Apparatus and method for damping operational vibration modes of an
actuator assembly. The actuator assembly preferably supports a data
transducing head adjacent a storage medium in a servo track writing
environment. The actuator assembly further supports a circuit assembly
comprising circuit board, card or other circuit portion to facilitate
electrical communication with the data transducing head. A damping
assembly is interposed between the circuit assembly and the actuator
assembly to mechanically decouple the circuit assembly from the actuator
assembly. Preferably, the damper assembly comprises one or more rigid
damper plates and one or more viscoelastic layers therebetween to provide
constrain layer damping. As desired, the plates can be provided with
progressively larger thickness dimensions in a direction away from the
actuator assembly.