Loudspeaker decoupling

Posted by: Timmo1341 on 21 April 2017

These have been mentioned once or twice by Skip, and having received and installed mine today I thought I'd quickly share my experience.

The products are Herbies Cone/Spike Decoupling Gliders. I bought 8 of the smaller variety in stainless steel, and with postage from the States and customs duty of £40, the total cost was £180. Not cheap, but I was suffering from bass resonance caused by my suspended wooden plank floor (6' void), and whilst heavy granite slabs had almost eliminated the worst effects, there was enough to annoy me on certain tracks at highest volume.

Well, the result has been almost magical! Slabs out, gliders in, bass completely tamed and cleaned. Even Stewboss' Want A Girl, one of the most difficult bass lines I've ever heard, has been sorted! I really can't recommend these highly enough - sometimes you don't realise what you've got until its gone, and these have certainly banished every trace of troublesome bass. Speakers are ProAc D20r, with downward firing bass port. As I said earlier, not cheap but well worth a punt in similar circumstances.

Tim

Posted on: 21 April 2017 by Foot tapper

Interesting Tim.

In a similar vein, I once auditioned a pair of Brodmann VC7 speakers at home, with the dealer present.  First the speakers were mounted on bronze spikes which went through the carpet & underlay on to the concrete raft floor.  Despite the importer's categoric assurance that Brodmann speakers never boom under any circumstance, they boomed very well indeed in our living room.  Lots of slow, boomy, one note bass.

I then mentioned to the dealer (he had the VC7 as a trial pair) that I had heard them sounding much better when the spikes were replaced by conical ebony wood feet.  He looked a little perplexed by this, explained that he had no conical ebony feet but did have a set of very shiny (& expensive) Track Audio decoupling feet, so we gave them a go.

Wow, what a genuinely shocking difference!  The dealer & I looked at each other and both asked, "is this the same speaker?" The boom was gone, the bass became much more tuneful and timed far better.

To this day I do not know why decoupling can work so well, when the opposite works so well for Linn Kans, EPOS ES14 & Proac stand mounted speakers.  Intuitively, the idea of making a speaker sit on a wobbly mount seems all wrong, when what the drivers should want is a rock solid platform from which to drive the cone.  Perhaps Mr Townsend & Co know a thing or two about when to decouple speakers and when to solid mount them.

Anyway, delighted that you found a solution that works for you.

Best regards, FT

Posted on: 21 April 2017 by yeti42

My dealer was playing with a set of still points last time I dropped in. Seemed to have a positive effect on TT (versalex), speakers and a Riga Osiris but the cost seems rather high and they look silly unless built into the product, Herbies are a better price but how do they compare? No dealer I know will stock a product that is also sold direct so purchase is the only way to get a set to try and even if there's a returns policy there will be quite a loss and probably a midicum of hassle for anyone based in the UK. So those of you in the New World, how do they compare?

Posted on: 21 April 2017 by Kevin Richardson
yeti42 posted:

My dealer was playing with a set of still points last time I dropped in. Seemed to have a positive effect on TT (versalex), speakers and a Riga Osiris but the cost seems rather high and they look silly unless built into the product, Herbies are a better price but how do they compare? No dealer I know will stock a product that is also sold direct so purchase is the only way to get a set to try and even if there's a returns policy there will be quite a loss and probably a midicum of hassle for anyone based in the UK. So those of you in the New World, how do they compare?

Stillpoints are definitely worth their cost. I have them under everything.