Room decked out with heavy carpet, bass traps and sound panels on ceiling and side walls.
Most loudspeakers are designed to work in a conventional living environment. I wonder if your room treatments caused a lot of your extra work?
Feet One-o-0ne
Somewhat reluctant to write about this topic since all speakers, rooms, acoustic treatments and distances/dimensions differ and everything has a bearing. Furthermore I am reporting on my experience with Duevel Bella Lunas, which as omnis have their own characteristics. All comments relate to the speakers being set up in the respective sweetspots which depend on the footers resulting in individual adjustments up to several inches. Room decked out with heavy carpet, bass traps and sound panels on ceiling and side walls.
Anyway, the journey started with spikes which compared to the bare bones added better ability to locate instuments in the soundstage but otherwise reulted in a somewhat sterile, bloodless rendition.
On to ball bearings (Final Darumas, similar to rollerblocks): better integration but slight wallowing in the bass.
On to Symposium Svelteshelves: good soundstage, great integration albeit at the price of slight congestion in the lower mids.
Svelteshelves on ball bearings: better location of instruments in the soundstage, clear midrange, slight loss of deep bass (may relate to added distance from floor)
Finally spring bearings (Matihur on AliExpress): Shazam, everything snaps into focus, great integration, crystal clear deep bass and increased detachment of the soundstage from speakers.
Mahgister and MillerCarbon got it right: best solution for my system as well, total absence of undesirable side effects and all of that for less than 50 bucks. Very highly recommended.
Final warning: YMMV
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@russ69 , Agreed! People make to much of this room treatments stuff. If you have the right amount of absorbent and reflective common materials (ie sofa. Upholstered chairs, wall to wall or large carpet, tapestries, plush pillows, end table, coffee table, pictures, etc etc...) then you are essentially achieving a pretty well balanced room. Some are over doing it. |
As an experiment, I tried putting some 3” square furniture sliders from Amazon under my speaker stands. The foam layer is about 1/2” thick and very firm so it’s not overly compressed. The speakers can rock, but in a controlled way, not unlike what I’ve seen demonstrated with Townshends. Right now, I prefer the sound to what I was getting with spikes. As with all of this stuff, it’s totally down to preference, but it is kind of ironic because for years it was a given that speakers must be as motionless as possible. Who knew? |
Over the years, I have tried various spikes from the simple ramset spikes that come with Sound Anchor stands to Audio Points and then to edenSound's Bearpaws with spikes. In the past year or so, I switched to using Herbie's Giant Fat Gliders and then to springs under my main speakers (180 lbs each with stands) and two subs (150 lbs each with stands). I was able to purchase individual springs and damp them with loosely applied thin heatshrink and therefore did not have to purchase the more expensive Townshend products. The springs work great and offer the benefits described by other posters over spikes, at least to my ears. My main speakers roll off below 40Hz so I recently tried going back to the Herbies Giant Fat Gliders and I do not perceive any noticeable sonic difference between the gliders and the springs. I do plan to keep the springs under my subs where I believe they offer the most benefit. I am also using appropriately sized and damped springs under some of my electrical components and find them to be effective and preferable to Stillpoints. |
Brief update Given the very good results mentioned above I decided to put Matihur sprung footers under my two Acoustic Revive RTP-4 power conditioners/distributors. The effect of vibration on power cables there is easily demonstrable. Equally I replaced Final Daruma Rollerball-like footers under the Black Ravioli pads supporting my tube amp with another set of springs. Further increase in perceived speed and soundstaging. Vibration is a serious deterrent to good SQ |
They may be designed to work well in conventional living environments, does not mean they are performing at their optimal in those environments. I have owned everything from electrostatics, open baffle, conventional multi way, horns, and not a single set did not show marked improvement with some moderate room treatments. I'd be very surprised to find any good speaker designer that did not believe their products would sound better in properly treated rooms.
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