Tough Nut Cones Isolation for loudspeakers, brilliant solution over spikes


I wanted to share with everyone an experience I had with trying to decide how to decouple my Arendal 1723 THX Monitors and their stands from the floor. 

Most of us know now that the days of thinking metal spikes were the best idea are over. It generates immense pounds per square inch of pressure into one point and all that energy is then transferred to the floor.... the last thing we want to do with speakers. Many mid-fi to high-end loudspeakers now ship with isolation footers/feet instead of spikes.
I happened across a FANTASTIC video from Jay's Iyagi:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32DrKCqLWkk&t=788s 
Immediately upon watching that video, based on measurements from Jay, I contacted Derrick at Tough Nut Cones in Canada. So for $170 per stand/speaker I bought the Medium Cones. Derrick and his wife were amazing to talk to and deal with. 
So I now have them installed.... the sound is truly brilliant. And the cones are just "pointy" enough that they work on both solid floors and carpeted floors (as I have) and they look really wicked under the stands.

audiotruth

Showing 1 response by gournard

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