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Speaker spike feet?

I recently acquired a nice older hifi system with Aerial Acoustics 7B tower speakers.I am not an audiophile. The speakers have heavy iron bases on them but there are no feet of any sort on these bases. I emailed the owner/designer at Aerial and he sent me a schematic of the bases which show that they originally had spike feet. He said he could provide the spikes at minimal cost. I was afraid to ask what minimal meant since I seem to remember that these bases cost $400 when new. (I'm still getting accustomed to what things cost in the audiophile world.)

I am wondering if I really need the spikes. These speakers sit on a carpeted floor with hardwood on typical joist construction floor. They sound quite good to me but if spikes would help in any way and I can get them cheap then I will do so.

I'll ask Aerial how much theirs cost but I'm pretty sure that stainless steel tripod (for photography) spikes will fit the 3/8-16 threads in these bases. The cost would be about $40 for those. Maybe the actual Aerial ones wouldn't cost any more but they are longer and look very sharp which makes me wonder about floor/carpet damage since these speakers weigh around 110 pounds each.
n80

Showing 4 responses by geoffkait

geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Obviously, if you look hard enough you can find somebody somewhere who doesn’t follow the pattern. Somebody who like rubber, somebody who likes Sorbothane, somebody who likes lead. These things happen. He’s an outlier. Isolation is important and effective even for cement slabs since the entire building is moving.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Isolating the speakers with springs, making them less rigid, sounds better.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Throbbing Gristle (TG) Audio pretty much nailed down, to use an expression, the tempered steel spikes territory with Pointy Things 25 years ago. IMHO the best solution to the whole vibration issue is a combo of mass on spring isolation and spikes or cones and damping of the top plate. Everything is relative and it’s difficult to determine if you have achieved a maximum or only a local maximum. 😛

Rubber? Yikes!
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
I certainly don’t wish to muddy the waters but I have addressed the issue of materials for audio cones and feet elsewhere but it might be worth repeating. For audio cones, the way the rating of materials vs sound quality works is the HARDER the material the faster energy exits the system. Thus, NASA grade ceramic that’s almost as hard as diamond heads the list. Heat tempered and cryod high carbon steel next. Ordinary steel next. Then come aluminum, brass and carbon fiber which are way on down the Moh scale of hardness. The differences in the sound of these materials should be easy to hear on any reasonably good system. The shape of the cone is also important but not as much as the material. Iso stands are also subject to the differences in cone material, and cones should be placed under the component and under the stand, to avoid storing energy in the system.
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