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.
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 |
