Ok , so set me straight. I have uber thick shag over extra heavy Gortex type padding. My house is a 35 year old cement slab build. I have a couple styles of speakers. Zu omens on spikes and JBL 4312A monitors on 3 leg Sound Anchor stands, both run spikes. Even with what a Sound Anchor stand weighs , I had to press them down to penetrate my floor covering and hit the cement. My floor covering is so thick and dense that without spikes the JBL & Sound Anchor combo rocks at the slightest touch. There’s no way I could run springs or pads. I purchased 4” think walnut slabs from Timber Nation and spiked them to use as footers under my Zu’s. They sounded like crap. I had conversation with the man himself in Utah and tried all his suggestions for spacing the Omens, nothing worked. The Omens on spikes leave maybe a 1/4” gap over the shag and have substantial bass, even with modest tube watts. I must admit I’ve yet to try stacking 2 completely different systems to make an Odd Couple ( pun intended ), but my spikes work pretty well. I think there’s some solid information in this thread, but it’s overloaded with theory based on reading articles Vs actual testing. I’m not saying people are wrong, but I’m saying some are being too absolute in their opinion. So I guess there’s more than one way to catch a fish. And please understand that my words are not meant to offend anyone, we have too much of that here. Happy Listening, Mike B.
Speaker Spikes - Working Principle
Vibration damping obvious makes sense (in speakers just as well as in cars).
That involves 'killing' (converting into heat, through typically internal friction) kinetic energy. So any sort of elastic material (rubber has lots of internal friction) makes sense.
And then there are spikes. Using a pointy hard object and pair it with a softer, elastic material (to deform, and kill kinetic energy) can work; think metal sharp spike into carpet or wood floor.
But what is the idea behind pairing fairly unelastic metal (brass for example) with similarly unelastic (brass, stone, etc) material (example photo provided)? Only thing I can come up with: LOOKS good and makes owner feel good thinking its an improvement (works only for Audiophiles though),
Even more curious: are they ENGINEERED "spikes" (vibration dampers or shock absorbers) for speakers that are TUNED for the frequency (and mass) that needs to be dampened? Can piston style fluid dampers be designed for the high frequencies (100, 1000, 10000 Hz) using geometry, nozzles size and viscosity of the fluid?
