Subwoofer Footing - Connect or Isolate?


What is considered the best way to "foot" a subwoofer, should one try to connect it with the floor or isolate it? I have a REL 7i that I have firmly coupled to my wood floor with the weight of a 42 lb curling stone, mainly because it looks cool. Would some sort of isolation be better and reduce resonance from the floor, or could the connection with the floor help "drain" resonance from the subwoofer cabinet?
zlone

Showing 2 responses by lonemountain

Wow a lot of bad info here.  Isolating things that move is important when you don't want to excite other elements of the listening room that add to and change the total sound you perceive.  This is an issue of mass vs frequency.

The total sound you perceive is the speaker direct sound + speaker indirect [reflected] sound + room dimensional sound + all vibrating materials in the room [tables, floors, walls etc]. 

Wooden speaker stands vs heavy Sound Anchor stands is clear evidence of this idea as the wooden stands will vibrate at an audible frequency (knock on them with your knuckles to hear an example) vs hi mass Sound Anchors which vibrate differently due to high mass.

For the spring idea to work, it must be tuned for the weight of thing moving.  Random springs set for an unknown weight will not solve your problem.  Look at a car or truck, springs are set very specifically depending on weight and the many factors of behavior once excited.   

Decoupling sources of LF is important to not waste unwanted mechanical energy vs the energy you want: acoustic energy.  Giant generators are isolated from the concrete pad they sit to control vibration that turns into LF hum that can penetrate an entire building and make it impossible to work. 

See  Noisia Studio Tour | Razer Music - Bing video
this shows the springs used under some fairly heavy (150+ lbs) ATC monitors.  Very specific spring rates.
Brad
I have.  Huge difference in the system I heard it on (the one in the video posted earlier).  Amazing what it sounds like isolated from the floor and room structure.  This was build by an acoustics expert whos quite popular in the US and builds the best mastering rooms Ive ever heard. 

I like oldhvymec, cool story about the big generators.  I was thinking of a hotel I visited recently with back up generators out back on big concrete pads so maybe it was more than concrete?
brad