I seem to be one of the very few people who have tried the Townsend products under my speakers and who chose not to use them.
When I was doing tons of testing of isolation materials while building my turntable isolation base, I settled on the Townsend isolation pods. There was no footer or material they produced isolation from vibrations even approaching those pods. So they are sitting beneath my turntable base.
For similar reasons, I tried springs under my floor standing speakers (in this case Thiel 2.7s) which sit on an (old house) wood floor. I tried some really cheap spring footers from Amazon and was absolutely amazed at the Sonic difference springs produced beneath my speakers. They became almost electrostatic like in terms of disappearing and sound staging . Although I didn’t like all the changes. It changed the sound to a brighte and more lightweight tone than I preferred . I figured I’d try a real deal approach with the Townsend isolation bars. The Townsend Springs were of course more carefully designed for the purpose, and also the bars were made to not raise the speakers up, so as to maintain the original tonality.
When I tried the Townsend bars , yes they were clearly better than just the cheap springs. And they did maintain the tonality of my loudspeakers much better, while providing the tightening of the bass and more of a “ disappearing” act with the speakers.
However, there were two issues I couldn’t get over. The first is that they did change the tone of my speakers a little bit, and it was enough that I liked the tone less than when speakers were sitting on the floor.
Second of all , justice with the cheaper Springs, it made my speakers have more of an electrostatic type presentation: I felt the sound less. The sound seemed less grounded and connected with the room, less dense and punchy. It became a bit more of a cerebral presentation.
When my speakers were simply on the floor, the sound became more solid, impactful, and realistic, including in tonal quality.
So I finally sent the bars back to Townsend . That was surprising. I certainly wasn’t expecting that.
That sent me in another direction, or I decided that I wanted some more bass tightness, but with some at least partial coupling with my floor. I experimented with tons of materials and footers, including the isoacoustics Gaia.
I’ve ended up with my speakers on a custom-made granite base , which is two layers of granite with some sound damping material in between them - super dead sounding. And those are sitting on for hockey pucks, with some shallow spikes under the hockey pucks into the rug and wood floor.
Above that my speakers have Isoacoustics Gaia on the back of the speaker, and the outrigger on front is spiked into another couple hockey pucks, which raise the angle of the speaker just right.
This is produced the best I’ve gotten so far . Tighter base, but still rich and punchy with lots of room feel, the most gorgeous tonality I’ve heard from the speakers, with the sound remaining solid.
I totally understand why people like using the Townsend products under their speakers though.