Townsend springy platforms for my Sasha 2s, springs not ISOA GIAS, HRTs for electronics???


I noticed a lot of discussion recently about springs as OPPOSED to spikes, Iso acoustic GIAS or HRT supports. I may be way late to the party, but in tracking this down I discovered the company Townsend. The engineering may be complex but the working concepts are pretty easy to grasp, but do they work?  The company's suggestion was to remove my GIAS under my Sasha 2s and additionally add three platforms for my electronics, two under my ARC REF10 and one for my dCS Bartok. A 5K tweak is a lot but not out of the question. After all when a pair of Cardas interconnects is $4250, 4 to 5K for proper support for five components does not sound unreasonable if they make a significant contribution. Does anyone have experience in what I might expect these products will contribute? The pitch is to buy it all to get the best price, but is there a progressive implementation that makes sense? The company rep suggests replace the GIAS first, then source, preamp then amps. I can't wait to hear from the collective as while spring suspensions have been around forever on turntables, the trend I was aware of has been toward ridged coupling for speakers. Even my old Krell KSA  had factory spikes for the footers. Old dogs CAN learn new tricks if it sounds better!
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Showing 4 responses by wokeuptobose

I appreciate everyone's contribution, especially MILLERCARBON who has helped blaze this trail.  I am in contact with John from Townsend and we are working on options. I told him I couldn't face trying to put the Sashas on the Podiums with the spikes and he said that I can slide the speakers flat bottomed onto the Podiums without spikes. That I think I can do. Has anyone compared flat bottomed versus spikes with the Podiums? I know myself well enough to know that if I do this Ill be listening and wondering if I am missing something additional by not putting them on spikes. If the bottoms are "flat" it doesn't seem like it would be a disadvantage. Coupling between the speaker and the Podium seems paramount. Its interesting that John continues to support his position that the Podiums are the first step, biggest bang for the buck step, over tackling the electronics. I've tried to get him to waver as I just hate messing with 200 pound speakers, but he remains steadfast in his position. My continued thanks to contributors. 
Well, the game is on. I just ordered 2 #3 Podiums for the Sasha 2s, 2 #3 Platforms for the ARC REF10, an extra pod for the power supply box of the REF, and a #2 Platform for the dCS Bartok. I will let everyone know what I hear as I install it in a progressive way. (Not that I'm progressive, I meant in a serial fashion.) I plan to  blame millercarbon if this does not meet every one of my audio wishes. I think others do that, so I'm just going with the flow!
Yes, they look great. They look more industrial than the ISO Acoustics. Look better and sound better, great! Plus, talk about first world problems...it looks like the person running the vacuum cleaner in my room can't run it into the sides of my Sasha's!  Thanks for the posts.
As promised I received and installed my Podiums today. Thank you to Millercarbon and Ozzy for their encouragement as it wasn't so difficult to get my 200 pound speakers up on them. I just moved slowly and used towels to protect everything. 
I'm going to install my platforms over the weekend so this is just the Podiums so far. Also, I'm coming off of IsoAcoustics GAIA Is and the speakers are Wilson Sasha 2s. I have nothing but positives to say about the sound advantages of the GAIAs over spikes, especially their form factor and ease of use as opposed to spikes. That said at twice the price the Townsend Podiums need to be better. They are!
Please forgive me in advance for my sometimes corny descriptions...I'm not a professional writer or reviewer!
My most intense overall thought with the Podiums is how I am now able to track all the different melodies/instruments and vocals as distinct and separate rather than presented as a mass melody. For example on Mark Knopfler's 5:15AM his guitar just floats along distinctly embedded in the band, but clear to me in a way like never before. Other observations are as follows:
-Bass notes sound like instruments not just a lower register sound.
-Image is more precise laterally, vocals are in a specific place, and now not always centered.
-increased clarity/focus is across the entire frequency range. That said, the upper midrange/female vocals are clearly more distinct/discreet. 
-I'm a more relaxed listener, probably less sibilance. (This is the first few hours so this might just be listener bias).
-Goo Goo Dolls, Iris, lead singer has his own space and melody line, the rest of the band is clearly accompanying him...not a mass of sound.
-Start and stop is more dramatic and note decay is longer against a quieter background. Along these lines I also notice a pace or timing  improvement too. In the Shape of a Heart, solo vol. 2, Jackson Browne, the gaps are silent except for a little quiet whine of probably a string I never heard before in the "silence".
-As far as a form factor, sometimes I think they look really cool and industrial, other times they look a bit much, and make my speaker look like a black octopus. That's a nit pick, whatever!
In terms of value at $2600 they are the best accessory value I have ever made. Neil Gader in his TAS review said something like they were an essential upgrade. I didn't understand that then, but I do now. I recently bought two pairs of Cardas Clear Beyond interconnects(retail $8500). These were upgrades over a couple of very good $600 cables I picked through a shootout. The cable upgrade was clearly an improvement, but not of a scale of these Podiums, and certainly a dear price to have paid.  The Podiums are a steal of an improvement in my system. 
When I started looking at this technology it went against everything I thought I knew about vibration and resonance control. The concepts are not hard to understand, but they were hard for me to believe. I'm a believer now! Highly recommended. I will let you know how the Platforms turn out this weekend. They are going one each under my two box ARC REF 10 preamp and one under my dCS Bartok streamer. As always, thanks to those of you helping me to learn more about this hobby!