Mechanical grounding of speakers

Chris, Allaes can be tricky compared to SL2s, mainly because at least with the SL2, you can adjudge how evenly spiked the rear sprung base is by how it moves the tweeter arm.  You don't have that indicator with the Allaes, so getting it right is a bit more hit and miss, but boy does it make a big difference if you get it right!

Thank you Richard. Allaes are as you say, a bit awkward. But I'm even happier with mine now. The general point is that this is worth looking at for anyone who spikes through carpet and underlay, whichever speakers they have.

Best of all, no coding or downloads required for this essential part of setup 

Chris, it may pay you to put tiny slits into the carpet and underlay using a Stanley knife. I found when I had my Credos I used to do all the adjusting with the top box off as it makes the whole process easier and one can feel that the main cabinet is properly grounded, so feeling for the slightest rocking movement is a doddle.

Stephen Tate posted:

Chris, it may pay you to put tiny slits into the carpet and underlay using a Stanley knife. I found when I had my Credos I used to do all the adjusting with the top box off, it makes the whole process easier and one can feel that the main cabinet is properly grounded, so feeling for the slightest rocking movement is a doddle.

yes that is how i do it also with my allaes. Top box off and than level them and make sure they don't rock. But with a slightly soft concrete topfloor with carpet, things get rocking again after some weeks. Furthermore the top boxes are a pain to align on the pips. The pips have a bit of wear/movement so you can move the top box a bit. When not properly set you can get a strange soundstage or lacking excitiment.

Just be careful trying to find a perfect level when the top box is off.  With the top box on, the extra weight pushes on the rear spring and so the speakers tilt back slightly - i.e. the speakers are no longer perfectly upright but rather raked back very slightly.  As such, I tended to allow a very slight forward tilt when levelling the bottom boxes, so with the top box on, the speakers would be perfectly upright.  A good long, straight spirit level is a help here.

I had constant problems try to get my speaker stands to spike though my thick carpet / underlay ...into my wooden floor boards and be level

Tried longer spikes ..cutting carpet ...custom made spikes ...

In desperation I ran 8 heavy duty cross head screws into the floor through the carpet etc and set them just below the carpet pile level

Then the stand spikes just dropped into the cross head slots ....

The improvement was very noticeable indeed 

Japtimscarlet posted:

I had constant problems try to get my speaker stands to spike though my thick carpet / underlay ...into my wooden floor boards and be level

Tried longer spikes ..cutting carpet ...custom made spikes ...

In desperation I ran 8 heavy duty cross head screws into the floor through the carpet etc and set them just below the carpet pile level

Then the stand spikes just dropped into the cross head slots ....

The improvement was very noticeable indeed 

Many years ago we did a simular thing with Isobariks. You put metal feet on the bottom of the stand which had a concave bottom surface. You then drove concrete anchors through your carpet and underlay into your floor, (here in sunny Perth most floors are concrete), to align with the feet so the head of your anchor engaged into concave cup on the bottom of the feet. 

First time I was shown this I nearly died. I had started with my Isobariks on Spendor BC3 stands, with castors no less. Mr T ripped my castors of leaving just the spindles. Huge improvement. Then we  graduated to the first Linn stands with coins on the top surface, then with spikes on the top and bottom, and now the evil Linn guy was showing me this. 

The concept of mechanically coupling your speakets to the floor, with the added elegance of a high pass filter a la spring/tuned plate and or frame was first explained to me by JV when the SBLs hit our showroom. 

I have a floating laminate timber floor on concrete so my S400s sit on high tensile concrete anchors. I have over sized holes in the laminate flooring so it doesn't touch the anchors. I did this after living with the system for a few months. Huge improvement for a few dollars and a tense afternoon getting it all to happen.

Thanks to all. Interesting from Steve, above.

To return to the specific case of my Allaes from the general ideas of grounding, an old school ruler inserted edge-wise into the sides of the radial port with a spirit level on top, shows that they are tilting forward.

I will lower the rear spikes this evening. Oh what the heck, I'm going to do it now.

Job done. Happy chap. Sounding terrific.

With apologies to Free... Allaes Right Now

I've now got my nuts off the carpet. Sounding even better.

(Er, on my Allaes I mean). Perhaps the leaf springs are now better able to do their thing....

Don't know if it would work for the older Naim speakers, but the IsoAcoustics Gaias make a marked improvement to the demo Focal Sopras, and my PMC Twenty.26.

Having spiked my speakers securely to something sold for decades, the Gaias take a different approach and it seems to work.  They say that spikes reflect vibrations back up into the speaker cabinet and cause smearing.  The Gaias, however, attempt to dissipate that energy to stop it reflecting back into the cabinets.  I'm sure there are other solutions that take a similar approach.  No doubt some will enjoy the effect and other's won't