Magico Pods vs Townshend Seismic Platforms


I have a pair of Magico A5 loudspeakers fitted with Magico’s A-pods. Many here on Audiogon sing the praises of Townshend’s Seismic Platforms. Has anyone A/B compared the two products, particularly using A5 speakers?

jmeyers

Showing 2 responses by mulveling

No, but the huge difference here is going to be in low-frequency isolation, and whether your application even benefits from that. Being a "hard" interface, the Magicos won’t touch low frequencies. The killer application of Townshend is for turntables, where this matters a lot - and I’ve used them here; they’re great. I don’t really see a convincing arguments for or against with Townshend applied to speakers, though I know they push hard for this in their marketing. Frankly, I’m not putting tall & heavy speakers on springs no matter what they say. 

Meanwhile, Magico is pushing constrained layer damping’s ability to convert vibration energy into heat. But has there EVER been any study into how effective this actually is? What % gets converted to heat before it passes through the interface ONE TIME (not "many" times, as that’s too late)? I’m skeptical that this is very much at all, and that effective isolation is about redirecting energy much more than it is about conversion into heat (I'm sure their feet achieve redirection too, at least for some frequencies).

I may be an outlier here but I have tried isolation platforms under my speakers, more than one pair, and can't say that I have ever heard a noticeable improvement in sound.  For me, it has always begged the question, if putting your speakers on platforms was the way to go, then why don't all the high end speakers come with isolation platforms from the factory? 

@bigtwin  I share your skepticism. Haven't tried the Townshends to be fair, but have tried ISOAcoustics Gaias - and it was simply a waste of time & money, here. Makes it hard to move speakers around, too. Others rave about them - especially  paired to my Tannoys. I now use Herbie's gliders on some of my sets - not for sound quality improvements (becasue there is none I discern) but for the great convenience of being able to slide speakers easily. 

But to each their own - I engage in many aspects of this hobby that read like pure Kool-aid / Snake Oil to many others.