The Article

PODIUM 3 ISOLATION PLATFORM FROM TCI

15th May 2025

Looking to decrease vibration and high-frequency noise within your HiFi, Paul Rigby looks for a quiet life

UK-based TCI or True Colours Industries are better known for the audio cables. I’ve reviewed a few of them myself on this website. This time, the company has undertaken a new direction, an isolation platform design called the Podium.

There are six variants of the Podium with the cheapest variant, the ‘1’, retailing at £350 while the top-of-the-range model, the ‘6’, hitting the heights at £1,350. I took the middle ground the reviewed the ‘3’ at £650.

The Podium itself looks to isolate your HiFi components from external vibration, but also to absorb internal mechanical and electronic vibrations. According to TCI, many isolation feet and other platforms are more focused on tackling vibration from outside sources such as working loudspeakers, for example, whereas the Podium, says the company, also hits vibration produced by the component itself.

MULTI-FREQUENCY

This is why the Podium is not made from one single material, so it can target different frequency types. Hence, the Podium is made as a laminate, a combination of materials that the company is understandably reluctant to reveal. Whatever, this laminate core has been given a name, Vibratium, which sounds as corny as hell with added cheese but hey, marketing, I suppose.

In addition to the polymer layering, the Podium also sits on some thin feet made from a cork/rubber mix.

I have to say I do like the look of the Podium, offered in either black or red. It has a sleek, high-end look that reminds me of an over-size, modern laptop, closed with a logo on the lid.

I also like the low-slung, compact dimensions which allows the Podium to fit inside and sit on any popular shelving unit. That is not always the case. The IsoAcoustic Delos platform, for example, can only be installed on top of a shelving unit, not within it due to its size.

SOUND QUALITY

Playing selected tracks from the Neil Young LP, Zuma I wanted to address a source component and solid state to boot, so began with my CD transport, the Audiolab 6000CDT. I started listening with the unit placed directly on the shelf of my Blue Horizon PRS shelving unit which is, in itself, a good tool for lowering vibration.

I love the sound from my HiFi but if I was to be critical about my own set up in this configuration?

Well the vocals and the acoustic guitar does sound like they are suffering within a glare from the mids and upper midrange especially. Both the vocal presentation and the reverb tails from the guitar sounded hollow and lacking in precision. This effect masked the subtle piano and guitars at the back of the mix while the backing vocals only added to the issue.

Adding the TCI Podium improved matters. For example, the complex acoustic guitar work was better detailed now. Because there was less midrange blurring, that guitar sounded more musical, tonally more realistic and better balanced.

VS BLUE HORIZON SANCTUM

I then added a competing platform, my Blue Horizon Sanctum isolation platform (£245), a relatively low-cost platform that has a slightly disconcerting and rather large hole in its centre, there to remove standing waves plus pointy isolation feet built into the corners.

The Sanctum definitely improved matters, tightening the vocal and adding focus to the guitar. The job wasn’t completed though. Especially in vocal crescendos, where that loss of control returned. Meanwhile the guitar still exhibited some flabby midrange and the bass was loose and slightly boomy. Treble also sounded a mite sharp on the higher pitched guitar strings.

Question is, does the lower-cost Sanctum option provide everything the Podium can supply in terms of lowering noise?

I think the Podium offers more, actually. It added focus to the vocal. In fact, every word that vocal expressed produced much more emotion and articulation from the music via the Podium. Small movements in the vocal were better tracked now.

VS ISOACOUSTIC DELOS

I then brought in the thick butcher’s block platform from IsoAcoustic, the Delos, which retails for a similar price to the Podium.

Both were close in performance terms. Both were excellent at what they did in isolation terms but I think the Podium had the edge offering a better balanced output, more structure to the soundstage and a tad more precision and focus around the vocals and guitar which allowed the backing vocals, piano and electric guitar at the back of the mix, to better express their own detail to the ear.

IN THE BLOK

I then moved the Podium around my HiFi system including underneath my valve-driven, Icon Audio PS3 valve, two-box system on the Blok Stax 2G shelving unit playing The Early Tapes from Level 42 via my Origin Live Sovereign turntable.

The Podium easily occupied the compact Blok shelving which the IsoAcousitcs Delos could not. The latter being far too large to fit inside the Blok shelving unit. In pure sound terms, I noted the increase in both focus and tonal balance from the Podium, while bass provided better impact and punch, reducing a slight bloom from the Blok shelving unit.

CONCLUSION

The TCI Podium looks the part: sleek, slim and just a little sexy. Well, as sexy as an isolation shelf can ever be, at any rate. I’ve never taken one on a date, put it that way.

I like the slim dimensions which enhances the usability and possible placement of the Podium. This unit, because of its low height, can be used in more and varied shelving units than the IsoAcoustic examples, for example. I also like the Podium’s lack of ego, that it is happy to visually disappear or at least reduce its visibility compared to other competing products, including relatively ‘visible’ isolation feet.

Above all though and most important of all, I liked the sound quality benefits. The reduced high-frequency noise from the Podium will allow your components to properly fulfil their sonic potential.

TCI PODIUM 3 ISOLATION PLATFORM

Price: Podium 1 £350, Podium 2 £500, Podium 3 £650, Podium 4 £850, Podium 5 £1,100, Podium 6 £1,350 (Red or Black)

Website: www.tcicables.com

GOOD: compact build, low visiblity, easy to install, overall sound quality,

BAD: nothing