets tangible, rather than distanced. One could say that it is more emotional. The reference feet are more precise in drawing the attack of the sound and its decay, and have higher selectivity. But the XACT give the presentation more mass, make it internally dense, and thus more - let me repeat - emotional.

This ‘coming out’ is not about pushing the sound in front of the speakers. Here it manifests itself in intensifying foreground events. It is clear that the reverberations, even as subtle as on THOMAS KESSLER's beautiful Fragile, which was available for purchase as a Master CD-R, are clear and intelligible. These are not feet that put out anything. They simply saturate and thicken sounds, and everything else remains the same.

As you can read in one of several reviews of this Berlin-based musician's albums, he records music using an old Yamaha piano, from 1975, standing in his bedroom, to which he adds effects already in the post-production stage. The result is what he calls , “FrankenSteinway.” It's a big, beautiful sound with many layers, even though, after all, it's only from a piano. The tested feet show this very well. That is, and mass, and intensity, and selectivity. They combine all this into a presentation that is both intimate and spacious. And simply very good, even great.

▌ Summary

BOTH TYPES of feet offered by XACT are well-thought-through products, based on Marcin Ostapowicz experience, though not exclusively, and based on his reference system. A great system, we should add.

Both models saturate the sound and add weight to it. They open a window to a colorful, plastic and multicolored image. They go further with this than, both, the reference and Pro Audio Bono PEEK feet and the Franc Audio Accessories 15th Anniversary Ceramic Disc Hybrid. They are most reminiscent of products from the American company Carbide Audio in this regard. The presentation with them is resolving, fast and dynamic, but above all dense.

Therefore, if you want to brighten and open up the sound, you will have to reach for other solutions. The XACT feet are used for something else. Namely, to smoothen, to bring out from the presentation its depth and saturation. For, finally, emotional, “gutsy” playing. And this is how I see them, as a turbocharger of our emotions accompanying music listening. Sitting down in front of a good audio system with both types of feet we've been talking about, we allow the music to possess us, to take us elsewhere.

If this is what you are looking for - you have it at your fingertips in the form of Immotus feet. It’s not a cheap solution but it works. Remember though, that high end never was and never will be cheap. If someone says so, he does not know what he is talking about :) ●

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THIS TEST HAS BEEN DESIGNED ACCORDING TO THE GUIDELINES adopted by the Association of International Audiophile Publications, an international audio press association concerned with ethical and professional standards in our industry, of which HIGH FIDELITY is a founding member. More about the association and its constituent titles → HERE.

→ www.AIAP-online.org