Tough Nut Cones Isolation for loudspeakers, brilliant solution over spikes

I have them on my Solid Steel ss6 stands. I was skeptical. 
Seem to work. For sure did not hurt. 

Very interesting and thanks for sharing.  Love that these are so cost effective and I’ll definitely check these out at some point.  My understanding is that spikes are more for preventing vibrations from getting to the floor rather than providing isolation, and given their poor measured performance here this would seem to bear that out.  Isolation/damping sure makes a lot more sense to me and really makes me wonder why speaker manufacturers almost universally use spikes.  It would seem even budget isolation feet would be an improvement over spikes and would be a good question for a speaker manufacturer. 

I used SVS SoundPath isolation feet while I was waiting for these to arrive. Anything was better than spikes because of that intense focusing of vibration going through the spikes. If you look at loudspeakers from $2000 to $30000 more and more are shipping with isolation footers now rather than spikes. Some people believe you need the spikes on carpet, and in some ways I buy that sentiment, but the beauty of the Tough Nut Cones is that they are pointy enough to work perfectly on carpet.
But hey, even the SVS SoundPath feet were a significant upgrade over spikes.  

@audiotruth mine are on carpet. Picture in my virtual system. 

I have the Arendal towers, not monitors, but fwiw I replaced the Arendal feet with SVS Soundpath feet, put that on a stone plinth, and put that on those cork and rubber vibration absorbing pads.  supplyhouse.com has them for cheap.  Guarantee there is no vibration getting through all that.

It would be interesting to hear someone compare these to something like the Gaia Isoacoustics isolators.  People swear by them but I hate shelling out that much for footers

Although the argument is fragmented, the logic seems valid - Tough Nut Cones (seem to) represent a cost-effective choice for diminishing sound-wave transmission from speakers to the floor, and vise versa.

I like what I have, but I may give them a try...

@jrareform  In the link the OP provided the reviewer compared these to Gaia and subjectively preferred the Tough Nut footers in addition to them measuring better overall. 

@soix nice I didn't get a chance to watch that so I appreciate that info!

@audiotruth - great find.  Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for your post and comments. I went down this path 2 months ago and purchased the Townsend Seismic Podiums. During the process I had some correspondence withTough Nut. Very nice people and I found their products to be of interest. The Townsend’s convinced me about Isolation Vs Spikes and now I’m a believer. My plan is to get some Tough Nut products to try for component and rack isolation. Compared to most other products they are definitely less expensive. The bottom line is I’ll have to try them see how they perform. So any comments are greatly appreciated. Cheers , Mike B. 

Interesting product range that seems to be rationally priced, including some nice looking audio racks.

Note they offer IsoAcoustics as an option for their audio racks.

I use IsoPucks between my Harbeth 40.3's and the Ton Trager stands. How much difference they really make I cannot tell - I moved houses, installed them immediately, then treated the new room a bit and it seems like to much work to a/b test them - surely they can't hurt.

Thanks for sharing and congrats on the results you’ve gotten. It’s also always good to hear about some reasonably priced components in audio.

Based on @buellrider97 thread about footers and some general interest in trying something other than spikes on the stands of my Dynaudio speakers, I built some spring based footers. After an initial total failure, I got a second version working and after I installed them, I was floored at the difference over the supplied spikes. Better instrument definition and soundstage placement. Bass had better definition as well, but I found I had to adjust my sub a bit after I spent some time with the footers. I’m guessing that had something to do with the floor coupling with the spikes.

i’ve not tried any other footers previously, so can only compare to the spikes, but it’s been a real difference.

@cbrez  Hey there..... are your subs on some sort of isolation as well? That's another pretty major upgrade for both the sound quality and isolation, largely lowering the chances of disturbing your neighbors. I use SVS Sound Path footers on both my subs. Very positive upgrade/tiny investment.  Tim
 

Thanks for mentioning that @audiotruth. Right now just on some very cheap springs from Amazon, but I do have some additional plans to build footers there as well. Yes, always good to keep the neighbors happy. Thank you for putting this back in my head!

Spikes are a mistake from the 80's and like many things in life gained a reputation they don't deserve. The drivel about them acting as mechanical diodes and isolating speakers and such like had anybody with access to a lathe churning them out. Spikes couple very efficiently and will allow vibration in both directions.

Townshend's products make sense and work extremely well but are spendy. I tried some cheap as chips Vibrapods at about $30/set of 4 as a fun experiment to replace some Isoacoustics that I had under my Oppo and I prefer the Vibrapods. Later I saw a used Townshend platform which would match the weight of the component so I jumped at the oppotunity and glad I did. The difference was simply astonishing with a much lowered noise floor. 

There's a new kid on the block Stack Audio making waves which I haven't heard but appear worthy of consideration

Hockey pucks under each corner works fine for my Altec-Lansing 604-8G's in Model 17 cabinets. 

Springs under the subs work well.

I have Herbies stuff under components.  I wonder what the difference would be with cones?

My speakers are kind of thin towers and spikes make me nervous that they could tip over. The speakers came with spikes that extend beyond the cabinets (KEF R500). I got Symposium Acoustics platforms that have multiple internal layers that both isolate the speaker from my hard wood floors and decrease (drain) the internal vibrations within the speaker cabinet. You see some more expensive speakers have this type of platform at the bottom of their speakers and  usually some type of fat spike under them. The guy at Symposium was very helpful and not pushy at all. He makes some kind of discs that could go under the platforms, but said it might not be good to ride the height of the speaker from the original design, plus of course adding instability to the tall thin speakers. 

They make several different platforms that he can recommend based on the budget and weight application. He cut them specially fro the dimensions of my speakers. Best of all the sound improvement was immediately noticeable with a more focused clearer sound. He under promised and over delivered.

@daledeee1  - I’ll be honest.... this is one place my skepticism starts to play into things, about the cones under equipment.
I’m that guy who TOTALLY believes in higher-end cables, DACs sound different, amps sound different, blah blah..... but really and truly I think Herbie’s makes great stuff and I don’t think you’d really hear a difference upgrading from Herbies under your gear. 

@audiotruth - you may be skeptical, because you may not have a bad vibration control issue, for example if you are on a slab and if your speakers are far from a turntable, etc. I can assure you the cones or whatever isolation you consider do reduce the vibration, it is probably that the improvement isn't noticeable.

I put roller blocks under my phono stage and amp, and the improvements were not noticeable. Under my turntable, the Townshend platform was the most immediately noticeable (and this is used on top of a wall mounted shelf) followed by the speaker platforms. 

Just because I didn't immediately notice the improvement under the amp and phono stage doesn't mean the overall noise floor wasn't lowered.