Speaker spikes

Speaker spikes:rules of thumb?

I've spent a good few amusing minutes reading the Stateside stuff alongside comments here. I know we should all try stuff to see what we think (although slapping granite slabs on the floor, risking marital disharmony, only to say "no I think I prefer them without" might be interesting) but I'd like to try to draw out a principle or two which at least a few of us could agree on before I pile into trial-and-error territory...

1) FLOOR CONSTRUCTION: coupling to a solid (concrete or similar) makes sense as it dissipates vibrations arising in the speaker cabinet; isolation might make more sense on wooden floors where coupling could unhelpfully emphasise vibrations in certain frequency ranges. RULE OF THUMB 1: spikes for solid floors, isolation (superballs or whatever) for wooden floors.

2) SPEAKER WEIGHT: coupling might be more effective with heavier speakers than for lighter ones. RULE OF THUMB 2: if your speakers are light either (a) isolate them or (b) add weight before coupling.

These are just pointers; there will always be exceptions and one should always use one's ears, but a few rules of thumb would help to inform, or perhaps to narrow down, the number of options we try out.

Make sense? Any others?

 

I've had good experiances with solid brass cones and cups (on granite too), tighten the whole sound arena up and gave clean bass. Using a different route to great effect, so fear not won't be starting a dbt incident over it, its pure B/s and leave it at that.

 

I can only repeat here what I've said before and what I've posted Stateside on SH Forums and AA:

There are many variables to be taken into account when it comes to the question of speaker isolation/coupling to the floor, including:

- method of fixing the drive units to the speakers
- speaker weight
- enclosure design (amount of vibration)
- whether the speakers are floorstanders or stand-mounts (and the coupling
between speaker and stand)
- the frequency range of the speaker
- the type of flooring
- the way the rest of the equipment is supported.

There is NO 'one solution fits all' to this question. The answer once more is in the listening. Try it and see.

BTW Tone, can you bring an extra set of brass thingies for the Little Awesomes this time (Heathrow) as they will be spiked onto the Voodoo supports like the Nonsuch 4s. We need to tighten the whole sound arena up and have clean bass.

 

gunna take more than to get what I call tight bass out of them, still I have some thing else that will do the job

 

soak em in paraffin overnight and scrub em with a wire brush in the morning.

or is that crank shafts

 

Yeah, yeah. OK we'll try it - as long as it doesn't interfere with your Wadia 'anti-deplinker' device. You've got serious competition this time in the turntable department.

Oh wait a moment, you're talking about the whatsits from the Overkill guy. Have you got enough for both pairs of speakers (full-range + bass)?

The day may come when even a man of your limited taste in hi-fi won't want to go back home to your Meadowbarkers.

 

When that day arrives Steve, I won't be here to see it in

 

Have a look at this thread

https://www.audio-forums.com/as-red...eadid=759&highlight=understanding+understands

 

Try bluetak, works between the speaker and stand itself, why not between the stand and floor?

 

so it's 100lb slabs of marble with powerballs as feet then? And the speakers spiked on top of these mighty platforms?

 

Well, it's an interesting approach.

 

I've got 3 paving slabs (40x40x3cm) on top of each other with a blob of silicone sealing gel stuff, in each corner. Not too much, but enough to keep them apart with added weight.

I did this as much to try and raise my speaker hight as anything else.

My set up is a bedroom one on the first floor so the floors not ideal. This has given me a kind of fake concrete floor.

The things are very heavy and so doing any sort of testing is a pain as MOving them out the way and replacing them takes too long. Things did improve though, but this could have been just as much (if not totaly?) to do with raising them to a MOre ideal height than anything else!

 

Steve, Tone,
I would like to know on what have you placed the loudspeakers at the last show.
Did you do other acustic tweaking? Which ones?

regards

titian

 

Titain, we used Voodoo airtek platforms, then granite plinths on the top not good at all, then Steve's super balls (how can you say that with a straight face), then after being badgered down to not it won't work (the spikes and brass cups) we finished on Voodoo platform, speaker spikers on solid brass cups, mind you Steve main speakers aren't built like Egglestone works gear, and when we had them set up at chez WM, they also rejected granite plinths.
However I have a cunning plan this time and not what Steve thinks I'm going to use either, but of coarse Titian please dis-regard the above post, as It's a total fabrication and I'm just doing it to make my self fell better about spending £25 on some brass cones, please do ignore my self indulgence Long Live blue curtains. T.

 

To which I'd like to add that there was a basic requirement to raise the speakers from the ground. This is because they are a mini-array design (ie. the treble can cancel if you're off-axis vertically) and they are generally used with armchairs rather than the taller straight chairs provided.

Therefore the experimenting that we did (together with the Voodoo Isolation boys) was with alternate methods of coupling to the Voodoo supports. We didn't like the sound of the speakers on the granite plinths, the superballs sounded very thin but the spikes onto brass cups sounded far better (in that set-up).

Of course in a show situation you don't have as much time to experiment as you would have in your own listening room.

Tone also did a little tweaking over the 3 days of the show involving alternate mains supply thingies and he also had to give his cd player strict training in how to play decent plinky music without throwing out the cds.

As for Tone's 'cunning plan' for the Heathrow Show ... I'm all ears.

 

hiya steve

I'll be sending an SAE at some point, unless Julian has already??

NB Dont you cut your superballs in half??

bzzzzzzz aaaaaaaah
:chainsaw:

 

Hey, my superballs are all intact, thank you.

I do rest them on doorstops some time to stop my equipment from slipping away.

Strange thing to do really.

 

I agree with you. Prioritisation leading to guidelines that could be applied in all cases would be the 'Holy Grail' of hi-fi support. Can there be any higher goal than that?

As far as I'm aware I'm the only person out there peddling the 'there's no one solution' argument. I need more time to think and experience though and we need more intelligent debate (as opposed to the 'my brass cones are better than your manna' type discussions). I've been corresponding with a top US physicist and even he agrees that this is a 'non-trivial question'.

Can I get back to you tomorrow?

 

Just to take this a bit further, I have a speaker, the Nonsuch 4, which is a 'known quantity'.

It has a relatively low mass and - without its Little Awesome partners - is very bass light.

Yet I still haven't found a single solution for it (spikes, isolation platforms, superballs) that works in every room.