Footers under my speakers double the perceived value of my speakers!

I live in earthquake country.  Putting ultra-minis under 200 lb speakers does not seem wise for my speakers.  My 185 lb speakers rest on four widely spaces metal cones into a 12" thick 3000 lb PSI steel reinforced slab.  Vibration is not a concern from below the speakers.  I intend to purchase speakers weighing 600 lbs each.  No way am I going to mess with the speaker designers footers.  The thought of putting something like tiny footers in unfathomable in earthquake country.   My other 135 lb speakers also have metal cones but on a 4" thick maple block on a carpeted rug on a standard slab.  It has a downward firing woofer (among 3 total) which does not like hard surfaces (metal, granite, etc). that I tried.  Maple sounded better than carpet by a tad.  

Sure, I put footers under some flat bottomed older two way speakers for my video system that weigh under 40 lbs each and raised them off the floor (which is standard 3 1/2" concrete slab) and that tightened up the soundstage/imaging/bass.  

I use several types of Stillpoints most of my equipment. My new DAC does not sound good (hard or unfocused) with Stillpoints, cones or vibrapod type footers. It was designed with vibration in mind. My amps, 2 pre-amps/phono preamp, analog speed controller and digital transport were not as well (or at all) vibration designed and need Stillpoints. The shelving is 1 1/4" HDF on solid rubber isolation pods on steel ball bearing/sand filled welded steel stands (made for audio) on spikes into the above 12" concrete. I experimented with at least 10 different companies footers and more types of products and stuck with Stillpoints. The Townsend sink is 100% necessary for my VPI TNT VI which has bad isolation/vibration lack of control.

@rixthetrick

What thickness steel plate are you using? Do you place the Samlley between the plate and the speaker or between plate and floor? Which model Smalley springs are you using? For your floor standers? And for your other equipment?
Thanks for sharing. I'm very intrigued buy that solution. I think it can fit my budget nicely.

Hello rixthetrick,

Nice post as it describes spring function, zero stiffness and how they relate to isolation theorems and functionality.

We have experimented with springs and isolation techniques for several years.

Our take on the use of a steel plate foundation is the material and mass has natural damping factors that relate well to the mechanical grounding element of the steel springs taking more energy from the springs to floor-ground and at a faster rate of speed. This establishes a resonance conductive mechanical pathway that allows for a greater level of energy dissipation. In our experiments we used steel, brass and copper alloys at a 5/16” thickness. There was a noticeable improvement in sound going from steel to brass.

When we moved to copper, being the harder material with lesser damping factors we had to use a different spring geometry to improve performance over the steel and brass. I would enjoy hearing your findings should you ever decide to test these materials on your model.

The springs worked but due to springs having weight restraints the company decided to discontinue the research. We also noticed within our models that timing artifacts (shortened decays, depth of field and imaging issues) possibly created by speaker chassis movement limited the sonic in comparison to lesser movement by resting the speaker on a rigid direct coupled structure. Please keep in mind that our products are designed to vibrate so there is an infinitesimal movement within these systems as well.

Our focus is on resonance reduction in components, on electronic parts and loudspeaker surfaces providing resonance and noise a conductive pathway to rapidly exit the chassis per the laws of Coulomb friction and damping. The isolation techniques we are familiar with retain most of the resonance inside the chassis and are more focused on outside disruptions.

The sonic results between the two philosophies are quite different as they should because the theorems, applications of technology and product designs are opposites.

The best example of proof relating to electromechanical noise and signal blockage due to resonance build up is taking any version of active iso-tables regardless of price that are used in supporting electron microscopes and placing any of our platforms beneath them. The sonic results from any audio component residing on the isolation device will audibly improve hence providing some supporting evidence where electricity powering the iso-table becomes the noise generator affecting the signal.

Disclaimer: Our participation here is not to challenge, disprove or say this sounds better than that, as public opinion and Industry reviewers steer those ships. Once we realized that resonance formed by vibrations is the primary culprit involving signal clarity, the choice made was to work on taking the source of the noise (resonance) out and away from the instrument (Resonance Energy Transfer) in comparison to focusing on the worldly inaudible and sometimes audible disruptions getting into the instrument (Isolation). Both technical approaches have merit.

Robert

Star Sound

IsoAcoustics provides a "calculator" to determine the best footer for your particular component. If nothing else, they have impressed me by providing such a fantastic tool to the consumer. 
For my Devore O/93's the "calculator" kicked out Orea Indigo's. So I purchased eight of them ($480) and they arrived yesterday. For those not familiar, the Gaias are higher profile in height and are meant for loudspeakers that have screw-in spikes installed by the manufacturer such as my Spendor D7.2s (for which I purchased a set of Gaia's but have not yet had a chance to try). The Oreas are lower profile and resemble pucks with rubber on both the bottom and top surface. 
I listened to one of my favorite records before placing the Orea's under my Devores (which took less than a minute) and then listened to the same side again. My speaker positions are carefully marked with masking tape on my very heavy solid walnut flooring installed over floor joists (sprung floor listening room with a basement underneath).
The sound was immensely different and immediately noticeable. I then listened to three other records I know very well. For the record, they were in order Dos Monos "Dos City" (buy this record if you like hip hop even marginally-there are great riffs/samples from Monk, Zappa, and Captain Beefheart among others!), Shakey Graves' "Can't Wake Up", Paul Simon's "Rhymin Simon", and Frank Zappa's "Apostrophe". My issue is that for the life of me I can not tell you yet if I believe the sound is better or just radically different. My initial impressions after one evening is that with the Devore O/93's, the best adjectives is that the sound is "disassociated" and "less grounded". The soundstage widened and became moderately higher. The sound became more "hi-fi" which is to me is not good. There was more detail and precision particularly in the treble and midrange but the bass became less deep. "Ethereal" and "less corporal" come to mind. I obtained the qualities that I had previously found lacking in the Devores but also lost most of what I most admire and love about the O/93's-their solidity in the bass region and their natural tone and timbre combined with a solid wall of sound that just makes you smile with it's "of a whole cloth" character. In effect, my O/93's came to resemble-to a degree- my Spendor D7.2's though they still offered a greater wall of sound than the Spendors. The balance is definitely tipped up with less bass (though the bass that is there is better articulated), much more midrange and much more treble. The treble was not harsh at all, but still much more noticeable. But I can not emphasize enough-the treble, midrange, and bass no longer transitioned from one to the other smoothly and instead all frequency ranges seemed disassociated with one another. For that matter, all of the music seemed disassociated and just free-floating in space. The more I think about it, a new term came to mind; artificial. 
I will give it two or three more nights of trial and then will likely return them to my retailer which offers a generous 30 day trial period. Now please understand that I am very likely biased by the fact that John Devore advised me not to use after-market footers when I specifically brought up this product. After the continued buzz, I just had to try them for myself. But then again, I was really hoping that the Oreas would give me better imaging without taking away any of the good apects of the Devore O/93's. I believe right now that John is right. They do more harm than good with his speakers.