On the contrary.
If the T Podiums have such profound effect on something as delicate as a stick with a motor attached, imagine what they can do with vibrating box!
Under my tower speakers -- Isoacoustics Gaia, other options?
I have Ascend towers (45lbs each) on a concrete floor covered in thin wall to wall with an area rug on top of that. I am looking into different footers for my speakers and am curious what people with towers on concrete have tried and liked.
To my mind, something as expensive as Townshend platforms do not seem worth it, as they'd cost about a third of the price of the speakers themselves.
If you've tried Gaia III isolators or other kinds of feet for your speakers, especially on concrete floors, I'm curious to hear your observations. Thanks.
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In my mind at least, I do believe that the isolation platforms not only help eliminate the floor form adding to the sound but also vibration getting back to the speaker, especially with concrete floors. The vibrations have no where to go but back into the speaker. That’s how I think the iso platforms would benefit your situation. |
Since vibration control is not really an issue with concrete floors, you may want to try a speaker platform like the Symposium Segues I use under my tower speakers to clean them up from internal vibrations inside the cabinet. They can be custom sized to extend beyond the speakers by a few inches on each side to give a little more stability if they came with some kind of outriggers. Although mine sit on a wood floor which on top of a suspended floor over a crawl space, the owner of Symposium Acoustics said locating them a few inches might be a negative and the platforms provide some isolation as well. |
@OP, you've been around long enough to know that everything matters. This includes vibration. The link below should be required reading for anyone after good sound. This article is informative and debunks all the hooha about spikes. A novice reading this thread would be forgiven if he was to heed the advice so far which is to use spikes. The majority say spikes which is not true. If you merely seek stability then spikes will help but the aim here is to get better sound. The author uses a tuning fork to illustrate his theory and reasoning. I made up an old tonearm and cheap cartridge to measure the amount things vibrate and by using a signal genny could see first hand and at what frequency the vibrations were occurring. Simply rest the stylus on the concrete floor, wood floor, furniture, audio rack etc. and measure the output with your multimeter at intervals. Doing this is far far better and more enlightening than random noise on a forum. Most of the posts here are recommending spikes but unfortunately they are wrong. I met Max Townshend at the XFI Premium show in Veldhoven, Holland in 2019 and we had a long chat where somehow conversation also turned to his supertweeters which is another area for gaining more from your system. Regarding the topic of interest here, he had 2 identical pairs of speakers matched for height and using same source, amp, cables and of course acoustics. Switching between the pair with factory feet and the pair on his platform was not at all subtle. Pricey, yes, but way better value than the Gaia footers I installed on my OB speakers. I heard very little from the Gaias on Isoacoustics carpet spikes on medium pile carpet on concrete. Don't concern yourself about rigidly coupling to the floor. Intuitively it would seem that the more solid the mount the better but some guys are suspending their speakers from the ceiling on fishing lie or similar and reporting improvements. Ok lets assume a speaker weighs 40Kg and the woofer cone weighs 40 grams. What's the ratio in mass? it's 1000:1 which translates to 0.01dB Do you think you will hear that??? This was not intended to come off as a lecture 🙂 Please read the link.
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Hey hilde45... In my long experience as an Anti-Resonance Cop (especially under the hood) masonry rarely works. If your floor carpet is thin enough, you might try to find some vintage golf cleat spikes and weigh down the speakers: 50_31067b_lg.jpeg (1200×1600) (iconicauctions.com) I've also been pleasantly surprised with bookshelf monitors atop carefully weight measured Vibrapods, isolating in a somewhat 360 degree fashion, despite most preferring mass loading with loudspeakers. Aluminum isolation cones can work well and are reasonably priced. As stated, adding some mass to the top of your loudspeakers can prove effective depending upon the approach used. Sound dampening the boxes internally and/or externally can prove extremely rewarding. More Peace, Pin (bold print for aging eyes)
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@arcticdeth |
Or get some 2” restaurant pads, ones that the,cooks stand on all day, spikes would sink in and never move. I used racketballs in my rack years ago, worked a charm, and your not getting taken advantage f by the eejits who say “use our modular half circle moon isodampening pads, they will make the music reach out and lightly stroke your ears and neck like a bunny fart.
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Don’t waste your hard earned money. buy some racket balls, cut in half, put,speakers on them with slightly,larger fine grit sandpaper under the racket balls.off the,floor, and not like the bass will resonate concrete. Or tennis balls, or go to a home store and buy 2 cutting boards for the,speakers. Have my,amps 1 each on a very thick cutting board, which I threw 5 coats of cherry stain n them, they,look nice. Don’t drop that kind of money on snake oil.
Home Depot, get some large flat stone squares for the speakers, use normal cutting boards, nt inflated prices by some greedy snake oil douche.
https://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/s/cutting-board
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If I see my 100lb speakers wiggle wildly it will be due to a problem far beyond what Max T is capable of resolving. As far as components are concerned, I pulled all isolation devices out. Concrete floor and solid component rack is all that is needed. |
Yes, isolating the speakers from the floor prevents the floor from being a passive radiator. But my floor is concrete with a carpet on top of that. I cannot imagine it's radiating that much. Then again, I just may be limited in imagination! Thanks for your report about your Gaia II's on your wood floor diaphragm bobbing up and down. You might not have seen in my OP that I have a concrete floor. @whiznant -- you have a wood floor, too. I have concrete but appreciate hearing the name Aurlex. @rvpiano -- thanks for your report about the concrete floor effect. Be nice to know if it's the height. @robert_1 I suspect you're right, but a friend and expert audiophile went from those cork deals to Gaia and had his skepticism overcome. Different speakers than mine but concrete floor. Hmmm. @mglik I believe it's a good product but I have to admit this claim is hard for me to fully accept. The videos are impressive but your phrasing, well, it made me giggle. Do you have another handle, MC ? @nonoise Agreed. There's a way in which scientific claims can be accurate but misapplied. We can measure things to the microgram, but that doesn't really help us bake. |
It's a good thing most (if not all) speakers weigh considerably more than a stick and are constructed much more robustly, obviating the need for a Podium to keep them still enough to be listened to and enjoyed with less costly devices. There's a point to where such isolation is unnecessary (and even overkill), allowing one to spend much less and still get great results. This kind of reminds me of all the isolation and LIGO discussions one member used to bring up, ad nauseam. All the best, |
Only my experience and my understanding. Doubt any manufacturer would make such sweeping, absolute statements. There is a YouTube of Max T demonstrating the effect of the Podiums. There are 2 platforms. One with his tech and one with spikes. Attached to each is a wooden stick standing up from the middle of each platform. At the end of each stick is a small motor. When the motor is turned up on the spiked platform, it wiggles wildly. When the Townshend treated platform motor is turned up, its stick stands almost perfectly still. The most clear example. |
This is what makes these forums so much fun to read! Is this from the product literature or something you came up with as a conclusion of your listening tests? |
@hilde45 those rubber/cork square isolators is all you need on concrete floors. No need to spend any more money on esoteric stuff that will not get you more. I use exactly what you have. They work, and I don't even have carpeting or a rug on my floor. it's all tiles. $20 dollars that all the money that is needed. |
I'm happy with my Gaia II's (under my 76lbs Teckton 2-10's). They brought a small but noticeable improvement, which once experienced would be impossible to live without. The wood floor in my listening room behaves like a diaphragm bobbing up and down with the bass, smearing ever so slightly the presentation and focus. In a word, they deliver "clarity".
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That was my finding too, in my set up with my Thiel speakers on my wood floors (a rug overlaying the floor). I use Townshend Seismic Isolation Pods under my turntable platform and they totally decouple from floor borne vibrations. I tried the Townshend Seismic Speaker Bars under my speakers and they decoupled them very well, a bit 'too well' in that I felt I lost a bit of "room feel" for the music. The Gaias I'm now using under the speakers split the difference: they isolate enough to get some gains in bass tightness and the speakers sounding more precise and "disappearing" but not totally at the expense of making the sound weightless. I'm not 100% sure I'm keeping the Gaias under my speakers, I may yet end up preferring the speakers back on the floor, but for now they are staying.
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Thanks for your reference to the video and your own DIY account. Very interesting. I watched a Townshend video and there are some more and less convincing elements to it. The vibration dampening is impressive. However, a couple of things stood out to me.
First, I don't usually walk around my room while listening, and no one else does, either. So that "solution" addresses a non-existent problem. Second, while the earth's seismic activity is an interesting factor, isn't the person in their chair (and the air in the room) also vibrating, and at the same rate? In other words, if I was to dampen the earth's seismic vibration on my speakers -- but I am still not isolated in a similar way -- wouldn't I be more out of sync with my speakers as a result? It seems like an angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin issue, anyway. |
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A couple of years ago I watched a Peter Townsend video demonstrating his speaker platforms. He showed that even on concrete floors his speaker isolation platforms make a difference. He showed it empirically using vibration transducers. Concrete is a plastic. It moves and responds to vibrations. However, I have not had my stereo on a concrete floor in several decades and so I have no experience to share in that regard. Anyway, after seeing Townsend's video I built my own isolation platforms for considerably less using specifically designed springs from McMasterCarr and wood butcher blocks as platforms. I specified the spring rate to give the speaker + platform a natural frequency of 3 Hz. That isolated the speakers from the floor. I'm on a suspended floor and it was a dramatic improvement in sound quality. Using accelerometers I found the speakers were completely isolated from the floor. Unlike the Townsend platforms I had no adjustability. It was a pain positioning the platforms and the speakers to be both level on the spring platforms and in the right position in the room. Out of curiosity I sprang for the IsoAcoustic Gaias for my speakers to compare them to my own isolation platforms. The Gaias do not completely isolate the speakers like my spring platforms but overall I thought the speakers sounded better with the Gaias. The accelerometer showed that the Gaia still isolates the speakers- just not as completely as my spring platforms. But I think that the dampening in the Gaias helped with the higher frequencies. I ended up keeping the Gaias and I use my spring platforms under my Home Theater sub woofers. They make the bass sound amazing. |
@ryder Thanks for your comments. The Townshend is only portable IF any new speakers I purchase have a base that fits on the podium purchased. My present (somewhat trim) speakers would get a size 1 podium; unless future speaker fit this podium, then the it is not portable. The alternative is to spend extra money, now on a podium for future (possible) speakers. But now the expenditure is even beyond what is already a questionable investment. That's the challenge. It’s not a question of funds being tight, really; rather, it’s a question of whether it makes sense to spend a third or more on a platform, given the speakers’ cost. Maybe your rule of thumb is different? Would you spend 1/3 of the cost of your speakers on a platform if your speakers had a concrete floor under them? Take that as a serious question -- I’m curious about your way of doing things. I would prefer to get any number of other tweaks -- skyline diffusers, isolation for other components, a better DAC, etc. before pouring money into more isolation than is really justified by my conditions and speakers. As for success rates being 100%, I would like to know what percent of those folks have concrete floors. If wooden floors are a major problem for speaker vibration, and I assume they are, then it would make sense for most Townshend podiums to be sold to folks solving that particular problem. And if that is true, then the success rate would be quite high. |
Townshend is reported to be much better than Isoacoustics Gaia. However, the price is higher and as a result it’s more suitable for higher end systems or speakers. There are folks who upgraded from the Gaia to Townshend and found the latter to sound noticeably better. The difference is claimed to be not subtle. Isoacoustics Gaia can work on all surfaces - concrete, wood, tile or carpet. Carpet discs(additional cost) can be used with the Gaias if the floor is carpet. With Gaias, it’s mostly an improvement but there are cases where people don’t hear a difference, or it’s a degradation rather than improvement. With the Townshend, I believe the success rate is 100%. If tight on funds, I can highly recommend the Isoacoustics Gaia. |
@surfcat Thanks for relaying your experience. Your floors are hardwood and mine are concrete on the basement level. They are very very solid. So, I'm not sure whether your experience will translate much for me. That said, I'm getting a lot of good information about Townshend, here. It's still too costly given the cost of my speakers, but I'm mulling it a bit. |
@drack1 Thanks for the tips! |
In my old place I had a sub on carpet which was on top of concrete, it was a basement listening space. For years, I had the sub on a guitar amp stand, I think it was called an Auralex Gramma. That helped tighten the bass up from having the sub off the floor, I was happy with that for years. My curiosity got the best of me and I tried some Townshend bars under the sub and I was pretty shocked at just how much faster/tighter my bass got. More articulate, pretty much all the audiophile buzzwords could be used here to describe the difference in sound. I can sum it up this way, the bars enhanced my listening enjoyment by quite a lot. I won’t be without some type of stand/footer underneath my speakers/subs moving forward. Good luck in your search! I hope whatever you try gets you to enjoy listening to your system more than before. |
Hi Hilde, I have a pair of Focal Sopra 2 driven by a Hegel H390. I had the GAIA feet under them for a couple of years, for a while driven by an H360. Before that I used spikes. Hardwood floor. Something about the system always seemed lacking to me. The highs were there but not "clear" or "precise" which made no sense to me as those beryllium tweeters are super fast . Mids were a bit smeared, bass sounded deep and fine, to the depth they go anyway. On a whim, almost impulse buy, I bought the Townshend Bars, as the regular stands are too big for the location of the speakers. The impact has been shockingly transformative. The weirdest thing is how much better the beryllium tweeters sound. Mids have lost the smear, vocals are richer and more defined and while I thought the bass was fine, turns out I was wrong. But it's much better now. I think what the Townshends do is prevent the floor from becoming energized by the speaker. When the floor becomes energized it becomes another speaker in the room, and a rather poor one at that. So while my speakers were actually doing a great job on their own, by the time the sound got to my ears, 10-20 feet away, it had been stepped all over by the crappy sound being generated by my floor "speakers ". At least that's my hypothesis. I know the Townshends are a bit pricey, but they are easily one of the best tweaks I've ever made. |
As far as I can tell, most of this advice is correct: if you have concrete floors with carpet, as you do, use spikes. Ideally, the cabinet should be completely rigid; all the movement should be in the speaker cones and domes, not reactive movement in the cabinet. Sort of like suspension in a car coupled to a very rigid chassis: the engineers can calculate the dynamics of the suspension, but flex of the chassis is too complex to accurately model and compensate for. If the cabinet can move in reaction to the speaker movement, it will "smear" the sound somewhat. The exception would be if your speakers stand on a suspended wood floor. In that case, rigid coupling will create a secondary—and uncontrolled—passive radiator in the floor! So, with suspended wood floors, de-coupling is best. That's what I've done with my 49" tall and 52 lb. Scientific Fidelity Teslas. I tried Gaia, borrowed from a friend, but settled on sorbothane feet attached to a screw threaded to mate with the female threads set into the base of the speaker—where the spikes would go. Eight bucks each on eBay. Significant improvement in imaging, clarity of bass, etc. But the speakers do wobble. Of course, they would on Townshend podiums, too. |
Pleased to hear you didn't despair over your suspended wooden floor and put the speakers on stone blocks. Assuming there may be a weight issue, try using a thinner but larger stone block, like a large paving stone. Spike the speaker to the stone. If your floor is flat and even, there will be little or no movement in the stone if you shake the speaker. If there is movement, try putting a thin layer of fabric under the stone, or two layers if the movement remains. But note: with a concrete floor, nothing stabilises the speakers more than spikes. Everything else allows movement. From the listening seat, movement of the speaker chassis means distortion. |
@ryder Thanks. So you have tile-on-concrete and I have carpet-on-concrete. Need to think about how analogous that is. But again, trying these might be risk free given the return policies I'm seeing around. |
I have two sets on Gaia 2 and Gaia 3 on 2 pairs of standmount speakers. Tiles on concrete floor. Noticeable to big difference. Main improvement is in bass quality, cleaner and more precise work reduced smearing and overblown bass. Overall improvement in clarity and detail across the frequency spectrum but the main difference is in the improved bass quality.
Standard spikes work well only if you don’t experience any big issues with the bass of your speakers. If you experience an unnatural, smeared or overblown bass, bass which sticks out like a sore thumb, the Isoacoustics Gaia will likely resolve the issue. It works well on concrete floors. |
@celtic66 @clearthinker @ronboco @rmdmoore Yeah, it seems that spikes, the less expensive option the best, first thing to try. Funny how some folks who love Townshend can’t seem to absorb my remark (in the OP) that I’m not going to spend that kind of money, given that they at least a third of the cost of my speakers. @reubent yes, the’re pre drilled. I’ll look for those outriggers! Thank you! @jeffseight I promised my wife to reduce my spending on dilithium crystals, or an antimatter reactor system would be my first go-to. @noodlyarm @dinov I am am still strongly inclined to experiment in this direction, especially if I can get them return-able to the store if they don’t do much as @tk21 found. @spaceguitarist -- thanks for the paper. I’ll take a look. |
I use isoacoustics on my very large Tannoy Churchill’s 145lbs each….on a tile floor and love them. They not only hold the speaker well but tighten the bass and help focus the sound. In my opinion you can’t go wrong with them price and performance wise. I use the pucks under my source component’s and amp as well. Great product. |
@hilde45 I posted an identical question a few months back. I looked at the Townshend and Gaia's. I just didn't want to spend that much $ and I really didn't want to raise my speaks any higher as they are already quite large (Revel Performa3 F208's). But I didn't want to use spikes on my carpet either as I have always had a hard time balancing and then moving them once they're in. So I wanted something that would isolate yet also allow the speaks to be moved/tweaked rather easily without lifting and tearing the carpet. Someone pointed me towards the Herbie's Gliders. They are PERFECT! They give me everything I was looking for at an extremely reasonable cost. They also have multiple models to fit pretty much every speaker out there.
Cone/Spike Decoupling Glider – Herbie's Audio Lab (herbiesaudiolab.com) |
