Spikes versus Rubber on wood floor?

Hi Gammajo. I thought your handle was familiar. You posted a thread on 02-06-05 titled "Spikes versus wall coupling". There are over 40 responses on that thread on vibration isolation, some from pros in the field. If you revisit the comments there, I can't add anything more. My posts on that thread also contain a reference to a website which have pictures of, and sell, Superspikes.

Markphd Thanks for the reminder I will look up the old thread

Hopefully, we will someday see more of scientific research
about hi-fi matters. As it is , many people seem to be in a dark zone, where they are prone to fall for Wodo , because they hope to obtain something positve,but they wouldn´t .
Vibration control is an area, quite possible to apply research to . Let it be competition, but let there be more objective guidelines, on what is best under different circumstances. This could be obtainded, if we,- the consumers, only asked for more of this, and the market, in this case the manufacturers would provide it. As it is ,
I don´t find the situation to be satisfying , especially when it comes to cables and accessories. Spikes has long been a given item , and a holy cow, because nobody questioned it. Now some people seem to realize that there are alternatives, but in this situation , some not serious enough manufacturers turn up , and the confusion goes on.

You may ask us what to use, but we maybe not have the best answer. And it´s interesting to see , that a proposual that is based in a study I do have seen , is easely neglected! Spikes never give an improvement(compared to rigid feet,placed direct on the floor),but sometimes worsens things.Properly decoupled speakers, based on the theory of lowpass and highpass filter theory, often give an improvment, but never worsens things. You may wiggle a decoupled speaker back and forth , by hand . Common sense can be a limit in understanding, Thus , is it possible for the bass driver to wiggle the speaker?

The reason there isn't much scientific research about this kind of thing is because our measurement equipment isn't as good as our ears. Maybe in the future we will have test gear that will be able to measure more subtle effects that right now are only detected by humans.

Here are a few thoughts, for what there are worth.

IMHO the only vibrations which originate in a speaker that are 'necessary' to drain are those which by reason of construction and materiels creat a resonance at some particular frequency, if that resonance actually effects sound quality (some speakers are voiced to include resonances). In order to 'drain' the vibrations at any particular frequency (where the resonance occurs) wouldn't you have to have materiel which would be capable of passing vibrations in that frequency as opposed to having a similar resonance frequency which might then compound the problem? If that is correct how do you select the materiel used to connect the speaker and the floor?

What I think might actually be in play, which is not discussed much, is the benefit of isolating speakers from the floor. Again IMHO most of the vibrations which occur in the rooms and floors are the result of airborn loading from the speakers. When the speaker is fully coupled with the floor these vibrations are being fed back into the speaker which causes a change in perceived sound quality and may actually increase the degree of resonance of the speaker in its resonance frequency.

As I said, just some random thoughts..............

Just a few thoughts, I'm sure most of you have the answers and they are not revelant.