Yeah, well I likely initiated your confusion by somewhat carelessly referring to my situation as suspended, walker of the swamp. Not actually suspended in the real sense of the definition.
Thanks to all that have responded. I think I will try Bryhifi's solution first. If that works, I'll be done for cheap, as I like things! |
Bry- A great idea! Anyone have any idea why T&G blind-nailed (over subfloor) flooring would be called suspended? Suspended from what? |
If the Berber carpet is not tack-stripped to the floor, ie; area rug, I did a quick and cheap solution for my room with hardwood maple flooring. My Thiel 3.6's are 110 lbs with 3 spikes that penatrate just about anything.
For what it's worth, may not be an (AA)Audiophile Approved method but it worked in my situation which is almost identical to yours!
For a mere $10 at Lowes or Home Depot you can purchase a 4x8 sheet of 1/4" luan and have them cut it in half for you. With the 4x4 sheets I adhered low cost felt from a fabric store to the floor side and the placed the 4x4 sections under the speaker areas of the rug. Being that 1/4" is actually less than a 1/4" when it comes to wood it is not even visible from anywhere in the room. The Maple flooring is now safe from spikes and scratches from the felt backing. I've rocked and set my Thiels very hard to penatrate the carpet and it would take a 400 lb. Gorilla to push the spikes through the luan sheets. |
Forget tiles or glass, etc. They are flimsy and breakable, with a relatively high resonant frequency. Get some corian (the stuff they make kitchen counters with). It's a resin product, very heavy and non-resonant. You can find it cheap at flea markets or through a plumber or contractor who cuts holes in it to fit kitchen sinks, etc.
You can have it cut to size, to fit the footprint of your speakers. Drill holes in the corian slabs and install spikes into them. Then put your spiked speakers on to the corian.
Great isolation, better sound. |
Your #3 solution is similar to what I did with my Vienna Acoustics Mozarts on a heavily carpeted suspended wood floor with very good results although with some differences.
I placed a 1/2" piece of medium density fiberboard (MDF) - cut 3" wider in each horizontal dimension than the footprint of the speaker - on top of the carpet. Then I placed four Vibrapods on top of the MDF and a slab of 1" granite on top of the Vibrapods. On top of this sandwhich I placed the spiked speakers. They are very stable and there appears to be no interaction whatsoever between the speakers and and floor since the speakers now sound tighter and clearer than with either spikes or vibrapods alone. The Vibrapods cost $6 apiece and MDF is avaliable at Home Depot for aboout $7 for a 4'x8' sheet and they will cut it to size for you for about .50/cut. Scrap granite can be had Inexpensively - I paid $15/each. |
Rather than try a "band aid" that results in another set of completely different problems, why not go to the source ? If you are bothered by the bass talking to you via the floor, why not install some simple braces underneath it ? I don't see any problem with doing something like this, especially since you said it was a crawl-space and not a basement.
In order to do this and have it work properly, you will need several thick planks of wood and a few inexpensive "bottle jacks". Lay a plank down on the crawl-space floor, place a bottle jack underneath each speaker and then place another plank on top of the jacks. If you do this right, you'll not only make the floor more rigid / less susceptible to resonance, but you'll be transfering floor bounce to Earth ground via the bottle jacks.
You can take this a step further and install a few more jacks / planks where they are needed. While you or someone else is in the crawl-space, have someone walk around in that room. Where the floor makes the most noise, that's where the supports go. How many braces that you'll need will obviously depend on how sturdy the floor is.
Another less expensive alternative is to use 4 x 4 posts cut to length rather than leaving the bottle jacks in the crawl-space as the support. You may still need a jack to initially "lift" the flooring while wedging the supports in place, but you'll only need one jack to do this and you can put it to use somewhere else once you're done with it. I would suggest using a piece of wood both under and above the posts as sort of an "end cap". This will help to both level out the ground and spread the load out a bit. If you use a larger plank above the post, you may be able to contact several of the floor joists at once, which will help to make the floor more rigid. If possible, running one long plank across all of the floor joists between the speakers would work best. That is, if the speakers are running across the joists and not parallel with them.
The advantage to using the jacks is that you can adjust them as needed should the flooring, soil or house shift over time. If using posts, you may have to shim them or cut new posts. Finding just the right size shim that is both sturdy and easy to get into place might be a good trick and that's why the bottle jacks may be slightly easier ( albeit more expensive ) to work with in the long run.
While you are at it, you might want to think about breaking ground at your electrical box that houses your outlets and dropping a line straight through the floor down to a dedicated Earth ground rod. This would offer a phenomenally short and low resistance path to ground for you. Before doing so though, i would check with a local electrician to see how this could be done in order to maintain safety factors while still meeting local code. Sean
> |
Audiobugged: Laminated glass (as opposed to tempered) poses no threat to kids as it is actually two layers of glass with a very resilient type of glue between the layers. It is quite thin (about 1/8" to 1/4") and will not shatter or break unless it's really subjected to violent stuff (that's why it's called security glass). It is also virtually unnoticeable, cheap, and because it's thin doesn't present problems as a result of raising the speaker too much off the floor. In this application, (carpet, suspended floor, etc) which is exactly what Mot describes, I really like it.
I had my speakers spiked through the carpet into the floors before and would never go back. |
I agree with Danvetc, and believe that you ought to DEcouple speakers from the floor, walls, everything. Best thing is to hang them, but room cosmetics usually prevent this. I know this works with Magneplanars and the Bose 901's, especially if you have a big room with cathedral ceiling. I never experienced it with a conventional box speaker, but it ought to work. Why do you put Monitors up on skinny stands? |
Coupling speakers to the floor, or in the case of monitors to the stand, is another audio myth. There is no good reason for it.
Charlie |
Place a cement stepping stone with washed rock top on the berber. They come in various sizes. You can spray paint them black so they look better and do not call great attention to themselves. They are very heavy as to sink into the carpet and form a solid base. Measure where your spikes would be and drill holes into the concrete and place your speakers with spikes into the holes deep enough until the speakers are stable and do not rock back and forth. Placing a speaker directly on tile on top of carpet does not always create a stable situation. The speaker tends to move around on the tile. You can also use the stone and then buy a 1.5 by 1.5 inch by 18 inch piece of wood ( two for each speaker ) which can be cut to match the stone. You turn your speaker on its side - measure where the spikes will be and drill holes in the wood and place them on the speaker spikes so they form a stand to be placed on the stone. This way you do not drill into the stone. You can use a smooth stone this way also. The two pieces of wood should be longer than your speaker and run parallel to each other - one in front and one in the back. This way you are spiking into hardwood . This will elevate your speakers the distance of the wood so you can adjust by using a 1 by 1 inch or 2 by 2 inch depending on the length of your spikes. I do the last way with my ML Odysseys as not to spike into my hardwood floor ( no carpet ) - I do not use a stone on my hardwood floor. I put felt under the wooden pieces to be able to move them and position them more easily while they are spiked to the speakers. The speakers are very stable by the stand-like nature of the two pieces of wood - its like spiking your speakers to your floor without actually doing so. |
My flooring is actually 3/4" not 1/2" oak (my typo) and is t-and-g blind nailed over 3/4 ply. I'm still sure that points will leave an impression, but it is impervious to keys! :-)
Believe that I will give the final Stehno suggestion a try and maybe consider some variation of the Hdm/Socrates approach if that doesn't pass the wifely test. |
I've tried the Vibrapods under my 125lb full range speakers (Von Schweikerts, as in the article), and it worked great on carpet while using a wood footing, but the pods didn't jive on hardwood floors, sounded awful actually. I'm currently using the original speaker spikes with nickles underneath each spike, and though that sounds much better then the Vibrapods or sitting flush on the floor, it's still not ideal, still looking for a solution myself.... |
Motdathird, Sounds like after 10+ rounds where back to your inital idea? |
Hdm, that's actually a GOO ONE!
Yet how about acrylic, instead of having tempered glass so close to the floor/vacumn/children?
Then why not just sandwich the acrylic with blue-dots & only use the vibrapods directly between the speakers & the top?
Also use some sort of felt/polyester furniture self-adhesive protective pad between the bottom of base & carpet/hardwood? |
Not that anyone will agree with me, but I am using floorstanders over berber over a suspended hardwood floor and would recommend the following.
Buy 2 sheets of laminated or "security glass" 3-4" larger than the footprint of your speakers and use vibrapods between the glass (directly on top of carpet) and the speakers. I would recommend using a slightly higher weighted pod at the two front corners (use 4 pods or 5-I use 4-3 is simply not stable enough) to compensate for the "front heavy" nature of the speakers with drivers at the front.
I find this set-up to be much more relaxed and musical than spikes and this makes for some interesting reading:
http://www.vibrapod.com/Reviews/tas.htm
I concur with the reviewers findings. |
What if just you hung them from the ceiling on 4 chains like the old BOSE 901 FAD??? :)~ Motdathird, I was only KIDDING! |
Yep, Could be the room! In a perfect world our listening rooms would not also known as the Living/Family room, or a Spare bedroom. |
Another idea, if you can pull back the carpet, place any protection between the carpet and the wood floors. |
OH, The old 2" x 5/16" top nail red oak strip flooring.
These aren't that hard, would make for one major dimple/crater is directly on the wood!
Ever drop your House/Car keys on these Floors, see how easy the mark-up??? |
I am not sure that I could find a ceramic tile to fit under all of these speakers. Doubling or tripling up on the tiles would seem to add yet another stability issue. I can see where this might work well if the speaker's footprint would fit on one tile.
BTW, I am getting VERY good soundstaging in terms of depth and height. Also excellent imaging and staging BETWEEEN the speakers. But, I am not getting much outside the speakers. Will getting them up on points help with htis or is it more matter of distance between the speakers or toe-in? They did much better in my other house. Maybe it is the room. |
I have a hardwood floor-my speakers aren't as heavy as yours but I use a ceramic tile under each speaker-these also help with acoustic feedback back into your system.
You can pick tiles which match your decor although I didn't. |
My floors are 1/2" X 2" oak strips over 3/4" plywood, over joists, over a crawl space. Stehno's final comment might be best if living with floor dimples can be tolerated. Maybe my definition of suspended was misplaced.
I have a set of eight stainless steel Soler Points that are threaded to screw into the speakers. |
You have work cut out for you, setting them on carpet using 'coasters' will not give you the best performance. Try contacting www.mapleshaderecords.com and see about having their Conepoints made so they could screw into your speakers. Buggtussel (http://www.buggtussel.com/) also makes some nice brass feet, though expensive, that may work out. I do not recommend coasters on carpet. |
Depending on which mfg'ers points (points is trademarked by Star Sound for their Audio Points) you are using, any alternative strategy will most likely seriously compromise the sonic benefits of such Points(TM).
Not to mention the other alternatives will also look less aesthetically pleasing.
Therefore, why not carefully place the speakers into final position and simply do not worry about it. (For initial placement, do not use points).
Someday you will discover 6 or 8 very small dimples in the hardwood and you may wish to repair before you sell the house. Then again, nobody may ever notice.
FYI, 3 Points(TM) per speaker may sound better than 4.
-IMO |
What are you considering "Suspended" hardwood floor?
Free-Floating Pergo/Wilson-Art/Armstrong?
Glued, or Snap-Together?
Or Nail-down 3/4" Tounge-n-Groove?
Or 3/8" Tounge-n-Groove Glue down?
Even if you are talking about a Floating floor which expands & contracts as one piece. It floats over foam padding which is compressed by the total weight. I honestly could NOT see your speakers walking/wobbeling off these coasters no matter how much Low End you are experiencing in this new room. |
These Coaster are about the size of a Silver Dollar & about 3/8" of machined Stainless steel. They weigh about 4-5 oz. each, & w/ a 120# of load pushing on them will be level even on carpet! You will have to loose the BOLT'S & get youself some points, or spikes. |
Thanks, AB, but I wonder how these coasters are different from any other disc. I could be wrong because I haven't tried this yet but I would think that points setting in this kind of coaster over the berber would result in a speaker that was no too solid. I mean they would tend to rock even a little from the speaker vibration.
Right now I have the speakers on the berber using threaded bolts with small rubber cups over the heads. They sit solid but I am getting a bit too much bass thump from that floor. |
Look at SOUND ANCHORS web link for ConeCoasters -
http://www.soundanchors.com/page24.html
They are about $14.00 each, but will work on top of the berber to isolate the speakers w/o any damage to the floors underneath.
Do to their Heavy Guage Stainless Steel construction, even if your speakers weighed 1200 lbs. they could hold it!
They are stable, no need for marble, NUF SAID!!!
Good Luck |
