@OP Carpet and underlay will not act a mass-spring-damper system. Locating the bottom of the cabinet in free space will not "change" the sound of the majority of speakers since they are designed to be set up in that way.
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?
Showing 6 responses by yoyoyaya
Before there was ever conjecture about spikes having anything to do with resonances, the purpose of spiking a speaker was simply to stop it rocking in reaction the motion of the drive units and to keep the speaker level. Since floors are rarely flat, spikes were seen as an economical way to achieve both goals. |
+1 on the last three posts. To wit, @OP, compressible materials like felt or paper will not work. In fact, even a spike into a wooden floor will not work without being placed on a footer as the spike will distort the wood over time and the speaker will become unstable. As to economy, as said in the above posts, spikes are actually a very affordable and simple engineering solution to ensuring speakers are stable and level and in my listening experience they make worthwhile improvements to sound quality. |
@tcotruvo - to further amplify your point (no pun intended), I originally had my Wilsons (which weight 400lbs each) directly on my carpeted floor (with thin pile carpet). I subsequently spiked them once I had their position optimised and the improvement in sound quality was significant. What surprised me was the degree of improvement in resolution in the midrange as well as the bass. |
@tcotruvo Yes! I mentioned this as a case study because there can be a mistaken assumption that just because something is very heavy, it won't move around. However, at the risk of provoking the ire of the OP, the spikes not only stop reactive movement of the loudspeaker cabinets arising from the motion of the drive units, but they also stop the bottom of the cabinet from coupling directly to the floor and turning the floor into a giant resonator/soundboard. In the specific case, the floor is actually quite well damped as it composed of two different layers of wood, a linseed oil based composite and carpet. But... |