What do you put under your floorstanders?

[Mike13]

I bought some subdudes to put my subs on. Another member had the idea to put my big floorstanders on them. I think this will improve the bass. 
 

Currently they’re on spikes on a carpet square on concrete slab. Would you use the spikes still on furniture cups or something?

 

What do others put speakers on?

 

 

[jt301]

IsoAcoustic Gaia II

 

[Mike13]

7 minutes ago, jt301 said:

IsoAcoustic Gaia II

Look good. A lot more surface area than spikes. 

[Mike13]

Probably pretty obvious, but what’s the sound difference between minimal floor contact (spikes), maximum contact (full pads), and feet that aren’t spikes (like the iso acoustics above). 
 

What will spikes on a full pad do?

[buddyev]

Spikes are designed to couple / connect your speakers to the floor, pads are designed to isolate them.

So spikes are actually maximum coupling  - ie they provide the most efficient coupling of the speakers energy to the floor. 

As far as I can tell, spikes and pads aren’t really compatible - they perform different functions. 

You need to work out which you need in your particular circumstances - do you need coupling or isolation? 

For me, on my very solid timber floors, I have found isolation with pads the most effective, but tbh with all the faffing about i’ve done over the years the differences haven’t been that great. 

 

Edited November 10, 2019 by buddyev

[Guest Muon N']

I couple my spiked stands to boards that I isolate, the cheap way, spiked stands on bamboo cutting boards with Whites Anti-vibration Blocks under the bamboo cutting boards. Works for me cleaning up the sound noticeably

Edited November 10, 2019 by Muon N'
Typo... gawd damn it!

[Mike13]

19 minutes ago, buddyev said:

So spikes are actually maximum coupling  - ie they provide the most efficient coupling of the speakers energy to the floor. 

Interesting. It seems counterintuitive to me that the minimum surface area of the spikes provides maximum coupling. 
 

Why would you choose one over another? I thought it was all about isolation and de-coupling.

[Mike13]

10 minutes ago, Muon N' said:

I couple my spiked stands to boards that I isolate

Yes this is what I was wondering too. Obviously the spikes can’t go strait into the foam, but I can use furniture pads. 

[Guest Muon N']

I use the bamboo as it seems kinder to audio, it also provides some isolation itself, combined with the Whites blocks it works very well.

 

Edit: try different things and find what works best for you, that's all I did (within my low budget)

Edited November 10, 2019 by Muon N'

[almikel]

1 hour ago, buddyev said:

So spikes are actually maximum coupling  - ie they provide the most efficient coupling of the speakers energy to the floor. 

 

52 minutes ago, Mike13 said:

Interesting. It seems counterintuitive to me that the minimum surface area of the spikes provides maximum coupling. 

but correct

 

52 minutes ago, Mike13 said:

Why would you choose one over another? I thought it was all about isolation and de-coupling.

My personal view is that you want to de-couple if you have a resonant floor (ie timber floorboards and timber sub floor), and it's irrelevant if you have a concrete slab floor.

 

You don't want speaker vibrations transferring to the floor if the floor will be energised with those vibrations and resonate themselves.

A timber floor will be energised with the vibrations, so isolation IMHO is the best approach.

A concrete slab won't be energised with the vibrations, so isolation is less important.

 

cheers

Mike

Edited November 10, 2019 by almikel

[jt301]

Here’s my simple take.

 

You use spikes to anchor your speakers to a solid floor and prevent any vibration or movement.  Any movement in the baffle while the drivers are operating will cause distortion.

 

However if there’s movement or vibration coming through the floor, coupling your speakers to them will cause them to move or vibrate In turn causing distortion.  Decoupling or isolating the speaker from the floor prevents this. 

 

Which is best depends on your room.  Use your ears to decide which is best.

 

 

[Peter_F]

2 hours ago, Mike13 said:

I bought some subdudes to put my subs on. Another member had the idea to put my big floorstanders on them. I think this will improve the bass. 
 

Currently they’re on spikes on a carpet square on concrete slab. Would you use the spikes still on furniture cups or something?

 

What do others put speakers on?

 

 

I'd get rid of the carpet square under the spikes and place the discs under spikes directly on the concrete floor.   I find that audio people like to make things more difficult than they actually are by creating a problem then trying to solve it.  

[Mike13]

56 minutes ago, almikel said:

My personal view is that you want to de-couple if you have a resonant floor (ie timber floorboards and timber sub floor), and it's irrelevant if you have a concrete slab floor.

Thanks that makes sense. 
 

Putting my subs on to the isolation pads made a noticeable positive difference to the bass. Also stopped some rattles around the place. 

 

I’m hoping that it will do the same with the floor standers. (Although maybe less because they don’t have a downfiring sub.)

Edited November 10, 2019 by Mike13

[almikel]

27 minutes ago, jt301 said:

You use spikes to anchor your speakers to a solid floor and prevent any vibration or movement.  Any movement in the baffle while the drivers are operating will cause distortion.

Hi Plato,

using spikes won't prevent speaker vibration - it just couples it to the floor, and you won't get any movement in the baffle even if the enclosures were made of cardboard because the speaker assembly is so heavy compared to the cone/voice coil - Newtons 3rd law (every action has an...etc) obviously applies, but the masses are vastly different - speaker boxes/baffles don't move backwards and forwards with driver motion.

 

43 minutes ago, jt301 said:

However if there’s movement or vibration coming through the floor, coupling your speakers to them will cause them to move or vibrate In turn causing distortion.  Decoupling or isolating the speaker from the floor prevents this. 

If the OP has movement/vibration coming through his floor then he has bigger issues to manage than the distortion created in his speakers

 

cheers

Mike

[Mike13]

19 minutes ago, Peter_F said:

I'd get rid of the carpet square under the spikes and place the discs under spikes directly on the concrete floor. 

That’s just to protect the floor and also I was thinking the noise won’t bounce of the dense reflective concrete. 

[Peter_F]

3 minutes ago, Mike13 said:

That’s just to protect the floor and also I was thinking the noise won’t bounce of the dense reflective concrete. 

The discs under the spikes protect the floor.

 

As for reflections off the floor, a  rug or carpet should be in front of the speakers.  A carpet square under the speaker is most likely useless for this purpose.

[almikel]

3 minutes ago, Mike13 said:

That’s just to protect the floor

 - although there's a cup there to protect the floor from the spike.

3 minutes ago, Mike13 said:

and also I was thinking the noise won’t bounce of the dense reflective concrete. 

??

at lower frequencies the sound from a speaker is omni-directional, and would pass through that thin layer as if it wasn't there

[almikel]

in answer to your original post I've always meant to isolate my TD18s (with PSE144s on top) from the timber floor they sit on, but have never got to it - my plan was to use appropriately designed sorbothane or equivalent...

...currently they sit directly on the floor - handy for minor changes in position.

 

mike 

[Guest Muon N']

I need to disagree with the idea that isolation is not needed with a concrete slab floor, I have been in 2 different places with carpeted concrete slab including here, and the benefit is still very noticeable.

[buddyev]

There’s a long thread on this here

[andyr]

2 hours ago, Mike13 said:

 

Interesting. It seems counterintuitive to me that the minimum surface area of the spikes provides maximum coupling. 
 

 

Just do the maths, Mike! 

 

If 50kgs of speaker is resting on, say, 4 of those IsoAcoustic feet then you have 50 kgs resting on, say, 120 sq cms.  Which is a downward force of 50/120 = 417gm per sq cm.

 

If the 50 kg speakers now rest on 4 spikes, then we're talking about:

• an area (and this a very blunt 'spike'!) of 1 sq mm for each spike
• so 4 sq mm in total
• 50 kgs resting on 4 sq mm.
• so the downward force is now 50/4 = 12.5kg per sq mm
• which is 12500gm per sq mm
• or 1250000gm per sq cm
• IOW, 3000 times as much!

Hence, we get coupling. 

 

Andy

 

[andyr]

32 minutes ago, Muon N' said:

I need to disagree with the idea that isolation is not needed with a concrete slab floor, I have been in 2 different places with carpeted concrete slab including here, and the benefit is still very noticeable.

 

^^^  Correct! 

 

Andy

 

[Mike13]

6 minutes ago, andyr said:

 

^^^  Correct! 

 

Andy

 

Do you think that spikes are the wrong way to go then?

 

I need to read @buddyev’s thread

[Bunno77]

I'm happy with the Gaias on concrete slab

[Mike13]

12 minutes ago, andyr said:

Just do the maths, Mike! 

I enjoyed the lesson,  Andy. Well explained. They’re crushed together.