IsoAcoustics GAIA footers: impressions


I have Spatial Audio M4TM speakers which were spiked to the thick carpet in my room.  I got the GAIA footers with the carpet spikes this week and got them installed today.  They are fiddly as hell to install, requiring a narrow needle-nose pliers to cinch down the nuts securely. 

I have been listing to my system for a few hours with them installed and from the get-go, the SQ improvement was readily apparent. There is an enhanced vividness to the music with more pronounced leading edges to musical notes and a more life-like decay to the notes that makes the sound more engaging.  I am very impressed with the SQ improvement which is far from subtle to my ears.  I previously auditioned the SVS footers and they clearly degraded the sound of my system. 

These footers have garnered lots of praise in the audio community and at $680 for them, it was an expensive tweek, but my ears are really happy with revisiting familiar recordings and loving the sound ever more than before.  I am aware in reading reviews that a fair number of folks trying them were not impressed, but Music Direct and others permit a 30-day money-back trial if they don't work in your system.  At any rate, it seems appropriate to share my impressions of them with you folks as they are quite amazing in my system.
whitestix

Showing 4 responses by letch

Can these be used with stand mounted mini-monitors? Everything I've read is for floorstanders. I'm in a new apartment on parquet flooring and can't use my spikes, so looking for something for my stands (Spica) to floor and speaker to stand as well. Currently using Isonodes speaker to stand but think that needs adjustment.
Perhaps I bite the bullet and spike the speakers and put the Gaia's from stand to floor. I went through a variety of articles and videos, but didn't see any mentioning for stands for mini-monitors. It is an odd thing to not speak to stand mounted speakers. Even their stands are for floor-standers. When I put my speakers into their calculator, they recommend the Oreas. Probably, as you suggest, from speaker to stand.  I'll contact them and see what they say.
The speakers don't have threads, they're B&W 805's. I suppose perhaps I could use the Herbie Gliders as a first step. Perhaps Isopucks under the speakers...
I never heard back from IsoAcoustics. I did hear back from the people at Herbie’s and ended up going with the threaded stud gliders and the Fat Dots. An inexpensive way to solve my current problem. We’ll see how it sounds in practice.

The Solidair stuff looks interesting, but much like with IsoAcoustics, it’s tough to figure out what would work for my particular setup, i.e. stand mounted monitors. Also, I don't want to raise the speakers up too high.

If I feel like I’m missing something I’ll contact them to see what they say.