This is a great subject matter. I believe Maple Shade and Sistrum have similar philosophies, draining vibration (using brass) into another mass.
I have not yet ordered from Mapleshade, but plan to get their nano cartridge mounts. Sistrum, on the other hand I have a lot of experience with. Under my table, and speakers the Sistrum platforms do wonderful things - firmer, deeper foundations, increased focus, etc. For those not familiar, the sistrum platform sandwiches an acoustically shaped steel plate (or uber $$$ Brass in their yet to be released Stage) in between opposing brass spikes.
Mapleshade is doing a similar topography with wood. Whether or not a particular component or transducer will sound best draining it's vibration into wood or metal I suppose would vary based on it's materials as well as what type of floor it's sitting on.
I have been a firm believer in mechanical grounding since Goldmund cones (which I still use in some cases.) I wish more manufacturers would build in this grounding into their designs. Sistrum did build a triangular amp this way.
Regarding brass wood floor protection disks with my speakers, I have found that once I remove them (after finding the right spot for speakers) the focus goes way up - so don't discount the sonic benefit of being able to put spike holes in your nice flooring.
Ideally it would be great to order a set from each manufacturer and try them out if possible - and then try them under different components during the audition.
It's more than possible a few of the rights stands is all one might need to take their system from being an excellent one, to one of those truly magical systems we hear from time to time. |
I checked out the symposium shelves, read a few reviews, looks cool, but for a set a little more than what I want to spend right now...maybe someday.
Thanks! |
I was only trying to find something to work on my soft floors, mapleshade seemed like an easy option, especially the unfinished version. and yes, it does sound better than anything else homebrewed that I've tried. It wasn't my intent to go for some kind of speaker platform, I didn't want to alter the design of the speaker designer. I'm just trying to alleviate soft flooring. Bring something over, I'd be glad to give it a try. For now, maple seems to rule.
No hype. |
You must have missed my posts. I've been using maple for years because it works better than anything else I've tried under components. And I've tried everything from inner tubes to marble. |
All this hype about maple...Blah blah blah..I havent talked to anyone thats actually tried maple who cared for it in the slightest..Glad we all have options |
SYMPOSIUM makes a isolation stand for under speakers its much better than wood!!CALL THEM!! |
My floor is carpet over concrete. |
Hi, Maril, I found the sistrum website, looks interesting, and saw the dagogo review. Funny thing, I think the reviewer gave 3 or 4 areas where the sistrum made great improvements, and that's what I could have written about the Mapleshade boards, and that's without the fancier brass feet. Would be great to compare here. Except my speakers bottoms are not flat, so not sure if I could use. |
Ok, here goes, might be treading into deep waters, we'll see, a contrast in two systems with Mapleshade board.
My floor is suspended yellow pine, very soft.
Friends floor is deep concrete slab with hard wood, a very hard surface. (Pierre Sprey says this is a horrible combination.)
My speakers are Shahinian Arcs, four feet are some kind of hard rubber or plastic (again Pierre says this is very bad)
My friend's speakers are Rega R9's, twice as tall, have four spikes connected with some special basket.
At my house, after putting small brass cones (not Pierre's) under the maple board, nothing between cones and flooring, the sound is amazing. Best surface the speakers have sat on so far. The shahinians have always felt very wobbly, especially on my soft floor. Now they at least sit very flat with little to no wobble.
When placing the boards under the Regas, same set up, although we did put pennies between cones and flooring, his is much nicer flooring. There was instantly a height issue for one of the fellow listeners, tweeters going pretty high past ear level. Sound was tight, yet lost the bloom necessary to really sound fantastic. So in his situation, not a good thing. There was no smearing or dullness as some of you have commented, yet too lean. His speakers sit very well on his hard flooring, no wobble to speak of.
So, in his room, which Pierre states should be better, it wasn't, and I would have wanted my money back.
In my room, I'm still doing some fiddling, but you couldn't wrestle them out of my arms without loosing one of yours. I truly love what they do here.
My listening panel is coming over later to judge me, and the boards. We'll see....
Maril, could you give more info on the product you mention? website?
Don, Mapleshade does make custom sizes, and in his catalog has I saw a 24" listed.
In summary, in my softfloored room the boards bring such a new level of clarity I'm totally gobsmacked.
Oh, to answer earlier about birch, it was nice, but had a grainier quality to it. Perhaps it was just the type I used, Lowe's 2by2 by 3/4. |
I think it would be helpful if posters mentioned what type of floor (and floor covering) they have under their speakers. To me that is a critical factor in deciding what spikes and stands to use yet most posters ignore that point. I am not surprised that opinions vary so widely. The conditions of use are not the same. Let's make posts more relevant by furnishing more background information.
In my area almost all of the new homes (including mine) are on concrete slabs. Downtown the floors are wood over basements or crawl areas. In the midwest where I grew up, basements are predominant. But not all wood floors are the same either. They vary in construction materials, methods, and age. |
There are definetely fans of all different kinds of support systems. In my personal experience, that I shared above, I've found maple NOT having any positive effects on my system. That is not to say it didn't change the sound, it did, and not to the better. But I can see, where someone might like that change. You are right, this issue is room and system dependent, but again, I have a distinct feeling, that maple is NOT a way to go. Hence only positive comments from the users of Sistrum, SRA and HRS support systems. |
Maril555,
That is the point of large thick maple or other slabs - to drain vibration away from your gear while at the same time keeping vibrations from your gear, particularly speakers, from interacting mechanically with your floor and setting up unwanted harmonics in your room. This issue has been discussed in some detail in at least one thread on this forum before:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?htech&1238883454
I think that the benefits of maple or other wood platforms for speaker and other equipment are highly ear, gear, rack and room dependent - so what works well for someone will not necessarily work well for others.
My "analytical" leaning CD player, sprung TT and less than completely rigid speakers cabinets benefit greatly from the application of wood platforms in my fairly lively listening room. While a softer or more neutral sounding source, very well designed speaker/spike system in a well tuned or dead listening room may not benefit from or actually be "harmed" by the characteristics imparted by wood platforms. YMMV. |
Late, as always- but I will offer my experience with maple stands, that echoes Thorman's.
No matter what combination of maple stands, mapleshade cones, and various elastic materials I used, the results were pretty much the same- dullness, smearing, loss of dertails and dynamics.
I've also had a few conversatons with some designers/ manufacturers of the support systems, who basically confirmed my empirical findings.
All had changed, when I switched to Sistrum platforms- without going into much detail, very significant improvements across the whole spectrum of audiophile virtues.
To oversimplify this approach- speakers need to be on a kind of support system, that can drain vibrations away from the speaker, and not to "isolate" speaker from external vibrations. |
I neglected to mention that I may need a size larger than what is offered by Mapleshade. That is why I am searching for an alternative source or product (butcher block). |
Has anyone tried maple butcher block? Butcher block is easier to source and less expensive. I have a local source for up to 2 7/8" thick. I think they will cut it to my desired size.
I am also interested in sources for solid maple. Where can I purchase that? Thanks |
Chashas1,
Thanks for the prompt reply to our inquiring minds. Interesting to me that the thick Maple slabs are that much better for your application than the birch plywood. This is what Mapleshade and other purveyors of solid Maple platforms claim - seems to work that way for you, although I understand the maple is thicker and a different variety ofwood, so not a perfect control of plywood versus solid slab in this case.
I think it is interesting that there appears to be such a broad range of experiences with wood platforms reported in this thread, ranging from "it works great" to "it did nothing" to "hated it". In the case of speakers where vibration is intense, cabinet designs vary greatly, and room interactions have a huge role perhaps the range of experience should not be that surprising.
I have found that using wood platforms for vibration control under many components in my system has helped tremendously in my fairly small and lively (many hard surfaces) listening area. I would suggest the greatest benefits have come from those compenents with moving parts - TT, CDP and of course speakers. I put this "tweak" in the top category along with power cables in terms of providing "astonishing" improvements in system sound.
Nice thing about tweaks like this is that it doesn't require any break in to enjoy. Improvements are noticed immediate or not at all.
PS - I am a fan of BlueTack and use it where it makes sense and sounds good - like attaching my speakers to bamboo platforms... |
Love em! I received 2 of the unfinished 18 by 15 by 2 boards yesterday, with no footers or brass cones. At first I placed them just on the floor, like I had been doing with the birchply. Much better. Then I placed them on 3 wood buttons, attached with blutack, although I notice that Pierre hates blutack. Even as they are now, it's the best I've had under my speakers. Clarity improved from top to bottom, instruments stand out in greater relief. No frequency sounds overetched, all very natural. Bass is much tighter. So a very good investment. I may get some of his brass footers soon. I have some small brass cones I'll try later today. I have to say it's been the best tweek that doesn't sound like a tweek, if that makes any sense.
I suppose, in my severely technically challenged way of thinking, that it controls vibrations to the point where the speaker can play its best. I love them. |
Chas,
What is the verdict on the Mapleshade platforms? |
I use bamboo under my speakers over a new oak floor, and it works great. tighter bass, better imaging, etc. |
Thanks guys, very sound advice. I can totally relate to all your stories. I'm having great fun with the 2by2 birchplys I have under now, and I haven't even treated the raw wood yet. BUT, the mapleshade boards arrive tomorrow, so we'll see what the weekend craziness brings. I, too, give Pierre a wide birth. Yet, in his room and his setup, who knows? I agree, I couldn't sit 5 feet from my speakers.
Stick to your guns on that one, we all have different listening preferrences.
I would agree with Pierre that at times, a lot of the room treatment people do can really ruin the sound, and they just can't hear what they've done. Yet, I think room treatment, if needed, is very very necessary.
I saw the thread on the gallos and his boards. I'd love to hear it. I have no doubt it's great.
Dave b, do you think it's dispersion characterics or vibration control? I ponder this a lot, why birch sounds better than pine or concrete or that this maple may sound best.
Well, I'll let you know what happens. I may be a raving lunatic for Pierre come Sunday. It does bother me a bit that it's old growth maple. Let's hope the Sierra Club's not following the UPS truck down the lane tomorrow.... |
Alot of good advice can be had from Pierre, but one must sift through the eccentric to get to the practical. When I thought my room was a problem He told me to rip out the cieling etc... Room placement was the only issue:O) |
Chas,
I recently purchased new speakers (Audiokinesis Planetarium Betas) to replace my SoundLabs. Now, the Planetariums are superb, but I found that I was missing some of the height dimension in the soundstage. The solution was to raise the main speakers to change the relative angle at my listeningposition. Initially, I tried a stopgap of stacked books just to see if it would do what I wanted. Big difference, in the positive sense. Then I remembered my old amp stands, which I had custom made from 4" lyptus (even denser than maple). That did it. In addition to solving the soundstage problem, midbass tightened up considerably. You can see these in my system photo if you care to have a look. The best part? The guy who did them charged me a total of $300 for both stands, far less than Mapleshade's equivalents would have been.
Speaking of Mapleshade, you'll also notice in the system pic that I'm a big fan of their Samson racks. However, I fully agree that Pierre goes way overboard with some of his claims. |
I spoke with Pierre a little while back about my setup with Gallo 3.1s. My current sound is so-so, and I'm 99% sure that it's all about the room.
Pierre's take on things is that it has nothing to do with the room, and that I should REMOVE all my absorption panels because they mess up sound. Then, if I add the 4" maple stands to the Gallos, and ideally ANOTHER 4" mape stand UNDER these, then magically the sound will be 100% better.
oh, also his rebuilt scott receivers sound vastly better than every tube amp on the marked under $5000 MSRP, and SS amp on the market under $15,000 MSRP.
While this may be a worthwhile upgrade to the Gallos (or any other speaker) his hyperbole pretty much scares me away from doing business with him.
He also recommends to sit no more than 5' back from the Gallos. The Gallos sound MUCH better to me from 10' feet away...
However - I do have the Mapleshade Liszt solo piano CD, and it is spectacular. Kind of a strange situation.... |
Dave Pogue, who made a comment here back in July, just got Mapleshade custom stands for his Gallo Ref. 3 speakers. The stands are big 4" thick maple platforms with the really heavy Megafeet and Heavyfeet under them. I brought one of my Ref. 3 speakers over to his place to hear the difference between my stock speaker and one of his speakers the new base. The Mapleshade stands made a HUGE improvement. So much so that I've ordered some for myself. This was on a carpet-covered cement floor, not a wood floor. |
Right now I'm trying a 2by2 sheet of 3/4"thick birch ply, and loving it, tight, articulate, without accentuating anything. The maple has to be better than this or it's going back. |
Platforms under speakers alter the dispersion characteristics of a speaker no? I tried it and hated it. Under my subs however..now that did wonders for them:O) |
I'm a big fan of maple platforms, the thicker the better. Deliver me from granite. Obviously YMMV :-) |
Chashas1..If you find the maple isnt all its suppose to be like I did ....I went to a local headstone company and bought a left over scrap 1" thick slab for $15.00..it measured 4'-24"...Cut it myself using a circular saw w/diamond blade..cant get any cheaper than that... |
oh oh, just on a whim I bought some of the mapleshade unfinished maple platforms, so I'll report back my impressions. I hope they don't suck! maybe I should have tried the cheaper granite first. we'll see...thanks! |
I agree with the above..I tried maple w/brass under my Dynaudios on hardwood floors and hated it.Bought into the hype AGAIN!!! |
I agree with the stone. I used a 1/2" slab of limestone with Herbies big fat dots. Big and cheap improvement over spikes onto carpeted pine. As Thorman found, tighter better defined base |
Chashas1 :I tried it couple ways with Brass cones( spikes ) and also BDR cones..Didn't like it either way..I had better success with a
piece of Granite directly on the floor under speakers...Much crisper bass and better mids...Hey Maybe it just me I don't know..Haven't really had much luck with Maple..I have read somewhere that Baltic Birch is much better than Straight grain Maple...But as I said I am no expert on the subject and gave up with the Idea of using Maple......Maybe you are onto something with the Birch Plywood..Maybe if you can glue up some Birch Ply layers of it and come up with a 2" thick pieces ..that might work real well..Just a thought though........ |
Thanks, Thorman, did you place anything between the flooring and maple board?
I've tried several types of wood already, with each having a certain sound, some way too soft, robbing the bass, or some too hard, making things brittle.
Afraid to spend the money on the rather expensive maple, so far. |
I know there has been a lot of claims with good succuess with Maple ,but i have tried Maple a couple of times and only come up with Smearing and Dullness..Maybe I have done something wrong but I would be cautious on this aproach..Hopefully you can get some positive feedback from other memebers..I have also seen others with granite slabs on the floor under speakers also............. |
