Yes and probably at any price too.
Townshend Audio Podiums: The Full Review
I’ve been fascinated with the importance of vibration control for more than three decades now. A lot of my experience is already covered in Millercarbon's Mega Vibration Control Journey https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/millercarbon-s-mega-vibration-control-journey The Journey ended with springs. Then I got Pods, and wrote Vibration Control and the Townshend Audio Seismic Pods https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/vibration-control-and-the-townshend-audio-seismic-pods Now as we continue our journey forward it is time to review the Townshend Audio Podiums.
Podiums are based on the same basic engineering used in Pods. A spring is encased in a rubber sleeve that functions as a sort of bellows, trapping the air inside. At the top the spring is attached to a threaded metal plate with a single very precise small hole in it. The threads are for height adjustment and the hole is to allow air to pass through. A very small, precision-controlled amount of air. This tiny little hole allows the air to function as a damper.
A fundamental challenge with springs is they bounce. We want them to bounce. But we do not want them to keep bouncing! When that happens we say it resonates, and resonance adds color. It is a form of distortion, and we don’t want it. Springs all by themselves are already very good at isolation. Please read the above threads to see just how good they are. But even as good as they are springs do have this problem of resonance.
The problem with damping is figuring out how to achieve it, and how much to use? The air valve method Max Townshend invented uses only a couple percent damping ratio and does this with air alone and no moving parts. Genius!
The four damped spring towers are attached to a very dense, massive and inert plinth. My traditional knuckle rap test yielded a very satisfactory ’thunk’. Stiff and highly damped, it is also covered in an extremely durable and beautiful finish. Sliding speakers on and off left zero marks on them, and they really are handsome to look at.
The damped spring towers at each corner are threaded for two different leveling adjustments. The first is to level the unloaded Podium on the floor. This first step eliminates any problems or situations where the floor is not perfectly level. This adjustment (if necessary) is made with a special thin wrench that comes supplied with the Podiums.
The speakers are then placed on the Podiums and fine tuned for precision placement. At this point, loaded with 150lbs worth of Moabs, making fine positioning adjustments on my thick carpet proved a bit of a challenge. The solution I came up with was BDR Round Things under the footers. Furniture gliders would probably also work. If it is even a problem. My carpet and pad are very thick. They do look like they will work beautifully on hardwood flooring.
Once perfectly positioned the speakers are raised by turning the knobs at each corner. There is a process to doing this. First all four are turned equally, until all four corners are floating free and clear. It is essential to allow freedom of motion in all planes. Once this is achieved then the speakers can be adjusted perfectly level by turning the knobs in pairs- the two on the left or right, or the two on the front or back. Adjusting in pairs this way avoids diagonal rocking.
Describing this process in print is hard but doing it in practice is easy. In fact this was the coolest part of setting them up! With the Podiums I was able to place my level right on the Podium. Even fully loaded with about 150lbs of Moabs and BDR the knobs turn silky smooth, and precision leveling is super easy.
Okay, okay, so how do they sound? In a word: wonderful! This can’t come as much of a surprise. They are after all basically Pods attached to a plinth, and the Pods work wonderfully under everything I have tried. Still, the Podiums are pretty impressive.
The first thing I noticed was improvement in the direction of what I would call a more natural sound. Natural sounds are almost never described as having glare or strain. Natural sounds can be quite loud. But there is a difference in nature between a loud natural sound and the same sound through a system. They may measure the same volume but we have no trouble hearing the difference.
At this point I have to agree with Max and say that the difference is ringing. Natural sounds start and stop very quickly. Sounds reproduced by our systems cause the system itself to vibrate, then the room, and the room feeds back into the system until the whole thing is ringing like a bell. This all happens very fast and can be seen demonstrated on a seismograph placed on a speaker. https://youtu.be/BOPXJDdwtk4?t=6
In any case, whatever the explanation it is clear there is a lot less glare and strain with speakers on the Townshend Podiums. This results for me in a lot less listener fatigue. Another thing I find is that while I don’t necessarily need to turn the volume up, when I do it is way more enjoyable! The combination of speakers like Moabs capable of playing very loud and strain-free with Podiums is intoxicating!
The next thing I’m hearing is a massive improvement in what I would call truth of timbre, or tone, or whatever you want to call it that makes each individual instrument sound more like itself and not any other. Not the big differences that distinguish a steel from a string guitar, but the little details that distinguish one wood-bodied gut-stringed guitar from another. Not hyped-up count the spittle hitting the mic details either but the sort of tonal shadings that distinguish the real vocal talent from the second-tier. Even now after more than a month on Podiums still I put on records that have me going Wow that wood block really is a wood block!
This is why I spent so much time explaining Max’s damping mechanism. Before Podiums my Moabs were on springs. The load was the same, and the springs were properly sized for the load. However, the springs on my DIY platforms were not damped. Consequently, they had their characteristic resonance. This resonance colors everything played on them. Like viewing the world through rose-colored glasses- you may like what you see but that ain’t the world! Now on Podiums the world as presented by the Moabs is full blown Ultra Panavision 70! https://vashivisuals.com/the-hateful-eight-ultra-panavision-70/
Those who follow me know I am not just about sound quality, I am also about value. Because I am so passionate about sound quality, but have only limited resources, I have to be. No way I have enough money to go chasing the latest and greatest. One look at my system anyone can see how hard I will work if it will get the job done for less. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367
For sure springs will do a very fine job for very low cost. Just about any spring, properly tuned and used, will outperform an awful lot of stuff that costs a whole lot more. For sure anyone in the market for good vibration control solutions- and that should be everyone! - should consider springs. But Townshend Podiums are so much better than ordinary springs that I have to say that even at their price they are not just as good value, but even better. They are that good.
Podiums are based on the same basic engineering used in Pods. A spring is encased in a rubber sleeve that functions as a sort of bellows, trapping the air inside. At the top the spring is attached to a threaded metal plate with a single very precise small hole in it. The threads are for height adjustment and the hole is to allow air to pass through. A very small, precision-controlled amount of air. This tiny little hole allows the air to function as a damper.
A fundamental challenge with springs is they bounce. We want them to bounce. But we do not want them to keep bouncing! When that happens we say it resonates, and resonance adds color. It is a form of distortion, and we don’t want it. Springs all by themselves are already very good at isolation. Please read the above threads to see just how good they are. But even as good as they are springs do have this problem of resonance.
The problem with damping is figuring out how to achieve it, and how much to use? The air valve method Max Townshend invented uses only a couple percent damping ratio and does this with air alone and no moving parts. Genius!
The four damped spring towers are attached to a very dense, massive and inert plinth. My traditional knuckle rap test yielded a very satisfactory ’thunk’. Stiff and highly damped, it is also covered in an extremely durable and beautiful finish. Sliding speakers on and off left zero marks on them, and they really are handsome to look at.
The damped spring towers at each corner are threaded for two different leveling adjustments. The first is to level the unloaded Podium on the floor. This first step eliminates any problems or situations where the floor is not perfectly level. This adjustment (if necessary) is made with a special thin wrench that comes supplied with the Podiums.
The speakers are then placed on the Podiums and fine tuned for precision placement. At this point, loaded with 150lbs worth of Moabs, making fine positioning adjustments on my thick carpet proved a bit of a challenge. The solution I came up with was BDR Round Things under the footers. Furniture gliders would probably also work. If it is even a problem. My carpet and pad are very thick. They do look like they will work beautifully on hardwood flooring.
Once perfectly positioned the speakers are raised by turning the knobs at each corner. There is a process to doing this. First all four are turned equally, until all four corners are floating free and clear. It is essential to allow freedom of motion in all planes. Once this is achieved then the speakers can be adjusted perfectly level by turning the knobs in pairs- the two on the left or right, or the two on the front or back. Adjusting in pairs this way avoids diagonal rocking.
Describing this process in print is hard but doing it in practice is easy. In fact this was the coolest part of setting them up! With the Podiums I was able to place my level right on the Podium. Even fully loaded with about 150lbs of Moabs and BDR the knobs turn silky smooth, and precision leveling is super easy.
Okay, okay, so how do they sound? In a word: wonderful! This can’t come as much of a surprise. They are after all basically Pods attached to a plinth, and the Pods work wonderfully under everything I have tried. Still, the Podiums are pretty impressive.
The first thing I noticed was improvement in the direction of what I would call a more natural sound. Natural sounds are almost never described as having glare or strain. Natural sounds can be quite loud. But there is a difference in nature between a loud natural sound and the same sound through a system. They may measure the same volume but we have no trouble hearing the difference.
At this point I have to agree with Max and say that the difference is ringing. Natural sounds start and stop very quickly. Sounds reproduced by our systems cause the system itself to vibrate, then the room, and the room feeds back into the system until the whole thing is ringing like a bell. This all happens very fast and can be seen demonstrated on a seismograph placed on a speaker. https://youtu.be/BOPXJDdwtk4?t=6
In any case, whatever the explanation it is clear there is a lot less glare and strain with speakers on the Townshend Podiums. This results for me in a lot less listener fatigue. Another thing I find is that while I don’t necessarily need to turn the volume up, when I do it is way more enjoyable! The combination of speakers like Moabs capable of playing very loud and strain-free with Podiums is intoxicating!
The next thing I’m hearing is a massive improvement in what I would call truth of timbre, or tone, or whatever you want to call it that makes each individual instrument sound more like itself and not any other. Not the big differences that distinguish a steel from a string guitar, but the little details that distinguish one wood-bodied gut-stringed guitar from another. Not hyped-up count the spittle hitting the mic details either but the sort of tonal shadings that distinguish the real vocal talent from the second-tier. Even now after more than a month on Podiums still I put on records that have me going Wow that wood block really is a wood block!
This is why I spent so much time explaining Max’s damping mechanism. Before Podiums my Moabs were on springs. The load was the same, and the springs were properly sized for the load. However, the springs on my DIY platforms were not damped. Consequently, they had their characteristic resonance. This resonance colors everything played on them. Like viewing the world through rose-colored glasses- you may like what you see but that ain’t the world! Now on Podiums the world as presented by the Moabs is full blown Ultra Panavision 70! https://vashivisuals.com/the-hateful-eight-ultra-panavision-70/
Those who follow me know I am not just about sound quality, I am also about value. Because I am so passionate about sound quality, but have only limited resources, I have to be. No way I have enough money to go chasing the latest and greatest. One look at my system anyone can see how hard I will work if it will get the job done for less. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367
For sure springs will do a very fine job for very low cost. Just about any spring, properly tuned and used, will outperform an awful lot of stuff that costs a whole lot more. For sure anyone in the market for good vibration control solutions- and that should be everyone! - should consider springs. But Townshend Podiums are so much better than ordinary springs that I have to say that even at their price they are not just as good value, but even better. They are that good.
204 responses Add your response
So the sound we hear comes from the diaphragm, pushed back and forth by the voice coil within a magnetic field and restrained by a spider and a rubber surround. All the moving components are insulated brilliantly from the non-moving components. That’s how a driver works. Kenjit argues the cabinets should be the heaviest concrete possible and gets shouted down, but maybe his reasoning is good. Anyway, those diaphragms whiz in and out suspended from anything which shouldn’t. They push air. The air vibrates everting around - floor, walls, mug of tea, ear drums. And these vibrations are shared around, so the cabinets get some too either directly because the driver’s design has less than perfect isolation, or indirectly because they are inside a vibrating air mass. Question - does any of the secondary vibration imparted to the cabinet make it all the way back through the isolation of the diaphragm and voice coil in a way that affects the primary production of sound waves? Very unlikely indeed at all, and in a measure able amount I’d say no. So if your cabinets are vibrating because the air in the room (and therefore the floor they sit on) is vibrating, what does it matter? If the seismograph in the video was mounted on the driver cone and the chap jumped up and down, would you see a trace? Any trace would be due to the direct effect of any air vibrations on the diaphragm itself. There is literally nothing you can do about that. Apart from scale everything down and use closed-back headphones. If you worry about your cabinets ringing due to them being vibrated by the air in the room, you could cover them in sound insulating materials - aka room treatment. Might spoil the look and obscure the signatures though. |
And by the way, compared to what is going on inside those cabinets, these vibrations from external sources are so many orders of magnitude smaller (whether additionally damped or not) they are unlikely to have any non-psychoacoustic effect at all. Hence why no reputable speaker manufacturer floats their engineered-to-death products on springs and bellows, or coats them on the outside with wool and foam like they do on the inside. If there was an effect, they’d know. Given the willingness of some in the market to pay for even the tiniest (or even imaginary) gains, they’d sell it I’m sure. None do, so I’m guessing they realise that the reputational harm caused to their brand by quackery would be too great. A little startup though, with massive margins on their pretty-looking kit sold to the unquestioning part of the audiophile market? Worth a punt. |
Actually bluemoodriver all of the vibration on my setup is from outside the enclosure.. ALL of it.. The isolation for my monitors is from BASS vibrations, (harmonics) in separate enclosures.. All the drivers are planars and ribbons. They are mounted in a HDF baffle mounted to 3 sheets of 1/2" mdf for the round driver enclosure. There is as close to ZERO as you can get, INDIDE. The bass section is always the problem in the same enclosure.. It cannot work.. EVERYTHING else is a compromise.. No Bass, no problem. Speaker manufactures are YOU and ME, the other guys (any speaker manufacture) just decided to try to sell their ideas and make money. AIN’T gonna work for me. When I see one BOX, I see two problems. I stopped that bad idea a LONG time ago. SOME are learning, most are not. Swarm comes to mind.. DBA comes to mind.. Old ideas all fixed up in a new dress. CLOSE but not the best... add two more narrow MB COLUMNS, perfect... :-) Regards |
I own the podiums. Put them under my Harbeth 40.2 which sit on top of Tontrager stands. So the strands are on top of the podiums. I believe the favorable impact which in my case is not subtle is dependent on the environment they placed in - your room, your source (like a turntable), etc. and I did treat the source first. It was an expensive purchase so of course I wanted them to work but I agreed upfront with Mr Townshend’s rep (John) that I could return them if I didn’t like them. But that wasn’t the case. Again in my room it’s easily audible how it improved the entire presentation most noticeable lyrics in songs that I usually find hard to understand—I wear hearing aids and that’s always my test usually on tweaks. |
All vibrate in a speaker inducing resonance and unwanted colorations...Ideally decouplig the drivers enclosures from the tweeter enclosure would be an idea for example there is plenty of other one... ... Thinking that no external vibrations or internal one never color in an unwanted way the sound is naive...Resonance and tuning communicating parts are pervasive in speakers...The slight modification on top of a speaker like adding few grams on a critical damping load produce audible spectacular effect, a better timbre perception or a worst one... No perfect solution exist but it is up to each one of us also to look for one.... I chose double dyssimetric compression with damping load...Cost peanuts...Better tuning of my speakers between the 2 different compressive forces near one another applied to the speaker rectangular box...... And simple common sense also may speak: Speaker manufactures are YOU and ME, the other guys (any speaker manufacture) just decided to try to sell their ideas and make money. |
Oldhvymec - you build you own too? I get the philosophy of no cabinets. I went the other way and made the cabinet part of the instrument; back loaded horns. The middle way (box cabinet, sealed, cube not spherical, loads of crossovers, and still hope it “disappears” when the music starts) always looked a compromise too far for me. Hence the looking for alternatives. |
Spikes vs. Isolation for Speakers Here is an interesting video with measurements. Yes, it is from an isolation base manufacturer, but interesting to me is that they not only compare their own product to spikes but also to Townshend’s platforms, which appear to isolate (at least) as good as their own Credo product. |
Coincidentally my dog just barked really loud. The room I’m in rang with a slower decay than her bark in the air. The dog has nature’s isolation pads on her feet but hey, the ringing still happened. If she stood on her claws when she barked, you think the ringing would be noticeably worse? Or if she jumped in the air to bark, noticeably better? Doubt it. |
I need some help with the scales on the charts in that video. The left scale is labelled dBv. And the peak with spikes is about -105 on that scale. Am I right, that -105 dBv converts to -101 db? and when the isolation pads were used, the peak reduced to -115 on the dBv scale. Does that convert to -110 db? Aren’t all these very substantially below the level of our hearing? Does a change from -101 to -110 mean anything? I can’t imagine this manufacturer would make an argument based on such numbers so my maths must be wrong. Can someone put me right? |
I can’t imagine this manufacturer would make an argument based on such numbers so my maths must be wrong. Can someone put me right? For Rob Watts the very well known dac designer human ears can discern differences pertaining to change in the noise floor from -200 Db to -175 Db Iam not a scientist at all but i believe him....Some changes not directly audible could percolate by their effects and could be audible indirectly at another scale... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXyjsSYjnL8&t=3s For the vibrations controls: The noise floor differences between speakers on the ground or variously isolated certainly make an audible differences....like in dac a different noise floor make one... My own method using, near the optimal compressive point of the springs, 2 different compression mode, one slightly over the optimal compression point the other slightly under it, at the 2 end of my rectangular box speaker work not only isolating but decreasing some destructive resonance of the enclosure and the change are spectacular .... For the acoustic controls: i use many devices but mainly passive materials controls like most, reflective, diffusive and absorbent surfaces.... But most important i use An Helmholtz pressured pipes grid of 18 tubes which are powerful in the transformation of the acoustical peoperties of my room on many frequencies scale simultaneously.... The many others devices complement it in a less impactful way but nonetheless in a very audible way for example i use ionizers for working of the air pressure and 12 S.G. which are modified with minerals addition and connected to my resonators grid... For me the S.G. work on the electrical noise floor of the room....All these audible effects go from slightly audible to powerfully audible and they all act together to give to me an audio system with a basic cost/quality S.Q. over the roof... I never listen to a system that make mine like trash.... It is not the best at all, but what count is not the system but the way we tune it..... For the electrical grid control: I use my own peanuts cost device with success the "golden plates" : shungite plate+copper tape on the outside ... i use them all along my electrical grid....i use also other cheap minerals... In audio we must learn how to controls 3 conjugate noise floors in the house/room/system : the mechanical one, the electrical one and the acoustical one.... I called that the controls of the three working embeddings dimensions for any audio system... It is a method of listenings experiments and controls; it is not "snake oil" it cost peanuts and it is not a magical costly secondary addition of a "tweak".... I succeeded my own way....Cost: peanuts..... «We must always refrain our sarcasm in case we lost balance ourself or if it is an acrobat's fall, unless we tried it ourself before smiling»-Anonymus Smith |
mitch2, thanks for the video. Ringing and smear- just what Max said. Very easy to see on the Townshend video. Very hard to decipher on the graphs the Swiss guy likes to use. Being able to see it in real time makes it crystal clear. Was nice to hear the guy say spikes do transmit vibration up into the speaker, and they add resonance at different frequencies. Exactly what I have heard for years and why I never used them. |
Mahgister - I thought negative dB was below our audible range. By definition. That’s what I can’t work out with the graphs on that video. It seems the differences caused by spikes or no spikes are all far, far below what humans can hear. But why would a manufacturer put that on their marketing video. Doesn’t make sense hence my request for help. |
Mahgister - I thought negative dB was below our audible range.Rob Watts know what he speak about....He dont sell dac he design them.... Try to understand not repeating evident fact like negative 200 Db are directly unaudible it is like repeating placebo effect mantra... 😊 ...Everybody knows that... What is less known is the power of effects percolating from one scale to another scale in some phase transition... The physics of one scale can transform itself in different effects on another physics scale....Phase transition physics.... No one has ever said that human ears can DIRECTLY perveive so minute difference IN ITSELF but it is possible through some critical phase transition... Then it is a transfer of informative effect from one scale to another one where resulting amplified different effects begins them to be audible....This change is what is described in the Swiss video about vibrations effect and different impact with time (phase transitions) over frequencies scales... My best to you.... |
I’ll leave you to your belief that a difference between -115 and -105 dB in a small part of the frequency spectrum of some music is noticeable. My question is whether the graphs in the video show -115 to -105 dB changes between spikes or no spikes. It kind of matters, because in the final graphs - the green and blue ones showing the change in decay, etc, also have an axis, this time in dB, and the entire scale is again in the negative. I.e. the inaudible range to human hearing. Unless I am mistaken (and I am asking someone to tell me I am) this entire video by the manufacturer of the isolation feet is showing sound problems and sound change outcomes which are all below the volume range of human hearing. Maybe you think that’s not the issue. But I’m just looking for someone to say whether I’m reading the graphs wrong. |
The Townshend platform used in the video mitch2 posted is a double-decker design with different springs and standing a lot taller than Podiums. It is clear to me they are not Podiums, yet the guy in the video calls them Podiums. So I asked around, and am told they look like a very early generation Townshend Stella stand. Why Credo would choose to so blatantly mislead, well we report, you decide. Likewise there is one point in the video where the graph of the Townshend is clearly better than the Credo. He jumps forward and starts talking about the Credo, and again I leave it to you guys to watch and decide for yourselves why he is being so intentionally misleading. I will say though that I find it hilarious the way the Townshend video I linked is dismissed as a shill while the other one that appears to me far more biased is deemed highly informative and helpful. As far as the low level of these improvements are concerned, I have my doubts this is even a good faith discussion on both sides. On one side for sure. The other fellow though... The proof of human experience is the human being. When people hear it, they hear it. The burden of proof is on the one doing the measuring, not the other way around. At least that is the case for as long as we are talking about what we are talking about: audiophile gear. These things either work, or don't, and either way we know by listening. This only changes when we flip from being audiophiles looking for better stuff to manufacturers looking to make better stuff. When all you want is results you buy what works. When building it though, whole different story. Then and only then the concept of "do they really hear it?" begins to matter. Because they pretty much have to hear, or they won't buy. That is why it can make sense for Max or Keith to test and measure, and even do double-blind testing. Building and buying are two very different things. The degree to which people routinely confuse them only goes to show the degree to which they themselves are confused. There really is no answer that will ever be enough for the one who wants to argue. On the other hand the answers are everywhere - for the one who is willing to listen. |
Right - no help was forthcoming, so I've been reading into the meaning of a change from -105 to -115 dBV in a before and after measurement of the effect of these isolation stands. I think - and I remain very happy to be corrected in any of this - that: dBV (capital V) is a ratio, expressed logarithmically, of a measured value relative to 1 volt. 1 volt is therefore zero, and smaller values are negative. So your Credo chap excited the speakers with 1 volt RMS of energy (0dBV) in the form of that sound sample, and measured the amount of energy in the vibrations following that excitement - or at least expressed the ratio between them in that form. Without the isolation, the amount of energy relative to that 1volt in the resulting vibrations was -105dBV. This means of the 1 volt of energy inputted, 0.00000562 volt of energy was measured in the vibration. Not a lot... With the isolation, -115 dBV was measured, which means 0.00000177v of energy in the vibrations. In absolutes rather than relatives, this means the effect of the isolation was a reduction of 0.00000385v in vibration energy when the excitement is 1volt. This is useful if, as Credo suggests, this degree of suppression relates to what we hear. Back to dB ratios. The ratio of excitement to vibration with spikes is smaller than the ratio of the noise 1m from a ticking watch to the noise 1m from a petrol-powered chainsaw. (10db vs 100db respectively). So if the sound of the lumberjack's watch while he runs his chainsaw is something you can hear and you want to address, get some isolation stands. Because if you do, the sound of the lumberjack's watch will be muffled a bit - maybe he pulls his sleeve over his watch. I'm sure this will make all the difference to your enjoyment of the sound of his chainsaw. Anyway, that's the result of what I insist is a conclusion which is up for correction. |
@bluemoodriver "How the devil do you think the microscopic and high frequency vibrations your cabinet experience are dampened in any way by springs and bellows with holes in." "It is utter gobbledygook, antediluvian nonsense." "You are imagining - imagining - a vibration of your speaker which is incompatible with reality, and imagining - imagining - these springs and bellows are a solution to a vibration type which doesn’t exist and which they couldn’t do anything about anyway." "There is a whole industry built up around you, fleecing you, and they are laughing up their sleeve with every new sale they make. It’s really sad." Thanks for providing a much needed balance to this ongoing debate. Usually I would very much be on the side that demands to see data and evidence first, but in this case it's not so easy to find any. I have seen accelerometer readings which indicate that there is far less baffle resonance with footers than with spikes or without. There is also a growing number of speaker manufacturers now offering the option of using spikes or rubber feet. The big question is whether we can actually hear the differences as opposed to imagining them. In my personal (anecdotal) experience using compliant materials underneath my speakers improves their sound (bass tunes become clearer, the mid and top seem to be cleaner/easier to hear). I would guess that the isolation / compliance underneath the speaker reduces the effective mass that the drivers are working against, and thereby reducing ringing and improving time coherence - as was suggested in the Credo Audio video mentioned earlier. Perhaps in this case because of the negligible cost of springs / sorbothane etc, this is an experiment we can all try at home first before deciding if it's worth investing in relatively expensive designs such as those podiums offered by Townshend Audio. Or perhaps your argument is right, and that there is no significant independent evidence available. Hence the lack of much manufacturer interest in this subject. The acid test would be if the sorbothane/springs/ podiums etc were switched in and out (with speaker height maintained) without the listener being aware. It wouldn't be easy to arrange, nor would the switching be instant, and nor might the results be universal, but it would still be of interest I'm sure. As far as I know, no one has ever yet conducted such a test. We already know only too well what happens when cables, DACs, CD players, 192kHz+ bitrates etc are all tested in this manner. |
The acid test would be if the sorbothane/springs/ podiums etc were switched in and out (with speaker height maintained) without the listener being aware.In the last 2 years some of my changes were subtle and subjected to some doubts even by me... In this sense a "placebo effect" is possible for a specific change... But for an incremental number of not so subtle changes like moving an acoustic absorber or reflective surface or diffusor, the changing experiments are the key.... No need to blind test for acoustic treatments.... Listening is mandatory,... An Helmholtz array of tubes and pipes with variable necks are the same thing.... You listen, you try varied lenght of necks with different pipes volumes, no need to a blind test.... Most of my experiments, but not all for sure, never need a blind test to assure me of their existence positive effects.... Then this placebo mantra and blind test urgency convinced me that MOST people here have never conducted listening experiments nor even devise experiments in their own in the mechanical, electrical and acoustical dimension....They want to buy miracle solution and they are afraid to do it....But there is NO miracle solution, only an incremental sets of controls we are obliged to work with and with many , many low cost devices in my case... I needed plenty of time, listening time for the experiments, i never need money for tweaks or upgrades... I bought nothing, used my own homemade devices which perhaps explain my fearless endeavour... I dont buy snake oil or costly tweaks then i was fearing no fraud...At worst i bought some S.G. i modified 10 bucks each for verifying some audio claims by people who tried this or by company who sell them like Acoustic Revive....No need of a blind test for a 10 bucks experiment... All those afraid to experiment with peanuts costs devices are lazy or dont have the time, because it takes me 2 years many hours each day during my retirement, or are in the situation where in a beautiful living room experiments is out of the equation....These are the main reasons for fear: lazyness, lack of time, fear of snake oil costly miracle product, the wife factor and no room to play with....Thats all....None of these factors interfered in my case... To answer your post specfifically , using sorbothane give very audible effects, but way less positive than my rightful, dyssemetric or without dyssemetric compression, use of springs ...i used a sandwich of varied materials under my springs....This sandwich was already useful before my sandwich at peanuts costs...(bamboo plate,cork plate.granite plate, quartz feet, sorbothane pieces) No need of blind test.... 😁😊 No blind test will reveal the limit of sorbothane effect.... You must go on experimenting to learn that.... Also like i already said, listening is not an innate ability, it is some HABIT someone learn to use in a specific environment, with specific gear, specific musical files.... It is not an automatically transferable superpower in any environment, with any gear, and any musical files...Like some may suggest... Like some pretend it is wanting to debug the alleged claim ....I never claim that for myself.... I only claim what i learn experimenting.... Your listening is not an absolute power and never will be, it is the origin point for an audio journey, no more no less.... Blind test is useful to experiment with by companies for scientific or market reasons and fun with audio groups of audiophiles yes, but it is of NO USE in any personal audio journey... Believing otherwise reveal a fear of doing anything, buying or experimenting alike.... We already know only too well what happens when cables, DACs, CD players, 192kHz+ bitrates etc are all tested in this manner. NONE of these changes in your list are powerful like acoustic treatment or acoustic controls, or electrical grid controls, or mechanical vibrations and resonance controls....They are way more debatable changes and they are precisely the ONLY changes people consider generally because it is" buying and ready to plug" solutions, no need to experiment at all, no listening experiments time is need... It is not surprizing that many people ask for blind test to prove the real existence of these subtle claimed change or not so drastically audible changes... More imporetantly all these changes in your list are gear dependent... they dont work the same positive or negatively with all gear... But acoustical treatment and controls, electrical grid controls, and mechanical vibrations or resonances controls work with ANY gear the same..... They are what i called controls on the working embeddings dimensions of ANY sustem....They are NOT upgrades they are not "tweaks".... They are no cost devices created in listenings experiments.... I sell creativity, a method, a concept at no cost.... I dont sell anything else... |
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@millercarbon I just ordered 4 pods on your recommendation! I’m almost finished with my 2nd plinth and have been on the fence between these pods and Stillpoints. I have had to move my room around and discovered new footfalls, so hoping these help. Thanks for the extensive reporting, appreciated.Thanks, and thanks for letting us know. Increasingly people PM and I seem to be batting close to a thousand. Something cool if you are DIY, when you get the Pods screw the top completely off and see how it's made. You can use them as originally intended or with the addition of a short threaded stud you could thread them directly into your plinth. Just another option to explore. |
bluemoodriver, You are not looking to make friends around here, are you? You are, in essence, laying people's preconceived beliefs and understandings out there to be walked over. Using calculations on this forum is rarely welcomed. Hopefully, your experience will be different to the benefit of all of us. |
Those are (I think!) supportive comments and if so, thanks! There is so much that can be done to make a real difference to how we enjoy music, and money can be a bit scarce; and science is there to help us make the best use of it. So I do get a bit annoyed when manufacturers, especially, try to part us from our money for stuff that makes no meaningful difference. I also get annoyed when certain people spout utter nonsense and then get all defensive - or worse, offensive - when it is pointed out to them. One of them called me a ‘pervert’, which I won’t forget. I won’t make friends with some of these folks, but I hope I make plenty of others. |
bluemoodriver, It was supportive, indeed. However, it was also a little cautionary hint about what you may expect with your approach. Do not bother if people call you a pervert or whatever else. That comes with the territory. One here even has a list of people (Hateful 18, none the less) who got on the list by questioning and disagreeing. Go figure. |
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Ozzy, far as I know they are only available direct from Townshend. Use their on-line store and contact John Hannant, he has been a great help to me and others, https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lisa6889-townshend-audio-seismic-isolation-podiums-size-3-for-any-... Thanks prof, it is hard enough to find stuff that is good, and really good for the money is even harder. So when I find it I like to let others know. This stuff ticks all the boxes. |
I already had plans to order Townshend Seismic Isolation Bars for my speakers. And I’m probably known here for being skeptical and not being a tweak-head Here’s why I’m likely ordering the Townshend product: I had bought a substantial higher mass turntable that was going to go on an unfortunately older, flimsier Lovan audio rack (it just happens to fit where I need my stereo gear to go). It’s on a wood floor that transmits plenty of vibration to the turntable. My son walks around like Godzilla and can skip a record from another room! I spent a couple months testing all sorts of isolation devices and materials in making an isolation platform for underneath my turntable.My testing included both feeling for vibrations being reduced (with my hand) and also using seismometer apps on my ipad and iphone to measure vibrations. Of all the materials, from constrained layer damping, to sorbathane, to footers of various types, nothing remotely compared to the effect of the Townshend spring based Isolation Pods. It was a fundamental shift in efficacy. If I put the 2 1/2" maple block platform just sitting atop my existing rack and stomped on the floor, I would measure huge ringing spikes of vibrations getting through and could easily feel them. With the Isolation Pods holding up the platform and then stomping on the floor I couldn’t feel a THING coming through to the platform and the vibration apps measured almost nothing. It blew me away. So they formed an important part of my turntable’s isolation base. And now my son doesn’t skip the records. Any other sonic benefits beyond that, I can’t say (for one thing, I couldn’t do a before and after, since I needed to build this thing to even put the turntable on the rack). So I became intrigued by the other Townshend spring-based products, and by his demos. It seemed clear from my experience that the springs can have an enormous effect on isolation, and the Townshend demos seemed for the speakers seemed to show similar effects. Before committing I noticed there were some spring-based isolation footer products on amazon, quite cheap. So I grabbed 8 of those and placed them under my speakers (Thiel 2.7 at the moment). I’ve always preferred my Thiels sitting directly on the floor vs spikes or footers. I was blown away by the difference in sound! First, without the footers there was very clear interaction between the speakers and the floor. With music on even relatively loud, I could easily feel the floor vibrating around the speakers. With the footers...nothing from the floor! But the sound of the speakers decoupled from the floor was was fascinating. Basically it was a version of what most people report with the Townshend product. The speakers seemed to "disappear" as sound sources, the soundstage widened and deepened, the bass became tighter and more refined, and the mids and highs became cleaner sounding, imaging more 3D. It was a very obvious effect and I enjoyed re-listening to plenty of tracks for a while. But with these little footers it wasn’t all pros. I did find the sound became a bit less dense and palpable and punchy, a bit more elctrostatic-like. After several days I removed the footers and that sense of density and punch returned, though losing a bit of the other properties I mentioned with the footers. Though on balance if I had to choose, I liked the sound more with the speakers just on the floor. I seek density and palpability in sound and it’s hard to give up. But this has given me the itch to try the Townshend products, which are more purpose-built and should be much higher quality. The little spring footers were just fairly thin, bare springs held together with a top and bottom. They had no wrapping to damp them like the Townshend so they were particularly wobbly. Secondly, they raised the speaker off the floor by about 1 1/2" and that in itself can alter the sound (I did adjust my seating height for a while, to keep tweeters/mids at the same relationship to my ears). The Townshend Isolation Bars are designed to essentially isolate the speakers without raising them up appreciably, keeping that same tonal balance they had without the bars. So I can believe reports that say you get more of the good stuff from the spring isolation without loosing bass punch and image density. So, I figure from my experience it’s worth a try. |
I use SRA platforms for my TT and my preamp. Actually waiting for the preamp platform. But the TT one was an extreme transformation. I admire how many of you are able to describe, in detail, the SQ. I don’t go there and prefer to not “tear apart the flower”. All I can say is that the improvement in SQ made me a believer in vibration control and a major fan of SRA. Silent Running Audio, like Shunyata, has a division that makes products for science, medical and military. The preamp platform I am waiting on is called an Ohio Class. SRA’s top line is the Virginia Class. Names to refer to how Nuclear Submarines use their products! I think SRAs absorb vibration in a very sophisticated combination of materials. Think they have about 40 patents. |
Two things about the "punch" prof, one is as Rick told me, you will know it is right when the punch is through the air and chest not the chair and butt. A lot of what we think of as bass slam is just the speaker vibrating the floor and chair. You never will have as much of that. But the fact it is going through the floor and chair also means it is going through the floor and equipment, smearing sound all over the place. I'm sure part of the clarity improvement from the Podiums is less vibration getting to the turntable and amp. The second thing is I used different springs like Nobsound and some others and they were just like you described. If you play around with loading you can tune the balance to reduce some of what you don't like. But you will always be left with a little less of that slam impact. With Townshend, I don't know how Max does it, but there is more slam. Not the same as on the floor, because it is no longer coming through the floor. But relative to other springs the bass has a much more solid foundation, more visceral impact. The difference I would describe as with nothing or spikes the string bass player is there and you feel it in your butt. With springs the bass player is a little more there and you feel it in your chest. With Podiums the bass player is THERE! and you feel his fingers plucking each string, you feel the body of the instrument, you feel the bass player doing his little hmmmhmmm thing they all do, and it is just way more organically palpably real and THERE! To steal Fremer's line, "there's more there there!" |
But with these little footers it wasn’t all pros. I did find the sound became a bit less dense and palpable and punchy, a bit more elctrostatic-like. After several days I removed the footers and that sense of density and punch returned, though losing a bit of the other properties I mentioned with the footers. Though on balance if I had to choose, I liked the sound more with the speakers just on the floor. I seek density and palpability in sound and it’s hard to give up.This impression is normal....I had the same impression with only 4 springs boxes under my speakers... I add another sets on top of the speakers with a damping load around 80 pound, them the TIMBRE become more meaty and way more natural.... The dyssemetric compression of the 2 sets of springs made all the difference in the world... Internal resonance of the speakers box was decreased ( one set is directly compressed by only the 80 pounds load and to the other one under the speakers is added the speaker weight) I dont doubt tough that the Townshend platform will exceed my device in S.Q, because their fine engineering.... But that cost me 100 bucks and the effect is without negative now....Tuning the springs with the compressive force ask for finetuning around maximum 1 % of the compressing load... If not the effect will be negative like you describe.,..I did play then with listening experiments between 50 and 200 grams added or substracted to reach optimal compression....If you over compress or undercompress near the optimal point the effect is very audible on instrument timbre and mid bass frequencies... My best to you.... |
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A study in contrast: On one hand, you have @millercarbon and @prof contributing thoughtful, experience-based analyses of both the theory and practice of the science behind the Townshend product, and then, in blinding contrast, @bluemoodriver essentially trolling, first with skepticism based on dubious knowledge of the topic, and now, apparently ignoring all of the thoughtful, related comments, cynical outrage at the cost. Healthy, well thought out skepticism is undoubtedly a positive part of these type of discussions, but I don’t find that in the above post. |
bluemoodriver The seismic bars I may order are close to $900 USD. I get the cynicism to a degree, after all the parts are modest and it's a version of the long known isolation effects of springs. But as is the case with everything, you can always get things cheaper if you want to "do it yourself." That's just the name of the game. In any product you are paying for the research, design time, overhead etc.That's what so many miss especially with speakers when DIYers say "do you know the parts for that only cost X amount and you could make it WAY cheaper yourself?" Well, yeah, if I wanted to make speaker building a side hobby, perhaps I could approach such a design. But that's not how I care to spend my time. Sometimes I DO want to spend that time, as I did for my isolation base. Other times...nah. In this case, same with creating footers for my speakers. I'm willing to pay the extra for the Townshend devices because he's put the time in optimizing the spring system, optimizing how it interacts with the speaker (e.g. bars that don't raise the speaker much), putting it in a nice package and making it adjustable. It's a commercial product that has done all the work for me, and so like most commercial products I'll pay for that. |
@bluemoodriver, "Someone should tell Russ Andrews that doing the opposite and floating the speaker on springs and bellows would have the same positive effect of better “bass definition and greater clarity”, but with a much better profit margin." Now, now, don’t give him any more ideas. Russ seems to be an advocate of coupling as opposed to isolating. This is indicated by his preference of multilayered wooden designs which he calls Torlyte. If he was to suddenly change his mind after all these decades, his customers might want a very good reason as to why. Anyway if you fancy reading the words of a very slick and experienced salesman here’s the link below. Beware, he is quite skilled at telling a story and feels no shame in name-dropping Isaac Newton or attempting to conjure up images of the Neolithic ’ice man’ found in the Alps, or the natural sound of wood etc. What you won’t find though is any hard evidence or data to back up his story. https://www.russandrews.com/the-torlyte-story/ Whatever the truth might be there’s no denying that speaker isolation is an increasingly large business. There are already numerous cheap foam based supports being offered on Amazon currently. Some of them used by seemingly satisfied customers, especially for subwoofers. There is also another side to this issue of isolation, namely that it could all just be mainly an attempt to ameliorate the effects of poor cabinet design / placement. I certainly suspect that this is at least partially the case with my 1970s Tannoy Berkeley’s with their largely unstuffed and unbraced interiors. You could say it’s a very 1970s sound - large, dynamic, warm with a cake like tendency to bloat. So until we get some data feedback for different speakers on different surfaces and in different rooms, isolation is likely to remain one of those try it see for yourself operations. As for anecdotal evidence in favour of isolation, well there does seem to be a growing amount. |
Right prof. But let us set all that aside. The following little exercise is something I started doing all by myself back in the 90’s. People like to talk about marginal returns, always assuming it is less and less, on which I disagree, but whatever, let us call this miller’s rule of marginal returns. Miller’s rule of marginal returns is when the improvement is worth it (and you can afford it!) then you do it. That simple. Worth it, compared to what? Why anything else you could do, of course! Usually that means a better component. So let us consider Townshend Podiums in light of Miller’s rule of marginal returns. Should we buy them? Are they worth $2k or whatever? Well now, I have never heard Tekton Ulfberht’s but teajay has and he informed me in no uncertain terms they are only very very slightly better than Moabs, and even then the improvement is almost entirely in the one small band of bass impacted by the extra woofers. Well, my Moabs on Townshend Podiums have imaging, detail, and truth of timbre that is quite a bit obviously better, including with a lot better bass. My Moabs on Podiums at about $2300 are half what it would cost to upgrade to Ulf’s, and so the marginal return on Podiums is greater than the upgrade and highly recommended purely on the basis of sound quality per dollar. Different people will of course think of different speakers. Not the point. You are free to choose and go with whatever you want. You can choose Totem, you can choose Harbeth, you can choose Wilson. Don’t care! To each his own! All that matters is when you try em you wind up realizing it was more improvement than you could have got from changing speakers. All that matters. |
