Nobosound Springs

Have them underneath my VPI tt and made the stage open up even more. Well worth the price!

What Decware speakers do you have?

I put them under my Harbeth 30.2’s and heard a nice improvement also. Have not tried them with my turntable as I am using another type for my turntable. 

I am a big believer in spring isolation.  I have nobosound under my amp and DAC.  I don't think gains are huge isolating your components when your floor is concrete.  There isn't much vibration getting transmitted. But it can't hurt.  I will point out that the standard nobosound has 7 springs.  You should probably reduce it to 3 for your turntable.  This will adjust the natural frequency of the spring system (calculated as sqrt [k/m]) badk to where it sould be.  Since the m of your turntable is low, you need to reduce the spring constant k, and less spings means lower k.  That is unless you've got one of those huge massive turntables (I'm all digital so I've never picked up a high end turntable).

On my 140 lb speakers I decided the nobosound were not stiff enough and went with a professionally designed spring isolation system from townshend.  I too was shocked by the improvement.  It was about $1600 more than nobosound and sounds like the results were not much different than you achieved but it does have a stable platform and an engineering calc behind it.  

You might post the weight of your speakers.  You have experimentally determined the mass of a speaker that matches the nobosounds well.

Jerry

Instead of buying a bunch of shoes, I  try inexpensive iso/vib devices. I have 4 sets that I will sell for $15/set 4 + shipping

Anyone balking at expensive isolation might try these to start out and then upgrade if the itch isn't yet fully scratched. 

I'll take isolation devices over springs every time as the premise seems flawed. I do like the term nob o' sound though.

Are those cork pads better than the nob o springs? I have some nob o springs and I hot glued the springs in on one side so they can't fall out when moving gear. I only use them on lite gear. I have some Townsend springs but no good under my table. It's to heavy. 

I have a really good quality Silent Running Audio Ohio Class isolation platform specifically tuned for my Linn LP12… well worth it. But I have Nobsound springs under everything else. Well worth it, and made a small difference under each… but this stuff adds up to be very important. Over time I will upgrade Nobsound springs for SRA platforms. Great inexpensive treak.

I also have one set of Townsend under my headphone DAC… better that Nobsprings, no question. But much more expensive. 

springs isolate speakers and allow the speakers to vibrate naturally.  

spikes anchor them to the floor so they try to vibrate the floor which limits their vibration.

Rubber, cork tend to damp vibration so it limits the ability of the speaker to vibrate but somewhat differetly than spikes.

Those are the facts.

What is opinion is which of these approaches is better for sound.  Lots of different opinions.  I posted mine above (springs) the OP posted that he prefers springs.  I think springs make most sense.

but I realize others have other opinions and I respect that. I just wanted to point out what each option does.  Make your own educated decision and enjoy the sound.

Jerry

I use springs under the Crites.  If I recall the weight limit for four springs is 120 lbs.  A rule of thumb is the spring should be half compressed, measured between top and bottom disk.

Is the definition of isolation pucks, pods, bars or platforms?

What category are springs ?

I put the Nobsounds under my open baffle speakers, GR Research NX-Oticas, and was very pleased with the change-like focusing a camera.

Others have said it’s the next best thing to Townshend platforms.

You do need to adjust the number of springs you leave in for the weight of the speakers.  You want them about one third to one half compressed.

Boing boing.

@carlsbad    It's horses for courses.  If you have a floor that moves and can be driven by vibrations in the speakers then yes, go for springs.  It you have a solid floor, spikes are best.  If I lay a heavy concrete slab on footings in the ground then vibrabrations from the speakers are not going to be passed to the earth via spikes.  Why?

Because the mass of the Earth is 5.972 × 10^24 kg and your speaker weighs say 200lb, that is a 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000th smaller.  If your speaker vibrates 1mm, Newton's Law says that the movement of the Earth will be utterly negligible.

@clearthinker while your math is correct,making it sound factual that spikes are better, it is still your opinion that anchoring the speaker to the floor sounds better. Springs to just the opposite.  2 very unequal masses almost totally decoupled.

I have no problem with people disagreeing.  If we never did, we wouldn't have this forum.

Enjoy.

I use them under a vintage AR XA I restored, they seem to do a nice job. I’ve experimented with the number of springs for each foot, but settled on all of them. Seems to be more stable laterally. 

@carlsbad    Thanks, but no, in fact my math is incorrect.  I forgot to divide the figure by 100 for the kg mass of the speakers, so I am left with only 22 zeros.

Yes, my experience has been that well adjusted spikes to hold the speaker utterly rigid to a good solid floor sounds cleaner and more solidly imaged than a flexible support on that floor.  After having my Martin Logan CLX Anniversaries serviced and cleaned and some cap replacements six months ago, I reinstalled on carpet with the soft feet supplied, to confirm the positioning, which I had marked with tape.  After some listening I reinstalled the spikes and stood on the rear boxes to ensure intimate contact with the floor below.  I then re-adjusted the threaded spikes and checked the vertical panels were rigid and unmoving.  The sound was distinctly (sic) improved, although this was not a blind comparison.

My floor is a new screed in a large room laid on an older one with footings below.

But anchoring to the floor only works better then flexible mounts if you have a very solid floor.  Springs/flexibles are better for everything else, although overall I don't believe the result can match spikes on a solid floor - but we don't all have solid floors.  I believe the reason is that allowing the drivers to move or vibrate relating to the listener necessarily smears the sound and particularly imaging - think of the Doppler principle but enormously reduced in magnitude.

I also mount my turntables and disc-players to the solid floor.  They stand on a 5 inch stone horizontal bridged by two similar stone verticals, each standing on a 75x22x5 inch marble horizontal spiked through to the concrete floor.  The best features of the sound is rock solid wide images and clarity of piano and voice.  Most of the highest-end TTs these days rely on mass-loading rather than suspension but their designers build in as much mass as possible.  Nevertheless they will be subject to movement and some vibration if mounted on flexible feet.  I don't go for all this gold-plated excess, preferring Simon Yorke's noughties flagship the S10 with Aeroarm.

Anyone has tried these? https://avroomservice.com/evp-2/
 

EVPs from Norman Varney. I met Norman yesterday at CAF. Very nice guy and very enthusiastic on his EVPs. He had samples on his booth 

Never used Nobosound springs, but I did put Isoacoustics Gaia’s on my speakers and there was an immediate change in the presentation. I was thinking of putting some of their pucks under my amp, but haven’t as of yet.

I have Decware Zen Open baffle speakers - 8" full range drivers from Decware and also the cabinet design from Decware. I built the cabinets myself using the Decware design - v1 was a disaster, so I got my local lumber shop to cut the larger pieces, and v2 is fine. My guess is the speakers weigh 70-80 lb. They are heavy and awkward. I weigh 140 lb and can pick them up, but very awkward. I have a 85 lab, and he is awkward to pick up - but he moves more than the speakers :-)

Last night I took the nobosounds out from under the TT because the legs on the TT kept moving around on the springs. Put the stock TT feet back under the TT and put the hobo's under the amp. Left them under the speakers.

Lots of air, detail and presence around instruments, voices. I listen to jazz, blues, Hendrix, Gary Moore, Steely Dan, classical, Diana Krall, Joni, Miles, Bill Evans, Lyn Stanley. I need to listen to all my albums all over again. I really can't get over the SQ now. A real AHA moment.

The reason I went with springs is I was reading some article somewhere about springs isolating vibrations better. There are also articles about having two dissimilar materials sandwiched by a vibration absorbing material. I sandwiched some 3/4" solid oak with some granite from a local counter place. The sandwiched material in the middle is from a company called ASC. I got ASC from @bdp24 here on this site - THANK YOU!  Its double sided sticky and worked great. The TT and phono preamp sit on this sandwich. The amp is just sitting on the springs on my hifi stand. Going from top to bottom the TT is top, then the phono preamp, then the amp.

I have not tried the cork products pictured above. Not sure how they would work as it looks like you have rubber on top, then cork, then rubber. The articles I was reading said 2 dissimilar materials, with a sound absorbing layer in the middle which is why I used oak and granite. Apparently this is common in auto manufacturing to absorb sounds. 

So I just ordered a set of Nobsound springs from Amazon and they will be here Thursday I’ll try them under the Hegel first and if I notice a difference, they will stay and if not, I’ll try them under the DAC.

Want to give it a try but wonder if this cheaper alternative ($21 vs $35 pet set of 4) would work the same?  The specs look similar but this one has larger base...  Your thought?

@lanx0003 

Good question. I have a bunch of boxes of Nobsound Springs and a couple boxes of those above, I found the Nobsound much higher quality. The springs fit tighter and I can use them with any number of springs… even one spring. The above have some springs loose and they are difficult to get under components because they fall apart or distort horizontally.

I buy the more expensive ones… they are still nearly ten times cheaper than Townsend. Until you can afford Townsend of course.

Thank you for the inputs, @ghdprentice 

I believe Matt Hooper (aka @prof here) has looked into similar decoupling devices extensively. Or maybe I confuse him with someone else.

@lanx0003 

👍😊

(That Bat Signal went up...)

I've tried the nobsound springs and the Townshend  Seismic Isolation Bars under my speakers and reported on the results in other threads.

The effect of the nobsound was just as the OP described.  Opening up of the sound, more transparent sounding mids, highs, lows, speakers disappearing etc.

Ultimately I preferred the speakers without the nobsound springs, just sitting on the carpet over my wood floor.  I found the springs altered the tonality just a bit too much, robbing it of some richness, and I also lost much of the "room feel" of the sound - things sounded a bit more like listening to an electrostatic speaker and I prefer more palpable sound. 

I thought the Townshend bars might be just the ticket and indeed they changed the tonality less than the nobsound, yet I still preferred my speakers without the Townshend bars (I'm one of the very few apparently).  There was just enough of a change of tonality away from what I prefer, plus again there was more "feel" to the sound when it interacted with the floor, more density to the sound.

I'm actually going to try the Isoacoustics Gaia 2 next under my speakers.   Pretty late to that party since they've been around and raved about for years.  I did indeed buy and test the Isoacoustic pucks for under my turntable (but Townshend springs were much better there).

My hope with the Isoacoustics is that they will sort of split the difference between springs and no footers.  Springs so fully decouple the speakers from the floor the sound loses feel and density, but if there is still SOME amount of coupling to the floor but SOME increase in bass tightness/imaging etc, that might be my sweet point.  I'll see...

@prof : yes please, post an update when you get your Iso GAIAs. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

I just added Audiocrast Spring Speaker Isolation to the rubber version of the antivibration pads (blue ones).  I have my subwoofers stacked and separating the subs with  springs was a huge improvement.  The bass is tighter, deeper and can be louder with getting boomy.  I did notice that it reduces the slam so some songs aren't quite as much sheer fun but the overall sound improved.  For subwoofers they provide a great improvement / price ratio.

I had tried a few "cheaper" isolation type products from Amazon over the years, never buying them a 2nd time due to the fact I never noticed much of a difference. On a whim but mostly due to them being slightly on sale and returnable I tried the Iso Acoustic pucks between my bookshelf speakers and stands. I was definitely amazed by how much they improved sound quality. Immediately I noticed clearer voices, midrange, higher frequency's.. initially that is what I noticed instead of the lower frequency's that most people rave on about.  The freaky part was now I could turn the volume up higher than before without losing any focus or it becoming shouty. Being able to turn the knob further helped reinforce that the improvements were not all in my head.

So while I had avoided the more expensive isolation products for the longest time due to their price and my doubts,  it turned out to be one of the cheapest upgrades I've made that had a significant positive effect on sound quality. I knew I had a "little" resonance coming from between the speaker and stand but had no idea how detrimental it was to the overall sound. The pucks made me such a believer that I ended up buying the mini ones and putting them under everything. How much of a difference that made I really don't know, can't tell a difference. 

I am not affiliated with this or any product/manufacturer. 

@mattw73 - I found the same with the volume. I was at 3 o'clock, can easily add 10-20% now and the SQ remains the same - no blurriness or shouting....

An update. I only had 4 Nobsounds - which I put under my turntable. For my Reference 3A de Capo monitors, I used four classic brass isolation cones for each speaker (something like these) and those, coupled with the Nobsounds, really opened up the sound!