To spike... or not. An unexpected surprise

Just goes to prove - try it and hear which you prefer

Seth

I have, in the past, made sure that the spikes penetrate the carpet and sit perfectly snug on the floor by cutting a small nick in the carpet and very carefully adjusting the spikes to ensure there was absolutely no rocking.

I have just paid almost £500 for a new carpet in my present room (concrete floor), and I'm loath to take a Stanley knife to it, so the spikes now rest on the carpet and the speakers can easily be rocked.

Thing is, I can't tell any difference so I reckon I'll leave them just as they are.

Steve B

Yannzola,
I think what may be the problem is your suspended flooring and the gap beneath, the same seems to apply when I used paving slabs under my floorstanders but it made the sound too bright for me.But i missed the 'feeling' of the bass through the floor boards so I reverted back.Once heard a story where a guy cut a square out the floorboards under each speaker and filled them with concrete/cement to avoid this problem.

Pretty much ditto experience with paving slabs. Put them in as an experiment 6+ months ago and have never removed them. Luckily they were coloured concrete and suited the room or I might have had a few domestic issues to deal with.

I would rate the contributions to improvements in sound quality since I started tweaking last July as follows: rack/isolators 63%, paving slabs 30%, cryogenic tempering of signal cables 7%.

Steve

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Originally posted by Stevea:
Pretty much ditto experience with paving slabs. Put them in as an experiment 6+ months ago and have never removed them. Luckily they were coloured concrete and suited the room or I might have had a few domestic issues to deal with.

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Paving slabs I can grok... dense, hard, level and dampening.... but my speakers are now resting on tiny acrylic disks "floating" over the carpets pile. Very counter-intuitive.

I'm curious to try bearings under my speakers now...

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I would rate the contributions to improvements in sound quality since I started tweaking last July as follows: rack/isolators 63%, paving slabs 30%, cryogenic tempering of signal cables 7%.

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Have you run a dedicated power line to your rig, yet? Another guaranteed %20-%30 improvement to be had there.

Cryogenic tempering... ? Really?

y.

Speaker tweaks seem to be the one support-type issue that I have found made huge differences in my home. I have a suspended bare wooden floor in a rather large room. I used to have my Vienna Acoustic Bachs on spikes and marble slabs, which really worked well.

I recently bought Audio Physic Virgos, and initially had them on towels as I dragged them about as I checked out placement issues. Once I found out where I wanted them, I put on the spikes, placed them on newly cut marble and-- all of the bass was just gone, and they sounded dead. This was dramatic, and atthe risk of sounding cliche, was readily confirmed by the whole family. Put them back on the towels- instant reversal. So, we cut to small pieces of heav carpeting, and put the spikes into protective cups with some tacky stuff between the spike and the cups- all sounds great again.

Incidentally, we have had extended dems of various racks at home, and none have made a shred of difference compared to the antique chest within whicd the system resides. So maybe it's just a matter of individual ears, systems, ir rooms.

Bruce

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Paving slabs I can grok... dense, hard, level and dampening.... but my speakers are now resting on tiny acrylic disks "floating" over the carpets pile. Very counter-intuitive.

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Gut feeling is that by lifting your speakers off the floor you are reducing the vibrations feeding back through the floor to your electronics. The speakers themselves may not be performing as well without a solid foundation but this is more than compensated for by the improvement in the electronics - hence the overall improvement. I would be surprised if paving slabs did not give you another jump. (a very cheap experiment compared to bearing isolator manufacture)

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I'm curious to try bearings under my speakers now...

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I have sufficient hard metal versions of the isolators to try this but have not done so as I cannot see why you would want your speaker to move backwards each time a base note was produced. This sounds like a recipe for a real phasing mess, but who knows, maybe this weekend.......

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Have you run a dedicated power line to your rig, yet? Another guaranteed %20-%30 improvement to be had there.

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I think I have pretty good power but dedicated spurs are on my list. I have traced the wiring and found I already have a semi-dedicated line in that it is only shared with the TV and VCR. My sister’s partner is an electrician and has agreed to put 2 oven grade lines in at the cost of the parts if I lay the cable (easy under my house).

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Cryogenic tempering... ? Really?

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Every cable between the CDP/TT and Speakers has been gradually lowered to -197°C, under the control of a computer, and kept there for 4 days before being gradually brought back to room temperature. It's called 'critical mass cryogenic tempering' and it forces the crystal structure of the metal into a more uniform alignment, which it keeps after thawing. It adds a lot of round earth stuff without taking away any of the flat earth stuff. You get a beefier base, ‘air and space’, a lot more fine detail to the point where you become very aware of the recording venue and improved positioning within the stereo image. Of course these are also some of the attributes of bearing isolators but it is all additive. It is not a cheap process but I have managed to piggyback my cables on the back of other stuff being done by a local cable manufacturer.

Steve

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Originally posted by Stevea:

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I'm curious to try bearings under my speakers now...

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I have sufficient hard metal versions of the isolators to try this but have not done so as I cannot see why you would want your speaker to move backwards each time a base note was produced. This sounds like a recipe for a real phasing mess, but who knows, maybe this weekend.......

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This is the next 'improvement' I want to try in my system. Why ?,I was reading about how microphones work, and it appears that the high frequency signal rides on the low frequency signal. The ear diaphragm is 'excited' in the same way, so in live sound we have high frequencies riding on low frequencies. With a conventional speaker enclosure, there are at least two drivers, and they work together, but independantly.

These are only my thoughts, if the speaker is free to move laterally then, maybe, the resulting signal emitted ressembles more what you'd perceive under live conditions ?

The other, non negligeable, theoretical advantage of roller mountings speakers is that the box vibrations should be drained from the cabinet before they have time to develop. So less colouration, which would most likely be the principal advantage of roller mounts.

Peter

User34 at Laposte dot net

I have a question regarding the paving slabs: Do they only work on a carpet floor or do they improve sound also on a wooden floor?

Some work going on down the road so maybe I should grab a pair for my Allae´s?

:-) Thomas

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I think I have pretty good power but dedicated spurs are on my list.

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Steve

I think you'll be surprised. I thought I had pretty good mains too and just installed a separate spur for completeness.

I was amazed at the improvement, every box sounded like it had been replaced by one that cost three times as much.

Do it! I didn't invent the idea... it was recommended by several other "bearing enthusiasts" on the tweakers asylum list... I thought it sounded odd as well... but now, I'm willing to give it a go... of course I'll need more isolators first.

Care to be our guinea pig?

y.

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Originally posted by Thomas Breding:
I have a question regarding the paving slabs: Do they only work on a carpet floor or do they improve sound also on a wooden floor?

Some work going on down the road so maybe I should grab a pair for my Allae´s?

:-) Thomas

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I am using them on a carpet floor and previously the speaker spikes were sitting on screws going through the carpet to a particleboard floor (2nd story). On a wooden floor without carpet I think I would put something, such as a piece of carpet, under the paving slabs to protect the floor. The best thing would be to experiment with both some old carpet and a minimum thickness bit of cloth. Possibly even rubber feet under the slabs would work. Fortunately experimenting with paving slabs falls into the very low cost tweak category so you might as well try out as many ideas as you can.

Steve

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Care to be our guinea pig?

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....all right

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Originally posted by yannzola:
Do it! I didn't invent the idea... it was recommended by several other "bearing enthusiasts" on the tweakers asylum list... I thought it sounded odd as well... but now, I'm willing to give it a go... of course I'll need more isolators first.

Care to be our guinea pig?

y.

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Done it.

1/ more stable than I expected.
2/ trebbles slightly elevated but still seemed quite clean and detail help up.
3/ mid range/vocals seemed slightly depressed (possibly only in relation to trebbles). Possibly slightly less convincing female vocals (this impression gained after switching back to spikes.
4/ base seemed pretty good (i.e. no change) until I got to a sustained base note where a double bass string was left to vibrate for a few seconds. It seemed like the note had developed a slight warble. This was confirmed with the same track after the spikes were replaced.

None of these changes were major but in my system the speakers go better spiked to the concrete slabs than on bearings.

Steve

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Originally posted by Stevea:
Done it.
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None of these changes were major but in my system the speakers go better spiked to the concrete slabs than on bearings.

Steve

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Thanks for trying it out! Oh well... I was hoping the improvements would be more dramatic.

BTW: Moved my speakers off the acrylic slider discs, and onto a nice 16x16 tile... not as good as concrete (it resonates when struck) but much higher WAF. Overall, A definite improvement... although maybe a tad brighter now. I can't believe I've been listening to this muddle for so long!

y.

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Thanks for trying it out! Oh well... I was hoping the improvements would be more dramatic.

BTW: Moved my speakers off the acrylic slider discs, and onto a nice 16x16 tile... not as good as concrete (it resonates when struck) but much higher WAF. Overall, A definite improvement... although maybe a tad brighter now. I can't believe I've been listening to this muddle for so long!

y.

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I suspect that if I had tried this before building the rack it may have had some +ve effect in that the +ve would have outweighed the -ve with respect to isolating the equipment from the speakers. But with the equipment now so well isolated from floor born speaker vibrations only the -ve was left to hear. If you get a set of isolatoors that can take the weight of your speakers then it would be well worth trying out as I could not say my results are the definitive typical result.

It looks like I was pretty lucky w.r.t. paving slabs. The only comment I got after adding them was that the colour suited the room decor (which it does). These things come in a variety of colours and I think you could paint (soak in very dilute water based paint for several hours) the plain concrete ones any colour that suited.

Have you actually tried any, even on a 'temporary basis for experimental purposes' ?

Steve

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Originally posted by Stevea:

Have you actually tried any, even on a 'temporary basis for experimental purposes' ?

Steve

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Sneaky.... I like your thinking
I haven't tried concrete slabs yet... the ones at my local hardware store are all pretty ugly looking... and either too large or too small. WAF-wise, these 16x16 tiles are perfect... they even match (exactly) the tiles we have in other rooms around the house. Maybe I could pour my own? With the tile set on top? Hmmmmm....

I do have some 1.5" thick birch butcher blocks handy... I wonder how those would work?



y.

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...I haven't tried concrete slabs yet... the ones at my local hardware store are all pretty ugly looking... and either too large or too small. WAF-wise, these 16x16 tiles are perfect... they even match (exactly) the tiles we have in other rooms around the house. Maybe I could pour my own? With the tile set on top? Hmmmmm....
y.

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I got mine from a garden centre. They are 450mm x 450mm x 40mm (about 17.7" x 17.7" x 1.6") with a very spooth surface on the top and sides (rough on bottom). They came in a larger and a smaller size and I saw three colours (plain concrete, light cream and the brick coloured wash I bought).

I like the idea of the tile on the top. If you found that an experimental pair did the business this would be a good way to proceed after you were told your experinent had gone on too long. You might be able to find out who makes them in your area (check concrete product manufactures in the phone book) and take you tiles along to them for some specials.

Steve