Speaker isolation - An eye (ear!) opener

Kevin - 

In newer houses in my vicinity which have insulated (foam board - Celotex being a brand) concrete floors, many also have accessible conduits within the screed layer - I assume for electrics/heating pipes and alike. You can often feel a depression in the floor/carpet and/or a reduction in firmness as you walk across some of the rooms. 

I wouldn't overlook the opportunity to run some thin conduit in (buried?) for the likes of speaker cabling et al - a bit of an insurance policy in a way - obviously the final floor finish will determine accessibility. Perhaps leave some tied-off string to enable pull-through if required  - the ends can be hidden by the edge of the skirting. 

I regret not doing this a few years ago when my lounge screed was re-laid and I discovered afterwards I had to change the orientation of the hi-fi in the room by 90% (long story) = cables now running under rugs in some places.

Obviously, be very mindful of Building Regs around floors - it's these which are dictating the method of construction outlined by your builder. A quick web search on 'Building Regulation - Floors' outlines what's allowed and what's not (should you not have checked this out already).

Happy Listener posted:

Kevin - 

In newer houses in my vicinity which have insulated (foam board - Celotex being a brand) concrete floors, many also have accessible conduits within the screed layer - I assume for electrics/heating pipes and alike. You can often feel a depression in the floor/carpet and/or a reduction in firmness as you walk across some of the rooms. 

I wouldn't overlook the opportunity to run some thin conduit in (buried?) for the likes of speaker cabling et al - a bit of an insurance policy in a way - obviously the final floor finish will determine accessibility. Perhaps leave some tied-off string to enable pull-through if required  - the ends can be hidden by the edge of the skirting. 

I regret not doing this a few years ago when my lounge screed was re-laid and I discovered afterwards I had to change the orientation of the hi-fi in the room by 90% (long story) = cables now running under rugs in some places.

Obviously, be very mindful of Building Regs around floors - it's these which are dictating the method of construction outlined by your builder. A quick web search on 'Building Regulation - Floors' outlines what's allowed and what's not (should you not have checked this out already).

Thanks HL. Conduits are a good idea and I’m definitely planning to include them as I did in the last house. Invisible speaker cables are extremely popular not only with other halves, but with this half as well. It can also have the added bonus of enabling shorter (read cheaper) cable runs 

thanks also for building regs reminder. I don’t think that my plans should raise any issues, but you’re right that it’s got to be better to check first...

Kevin

Surely a lot of this isolation gadgety is superfluous, as the acoustic properties within a room are dicated by it's size, shape, and type of furnishings within.  You get bass nodes / reflections in certain areas of a room, and the only proven way to absolve this in my experience is to use absorbtion, the same type as that found in a professional recording studio. 

I've tried many of these 'snake oil' esque solutions in the past and never really found them to make any differnce, however, at that time I was younger and would always find a way to reason the logic because i loved (and still do) shiney expensive hifi gadgets.  

I believe in the science of increasing the height of a speaker from the surface upon which it stands to alter the sound, but for different reasons than those used to market such objects. 

The same principle applies to types of material that electronics sit on (i.e. glass / wood etc) Some listeners report vast differences to the sound depending on whether a component is on a glass or wooden shelf, whereas i've never heard any difference whatsoever.  It could be that I have cloth ears but I do not believe this to be the case.  The electronics are going to be affected by vibration from the music played in the room, and it will make zero difference as to what it is sat upon because the vibrations are airbourne.  The louder it goes the more bass will be generated, and thus more component affecting vibration.

Just to clarify I am not a mechanical engineer and I could be completely wrong, but this is my take on it all.  Feel free to flame me / correct me where necessary gentlemen

Lewis, I had suffered from bass performance for many years and tried partial room treatment and digital sound processing. neither worked. Intrigued by a demo of the Townshend speaker bars which Max offered on a free trial basis I installed them under my speakers which cured about 95 % of my bass problem.

The point with regard to isolation is that there are other factors at play, apart from the room dimensions. I now realise that my room was not the problem. If the room is the only problem then you are undoubtedly correct in stating that isolation will not improve matters.

Room acoustics and isolation are two separate but potentially significant factors. Resolving one does not necessarily address the other. I have had to deal with turntable isoaltion issues and it had little or nothing to do with airborne vibrations (contrary to my initial assumptions) and everything to do with isolation.

Isolation is also employed under my  turntable to great effect. The deck is not suspended yet I can jump on the suspended flooring next to the turntable, with no audible impact.

Hi Lewis,

re your thoughts about these isolation products making no difference to airborne vibration, I agree.

What generates the airborne vibration is the mechanical vibration of the speaker comes (wanted) and the cabinet (not wanted). The cabinet vibrations transmit to the floor and set it off singing in sympathy in our living room. This is where the isolators come in, minimising the vibrations that set the floor slab ringing.

At least, that’s my current hypothesis!

Best regards, FT

Foot tapper posted:

Hi Lewis,

re your thoughts about these isolation products making no difference to airborne vibration, I agree.

What generates the airborne vibration is the mechanical vibration of the speaker comes (wanted) and the cabinet (not wanted). The cabinet vibrations transmit to the floor and set it off singing in sympathy in our living room. This is where the isolators come in, minimising the vibrations that set the floor slab ringing.

At least, that’s my current hypothesis!

Best regards, FT

It goes the other way too. Vibrations in the floor feedback to the speakers. That's the point of using the speaker isolation feet and it worked for me.

I am on the second floor of a 90-year old house with springy wood floors. In fact, my one and only choice for a turntable is using a wall shelf with additional isolation under the TT feet. At the moment I am auditioning a set of three isoAcoustics Gaia III speaker isolators, since they screw neatly into the bottom of my TT where the spikes would go normally. I already have Gaia IIs under my speakers.

Interesting points chaps.  It's a complex subject and there seems to be no 'this is the right way' solution, but appears to be something one must try in their own home to see what results can be acheived, if any.  I definitely subscribe to the isolation of turntables as they are hyper sensitive to noise, but i'm yet to experience any benefit of the other solutions myself.

Hi Lewis,

If you do decide to dabble with isolation devices, it would be interesting to hear how you get on.  If they stop the biggest vibration generator (the speaker) from feeding vibrations into the floor, then all components should benefit, probably turntable and phono stage the most.

RaceTripper posted

I am on the second floor of a 90-year old house with springy wood floors. In fact, my one and only choice for a turntable is using a wall shelf with additional isolation under the TT feet. At the moment I am auditioning a set of three isoAcoustics Gaia III speaker isolators, since they screw neatly into the bottom of my TT where the spikes would go normally. I already have Gaia IIs under my speakers.

Interesting RaceTripper - I have recently moved my LP12 from the top of my rack to a wall-mounted Pro-Ject platform to prevent track jumping every time I walked near it. I'd have thought additional isolation wouldn't be needed - do your walls move? I am on the second floor of an old building too. The walls are stud so not brilliant but I had the dealer I bought the Shelf from install it, they wall-mount a lot of TV's and used an integrated steel bolt/rawl plug type of assembly and it has worked an absolute treat. 

So after a week and many albums later, are these speaker isolation feet a transient delight that wears off over time or are they staying?

The best indicator is that we keep delving back into the vinyl collection to re-discover forgotten favourites, each one sounding better than the memory recalls.  Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jennifer Warnes, Keb Mo, Van Morrison, Christine & the Queens, even Kylie (!) are sounding clearer, crisper and more captivating to listen to than ever before.

It’s the imaging that grabs you first.  Rather than an an element of Phil Spector’s wall of sound, each singer is suspended clearly in space, sharp as a pin. And the soundstage has real, 3D depth.  Now, come on, how can that be? No idea but it’s there to these cloth ears. It is all startlingly lifelike. The sound has broken free of the ARTs, which is no small feat given their size.

The noise floor has dropped considerably, so every instrument is that much easier to follow, starts and decays more cleanly but with a natural sense of decay ( think cymbals here) rather than a guillotine stop.

Transients also seem more dynamic, especially drums and bass lines, which is odd, given that the speaker cabinets now have a degree of damped sway to them.

Finally, volume. Oh yes, the volume knob. It keeps moving clockwise, all by itself.... I used to think that the 135s were starting to harden as the volume knob went passed 9:30. It turns out not to be the 135s but vibration transmitting through the floor back into the electronics and making mischief.  Not any more! That point is now found at about 11:00 on the 52’s volume knob. So better but with potential for more if I can better isolate the phono stage and pre-amp.

Looks like the Isoacoustic Gaia’s are staying then.  £650 is a lot of money for 8 springy doughnuts but sonically they are worth every penny for our system in our room.

If you are blessed with a solid cast ground floor and physically isolated electronics, then the benefits would almost certainly be diminished.  So the impact will be system and room dependant.  We, however, are convinced.

Best regards, FT

The collection of contributions on this thread, from people not inherently as prone to hyperbole or snake oil susceptibility as some, does rather support the idea that speaker support/isolation/coipling can be very-significant. I am sure it is related both to the type of speaker and the type of floor, butit would seem to be something worth exploring, whether in the form of fancy feet, orisolation platforms.

I will spcertainly follow through myself at some point - meanwhile thanks to both the OP for starting the thread, and all contributors for their experiences!  

Jonners posted:

Happy Listener posted:

Jonners - 

Re speaker cable, I never found favour with Chord's lesser cables due to bass aspects (too much). Can you try some NACA5?

I empathise with your challenge. 

I can probably try anything that's out to there to be honest, I've got several dealers within striking distance which all do home demos of various stuff so NACA5 would be fine, I don't need to go round corners either. I think it's extremely likely I will change the speaker cable anyway.

Other options could be to swap out the Dynaudio stands themselves, say for some Torlyte ones from Russ Andrews which have had some rave reviews. Thing is that we're fundamentally talking about spending hundreds (and in the case of timmo1341 thousands), of Pounds on achieving relatively small incrementals in improvement but I guess that's what we're into at our sort of level guys. I'm open to anything but keen to avoid the snake oil salesmen!

 

In my case definitely not a small, incremental improvement. The addition of the Stillpoints was the equivalent of adding a power supply, in other words at least as good as a black box addition. I would equate it to upgrading speaker cable to the Superlumina or Sarum level. I am as wary as anyone of ‘snake oil’, but try to be open minded and willing to try different solutions (although I do draw the line at colouring the edges of CDs etc..!).

Foot tapper posted:

Finally, volume. Oh yes, the volume knob. It keeps moving clockwise, all by itself.... I used to think that the 135s were starting to harden as the volume knob went passed 9:30. It turns out not to be the 135s but vibration transmitting through the floor back into the electronics and making mischief.  Not any more! That point is now found at about 11:00 on the 52’s volume knob. 

Best regards, FT

I think that's a very telling sign that things are working well. 

M

Nice one FT, you seemed to have identified a wonderful, great value enhancement.

Thanks for alerting us all to this, and as you quite rightly say the benefit will be system and room (read floor) specific.

Thanks also to the OP for initiating this interesting thread.

A nice test is finding those tracks that seem to make the woofers go crazy crazy.

I've noticed a few tracks that do this but with no real clear sound or instrument responsible, not deep bass either.  But there is a definite sense of the air being energised that makes the music come alive more... Must be some fancy studio effect of really really low deep subsonic bass.  With speaker isolation feet I feel that it's not just the air energised as it has a profound effect over me as well.

Foot tapper posted:

Transients also seem more dynamic, especially drums and bass lines, which is odd, given that the speaker cabinets now have a degree of damped sway to them.

 

Best regards, FT

I found this aspect of my "Mana"-type stands very puzzling too FT; it seems to fly in the face of our perceived logic around such things. Glad you're enjoying the music so much with the isolators - those ARTs really are cracking speakers and work really well in your room, so anything that increases their sound quality to that extent must be special indeed.  Plus you're a sensible sort of chap, and wouldn't install something in your system unless it was a genuine improvement.

Your findings on speaker isolation echo mine closely, so there's something pretty important going on here. I'm not one to lapse into hyperbole over such things, but it's clear my hi-fi system has been profoundly altered for the better as a result. All it cost me was the price of some angle iron, spikes off e-Bay, a sheet of aluminium, a sheet of marine ply, and a few welding rods. 

tonym posted:

 

All it cost me was the price of some angle iron, spikes off e-Bay, a sheet of aluminium, a sheet of marine ply, and a few welding rods. 

Ever thought about changing your name to Heath Robinson? ????

tonym posted:

... All it cost me was the price of some angle iron, spikes off e-Bay, a sheet of aluminium, a sheet of marine ply, and a few welding rods. 

Thanks Tony.  Steady on the spending though.  I wouldn't want you to get carried away on snake oil remedies 

Do you think it's time for another get together/vinyl spinning/gossip catch up session? 
We might even invite JN if he promises to bring his lovely new BMW motorcycle!

Best regards, FT

Aye FT. My turn this time. 

Foot tapper posted:

tonym posted:

... All it cost me was the price of some angle iron, spikes off e-Bay, a sheet of aluminium, a sheet of marine ply, and a few welding rods. 

Thanks Tony.  Steady on the spending though.  I wouldn't want you to get carried away on snake oil remedies 

Do you think it's time for another get together/vinyl spinning/gossip catch up session? 
We might even invite JN if he promises to bring his lovely new BMW motorcycle!

Best regards, FT

Great to hear that the isolators are working for you Ian. It sounds like the usual excellent service from The 'A' Team at Signals.

Just need to arrange a dry, warmish day with no rock-salt residue on the roads. The unaccustomed luxury of heated handlebar grips is very nice.

Good listening.

John.

Okay, so I have done even more digging into this speaker isolation subject.

Not only do Townshend do their seismic isolation platforms and IsoAcoustics make the Gaia feet which I'm currently enjoying, but there are a plethora of alternatives to separate us from our funds.

The well healed among us may opt for the Stillpoints Ultra 5 feet at a mere £610 for each foot to you, Sir or Madam.  Gosh.

Now Magico supply MPOD feet for their M3 floorstanding speakers and lovely they look too.

Intriguing.  Now I have started to experiment with supports for the electronics.  More over the coming months.

Best regards, FT

Foot tapper posted:

 

Intriguing.  Now I have started to experiment with supports for the electronics.  More over the coming months.

 

I would be very interested to learn what you report FT. I presume by these supports you mean isolation products for the individual boxes rather than shelving systems, either way it'd still be interesting. I'm a bit squeamish about putting anything between my kit and the Quadraspire rack it all sits upon so hearing back from someone who is willing to splash the cash on whatever exotic creations are out there and put the research in is a bit of a gift! 

It now feels as though I am travelling down a well travelled yet poorly documented path, strewn with mines and cul de sacs.

After success with isolating the speakers, time to try the electronics.

Much reading later and it is clear that there are a lot of snake oil products out there.

There are also conflicting theories about why different methods of vibration isolation, coupling, absorption and dissipation might work.

Starting with the most sensitive electronics (excluding the turntable), I have tried some relatively affordable SRM/Tech isolation platforms for the phono stage and the NAC52 pre-amp.  The SRM platforms are simple, just a 10-12mm thick perspex shelf sitting on 4 very soft sorbothane ring doughnut feet.  While the likes of Sonority and Stillpoints may be highly effective, their prices are eye wateringly high.

The platform worked a treat under the Moon 301LP phono stage, further calming down any background noise and allowing the volume to be turned up further before the onset of harshness.  No downsides noted to date.

A similar platform under the NAC52 also had a marked effect, albeit in a different way.  All the right notes played in the right sequence but basslines sounded like they were trying to run through treacle.  Slow and sloppy bass.  Ugh!  Removing the platform from under the pre-amp snapped the timing back to normal.

So, success with the phono stage but no sorbothane feet and acrylic platforms under the Naim pre-amp in this household!
Next step, FRAIM shelves, cups & balls.

As ever, it would be great to read of others' successes and failures in this area.

Best regards, FT