Atmasphere,
You missed my point.
Killing vibration is stupidity because you cannot destroy it.
Manage it, yes, but vibration-forming resonance never goes away. Electricity vibrates causing the issues you deal with on a daily basis.
Did you ever try mechanical grounding all the key parts in your electronics design? It beats using damping compounds and provides livelier sound quality, but who am I to state this?
Try mechanical grounding your amp chassis first and reduce the thermal operational temperature. The audible outcome will surprise you. I am more than happy to assist in any way we can.
You choose to use damping compounds. We use natural damping factors in the materials used to build our products.
You are a manufacturer of electronics, we understand your reasoning and design philosophy.
As a sound engineer, I look at vibration as music’s lifeblood. Quite a different point of view.
Resonance formed by vibrations is the issue we should be focused on.
Robert
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I think audiopoint's point was the costly extremes some go to to isolate, decouple, call it what you will, to get better sound. No speaker can be completely isolated from the floor and airborne vibrations but there are some products out there that'll improve the sound of your system without picking your pocket.
All the best,
Nonoise
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@audiopoint , i.e., Robert Maicks, is the long-time spokesperson (propriator?) of Live~Vibe Audio (that some may remember as Star-Sound Technologies), which sells primarily points (aka spikes), coupling discs, and Sistrum platforms to support speakers and other audio equipment.
Cutting to the chase:
"Audio Points function as high-speed brass conductive gateways for resonance and unfavorable noise to flow out and away from the component or loudspeaker"
"The high-speed exit of detrimental resonance caused by vibrations establishes greater “operational efficiency” within the component or loudspeaker per the laws of Coulomb friction and Coulomb damping."
Many audiophiles use and support their well-constructed products. If encouraged, Robert will cheerfully go on ad-infinitum about the science behind their points or, you can look up his posts on this forum, and/or go to their website where you will find plenty to read. You will also find an unwavering belief in their theory, without room for debate. Mostly a case of Believe It or Not!
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Killing vibration is stupidity. Eliminating it is impossible. Fearing it makes for sales expansion. Using it as a tool to improve sound reproduction makes more sense.
EAR makes damping compounds for damping the hulls of submarines (military application). 3M has a line of damping compounds as do a number of other companies- and some of these are used in cars to make them quieter inside.
We used damping compounds in our preamps. Their effect is measurable and audible. My LP mastering lathe used adjustable points and a vibration damping platform, made about 1950.
But just on account of the fact that there are large businesses that make damping compounds, we can know that the post of the above quote is dubious. Killing vibration isn't stupid...🙄
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For me, Vibrapod work realy well under my speakers, on my suspended floor. (speakers are just a little wobbly, but it is OK). I also use Vibrapod with their Cone, with great success under my components. Very good upgrade for the price.
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@audiopoint
I read your eloquent post. And I guess I am confused. I am not the brightest person so forgive me.
You seem to be taking a negative view on isolation and absorption merchandise sold by audio enthusiasts. And then in your final section you say that vibration management tools makes sense as part of the sound reproduction process.
Can you please clarify what you’re saying and provide examples of how someone would improvement to eliminate vibrations that are detrimental too good sound reproduction, which I’m sure exist somewhere.
Maybe another way to look at this, is to find ways to better manage sound dispersion throughout the room as well as minimizing vibrations that interfere with component performance, which is a more abstract concept I think. It is really easy to understand why you’d want to minimize external vibrations from a record Player as Jumping rope next to a record player likely interferes with a record being played, adding cushioning on the feet of a record player to prevent this seems like a good idea. Further, my subwoofer cabinet directly vibrates my floor which causes vibration noise from things on my shelf, an aluminum window frame, loose knickknacks, but if I put a squishy isolator disc thing between the feet of the subwoofer and the wooden floor it tends to absorb the sub cabinet vibrations and improve dispersion of pressure amplitudes more evenly throughout the room which is ideal for a sub.
Thank you
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@jumia
Is vibration a two-way street?
So you have vibration from a speaker cabinet, but don't you also have vibration due to the sound waves bouncing around the room where the floor will vibrate and that vibration will transfer back into the speaker cabinet and also the component rack?
So maybe isolation is the answer?
Yes, you have all kinds of vibrations.
However I believe that the most serious ones are those usually coming from the loudspeaker cabinet itself.
Accelerometer tests have revealed that the loudspeaker baffle can be vibrating at far greater levels when that loudspeaker is placed on spikes as opposed to when it has been decoupled via springs or rubber.
Perhaps we could imagine the loudspeaker drivers acting like musicians standing on a vibrating floor? The less that 'floor' vibrates throre chance they have of performing with greater accuracy.
Of course there will be other vibrations that might affect the floor also but the ones coming from inside the box must surely be the most serious when it comes to smearing the sound.
It should also be noted that these days an increasing number of loudspeaker manufacturers are using laser inferometry to design their cabinets in order to limit these vibrations from acting on the loudspeaker baffle.
And then there's the thin walled BBC approach as used by the likes Harbeth, Spendor and Graham Audio.
The days of loudspeakers with terrible 'waterfall' graphs revealing poor construction seem to be over.
However, since my Tannoy speakers are over 40 years old, I'm not too surprised to find that decoupling works for me. Back then, the BBC research into cabinet construction had barely been published.
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@audiopoint
I am neither an engineer, nor a "Vibration Management Consultant", but I find some of the assertions in your above post to be dubious.
Springs, discs, pucks, squish balls, pads, cones, spheres, and all the materials have retailed in audio since the late 1980s.
All these devices are coupling products according to the empirical laws.
You are suggesting that springs, used in combination with dampers, are coupling devices?
Would you characterize shock absorbers, used on every car in the world, as coupling devices?
Böllhoff is a German company founded in 1867. They have produced vibration control products for many products over a very long period of time. Their products were used in early VWs, and on the Lunar Module used when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon. Etc.
In reference to some of their current spring/dampening products, they say this (bold emphasis mine):
Vibration and noise decoupling
SITEC® Spring
The decoupling spring system with screw connection
Do you imagine that the engineers at Böllhoff are badly uninformed about "laws of vibration, motion, and gravity", or is the company making false advertising claims?
Here is a link to a patent of a "Vibration decoupling connection device", in which the word "decoupling" is used multiple times:
vibration decoupling device
I have the impression that you are playing semantic games, based on the suggestion that even the best designed springs/dampers are unable to completely decouple components from floors/racks, etc.
It may well be true that like shock absorbers, the best that spring-based isolation devices in audio can do is to greatly mitigate vibration. But there is no doubt whatsoever that, at least in the case of speakers, they can come far closer to decoupling than coupling devices such as spikes.
And as most audiophiles are, in fact, using such tools to "improve sound reproduction", your post strikes me as much ado about nothing.
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Thank you, Robert Maicks.
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ISOLATION IS THE NUMBER ONE MISCONCEPTION IN AUDIO
Springs, discs, pucks, squish balls, pads, cones, spheres, and all the materials have retailed in audio since the late 1980s.
All these devices are coupling products according to the empirical laws.
Isolation does not exist on Earth in the presence of gravity. Audiophiles are a small group of believers who insist it does.
How many believe a wood shelf isolates resonance? How many believe their equipment should float in space, free from all earthly vibrations? How many believe isolation is the goal leading to the holy grail of sound quality?
Do you know electricity is the root cause of vibration?
DECOUPLING – AUDIO’S SECOND ULTIMATE MISCONCEPTION
Coupling and decoupling are the most popular marketing strategies used today. Two names have taken the modern-day helm leaving many methods and theorems of vibration management behind.
The only significant difference between the two is that coupling science is based on the laws of vibration, motion, and gravity and is accepted science.
Anyone can argue that absolute mechanical isolation and decoupling cannot exist in the presence of gravity.
Decoupling is a great advertising tool in the marketing gambit for repackaging and selling old stuff.
The product designs and the packaging looks fancier today but still use coupling as their function regardless of storyboarding. The products sold long before the term ‘de-coupling’ hit the marketplace. The word decoupling has yet to gain scientific proof other than the Sound Industry’s love for marketing.
SOUND IS VIBRATION
Killing vibration is stupidity. Eliminating it is impossible. Fearing it makes for sales expansion. Using it as a tool to improve sound reproduction makes more sense.
We should rethink our minimalist understanding of vibration and realize we live in a world where everything vibrates!
Thank you for your time.
Robert Maicks
Sound Engineer, Vibration Management Consultant
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But, when the most expensive platform with the highest degree of damping was put under the CD player, the sound became too dry and analytical. This was not just my conclusion, but everyone else thought the same, including the Symposium representative. The idea that the "ideal" is the least amount of vibrational energy is not always the case and this goes with all components as well as room treatments.
What this suggests is that the damping system had a flaw; perhaps something like the system was ineffective at a certain frequency.
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@raysmtb1
I looked at your system and it appears you’re using the two channel McIntosh for one set of sneakers and monos for the other two. Have you ever tried biampin thing with the MC 275 for the mid/upper range drivers, and the monos for the bass.
You should provide details for the rest of your system. The rack you have is really nice that wood is awesome. Love the casters and they're carrying quite a load.
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For those of you wandering what the springs do, they suspend this speaker above the floor. He has the vibrations travel down through the springs in the springs convert vibrations into heat. The difference that they bring to a speaker is mainly in the base region. They separate the speaker from the floor so the sound that you hear are mainly just the ones produced by the speaker. You don’t get a secondary vibration from the floor and the walls which at higher listening levels makes the base less distorted and muddy. Mainly because you’ve got this buffer in between which creating the sound waves and the floor . It really does work, for some reason some people can’t imagine why it works but I promise you it does work. Maine saying that it does is cleaned up the base at higher listening levels. If you don’t like to crank up the volume then it’s not worth doing.
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Is vibration a two-way street?
So you have vibration from a speaker cabinet, but don't you also have vibration due to the sound waves bouncing around the room where the floor will vibrate and that vibration will transfer back into the speaker cabinet and also the component rack?
So maybe isolation is the answer?
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@jumia
So don’t you want to draw that vibration away and channel it somehow into a bottomless pit. Shouldn’t the pointy things, aKA spikes, funnel the vibration onto A disc pucky thing that will make the vibration go away.
Why would you want to isolate vibration and have a rebound back-and-forth all over the place within a speaker, or component?
Audio is full of these apparently logical contradictions but upon closer inspection we usually find that one or another of our preconceptions is faulty.
This has happened to me many, many times. And not just in audio
First of all we should consider whether it is possible to channel away vibration with something as solid as a steel spike.
Or could it be that the spike actually couples the speaker cabinet to the supporting surface and sets up further resonating mechanisms?
Isolating vibration by decoupling fundamentally lowers both the resonant frequency and its strength between cabinet and surface.
Both of these are good things, especially when the resulting resonant frequency is lower than the bass output of the speaker. For example something like 20Hz, which most speakers can't get close to, would be good and anything lower would be even better.
I'm pretty sure that the Townshend devices go considerably lower than 20Hz.
For me, the missing piece in this puzzle is the notion of constrained layer damping. I've read that it's superior to using springs alone but I can't remember why that is so.
Perhaps someone could chime in with why CLD is theoretically considered superior?
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As I stated before, vibration control is a matter of tuning. Not only does the approach matter, but also the degree of vibration damping or transfer that matters. I attended a demonstration of Symposium platforms that all work in the same way, but differ in the amount of damping provided. On one particular component, a CD player, the shelves made a big difference in the sound. But, when the most expensive platform with the highest degree of damping was put under the CD player, the sound became too dry and analytical. This was not just my conclusion, but everyone else thought the same, including the Symposium representative. The idea that the "ideal" is the least amount of vibrational energy is not always the case and this goes with all components as well as room treatments.
The worst room I ever heard was one designed and implemented by Corning that maximized absorption of sound hitting the walls and ceiling--this room was so unlistenable. I've experimented with applying extra damping to the outside of speaker cabinets and in most cases the sound got worse--the designer probably tuned the sound using such cabinet vibration.
I recommend trying different products. but keep and open mind and be willing to accept that the new product may not offer the right kind of tuning or the right degree of tuning.
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Whenever I see speakers on stands with spikes - and I have no experience with spikes - I wonder if they’re vibrating some of their energy into the stand itself, and thus losing some of their refinement.
A pair of Ohm Walsh II’s - and Magnepan too - sound bass-heavy and muddy in the low end, and vibrate the floor - the Walsh far more than the Magnepan.
Up on Sorbothane hemispheres, no vibration, bass issues gone, and the soundscape becomes properly tight and they can handle much more base.
A pair of Infinity Kappa 6 don’t sound bad on their stands, but they sound noticeably finer when isolated from the stands.
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I think you can only hear a noticeable difference with isolation or not on a suspended floor. Concrete floors are much better
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From Clearthinker, above, it appears that I may have stumbled onto something correct, for a change. My audio space is on a slab, with carpeting over it. My speaker stands are connected to the floor via spikes, without any saucers. My speakers sit on small nylon isolation feet, mostly to protect the finish, but it appears they may help decouple the speakers, a bit. I find that this spike/squishie system works great until at higher volume my room acoustics screws everything up.
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We've all been here before. Over and over. Look at old threads.
Basically.....
Concrete floor, especially laid on the ground - spikes
Suspended wood floors and most everyrhing else - decoupling.
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How about sandbags? They are cheap and anyone who has taken a long walk on the beach knows that sand is very good at absorbing energy.
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I bought my speakers and set them up. The basement floor was not flat so the speaker could actually rock. They only came with furniture tips that are just driven into the wood. I didn’t know much. The isolation topic was very common here and usually contentious. I went the cheap route. I bought 16 of the Audiokrast springs. Wallah! They are self leveling. The improvements from the isolation springs was very positive. Cost $120 for all.
All other components are sitting on Herbie’s products.
My audio stand is on spikes sitting in disc’s. I have not looked into anything else. I don’t like swapping parts or components all the time and the sound is nice.
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Try this little experiment. Play music at your required volume and place your ear against various walls in the room. If you can hear the walls 'singing’ thats not good.for all the obvous reasons. The vibrations from the walls, floor, ceiling,floor or solid furniture will make their way to your ears and to your hi fi gear.
So isolation is my prefered choice.
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Spikes couple the speaker or component to what it is sitting on. Generally not a good thing in my opinion and experience. The speaker should be allowed to vibrade at the driven frequencies. To do this isloate it on springs.
Same with components to isolate them from vibrations coming up through he rack. Soft rubbery or sorbothane feed are in between and generally not a good solution.
@mazian I'm both an engineer and a physicist so does that make me doubly evil? I recommend the townshend platforms for speakers. Very stable and a game changer.
Jerry
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The 10 Misconceptions article linked in a previous post was written by Norman Varney, who owns AV RoomService, Ltd., that sells a variety of vibration control products based on decoupling speakers and equipment. No great surprise Mr. Varney doesn’t support spiking speakers to the floor. Here, and here are a couple of other articles written by Mr. Varney.
Their Equipment Vibration Protectors (EVPs) are isolation feet that "de-couple vibration transmission by converting the mechanical energy into thermal energy." These appear to be basically Owens Corning 700 series fiberglass with either rubber or felt covering the top and bottom. The Owens Corning board is an effective acoustic insulation. I suspect the softer version could make an interesting DIY constrained layer equipment platform project. Their RoomDamp2 also looks interesting.
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I thought all the internal bracing and rigidness of the speaker cabinets was supposed to be vibration Control. And now you need to do something additional outside of the speaker cabinet Beyond the feet? Isn't this kind of redundant.
If you put vibration Devices at the base of your speakers, are you honestly telling me you can hear the difference?
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Many engineers, supposedly the arch enemies of audiophiles, identify springs as the best form of vibration control. I use springs exclusively on amps, CD players etc with good effect but have yet to find springs to use on speakers as they render floorstanders unstable.
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So much information herein.
I had come to believe that vibration that contaminates a drivers performance is not good. So if you’re speaker cabinet is vibrating and detrimentally impacts the drivers it makes sense this is not a good thing. So don’t you want to draw that vibration away and channel it somehow into a bottomless pit. Shouldn’t the pointy things, aKA spikes, funnel the vibration onto A disc pucky thing that will make the vibration go away.
Why would you want to isolate vibration and have a rebound back-and-forth all over the place within a speaker, or component?
I’m not sure that simple concept is discussed anywhere herein that I saw.
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@emergingsoul
Last year I broke down and bought two sets of Isoacoustics Gaia Ones for my KEF, Reference Five speakers and the difference between the spikes and the Gaia’s was night and day spectacular. I put some pucks from the same company under my DAC and heard nothing. I put some pucks from the same company under my amp and maybe I heard a difference.
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It’s amazing how that if a bunch of people believe that it’s not true then I guess it’s not true??? !! When I first came on this forum, I got into it with millercarbon about this exact same thing. Except I couldn’t explain it as good as the fellow above. He really did a good job explaining how it all works. Somewhere inside of me I knew it didn’t work from my sixth grade science class. I wonder how much other stuff in audio that everybody thinks is truth will turn out to be false in a future ? I guess I better sell my stock in still points.
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Hello everyone,
Hello everyone,
My name is Ray Petro. i’ve been a member here now for about four years. I decided three years ago that I wanted to start a little speaker business. It’s called Blueprint Acoustic. I hope you’ll come by and see my products atblueprintacoustic.com. We offer a spring foot package for all the different speakers that we manufacture. this is not very hard to figure out. It’s probably around eighth grade math. I buy my Springs from a place called Century Spring somewhere in California. They have a calculator that shows you exactly what you need. All you need to do is his weigh the speaker, then divide by four. The only other numbers you’ll need is the diameter of the spring and the open length. I use an inch and a quarter or an inch and a half diameter spring bye a 3 inch open length. The only other number you need is what they call the half length I think. They have an awesome website that has a real time chart with their inventory that tells you what’s in stock and helps you figure out the half length of the spring, which is where you want it to be resting at . Here’s a link to the chart on their website. https://www.mwcomponents.com/century-spring/shop/compression-springs The only other thing you need is a little bit of heat shrink tubing. You can find this on Amazon. They even have lots of colors if you want to accent your speaker. So, I’m not crazy, it works like a charm, just like the Townshend’s, but at about 1/10 of the price. If you have some time stop by my website and check out some of my other crazy ideas. I’m working on my new show room which will be in Cleveland Ohio if anybody wants to hear some of my new designs , I’ll post everything next month when we’re all done . And I just like to say, I swear my speakers sound awesome.. If anyone would like to try a set, I was going to make an announcement here sometime soon that I was looking for some reviews. If you’d like to try a set, send me a message and let’s discuss what you’re looking for. Thanks everyone! Ray.
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@larryi nailed this from the first sentence:
Like almost everything involving vibration damping/control, it is a matter of tuning, so there is no definitive answer.
I would add that there is also an associated component of personal preference.
@atmasphere eloquently added to the technical nature of the discussion:
I view this as 'points vs squishies' - Points are used to move vibration into the mass to which the point is pointed...Squishies are used to isolate
I have used many types of both points and squishies, starting with spikes and points early on, both on suspended wood floors and on concrete slabs on grade, and then in the past couple of years migrating toward being a fan of squishies, which are in essence a damped spring. Vibration control is often modeled using springs and dampers. Damped springs are used for isolation of items ranging from delicate laboratory instruments to heavy duty industrial machines. Your car has springs and shock absorbers (dampers).
Years ago, you could read on this forum about folks using hockey pucks to "decouple" their speakers (fwiw - spikes were mostly referred to as providing coupling while everything else was referred to as decoupling). Former A'gon member Geoff Kait (i.e., Machina Dynamica) used to promote and sell springs for use under electronics and speakers, as did @millercarbon later with Townshend. I tried using springs myself with some success under my electronics and under my two 160-pound subs and 170-pound speakers, both including their dedicated SA stands. I studied what Townshend and Credo Audio were doing and damped the springs, but getting the size, travel, and spring constant properly sized for the weight supported and the isolation frequencies desired required a bit of trial and error. As a result, I have a box of springs.
I then switched to elastomeric materials (in essence another type of damped spring) and was pleased with the sound I was hearing when using products from Herbie's Audio Lab that are custom designed for different types and weights of electronic equipment and speakers, and are much less expensive than the spring solutions by Townshend or Credo. The Herbie's dBNeutralizer material in their speaker support products is a harder elastomer with hardness (based on Shore A durometer - how hardness of an elastic material is measured) of 70 (quite a high number), which doesn't really compress much.
More recently, I have found other (much less costly) elastomeric products by Hudson Hi-Fi, that are available on Amazon. Their products are made from platinum silicone. BTW, the Herbie's products are also made from a silicone material. I recently started using the Hudson Hi-Fi Silicone Hemisphere Bumpers under my main speakers and subs. They conveniently provide the weight ranges supported by each sized hemisphere. Since they are all a softer hardness of 20 (Shore A durometer), you need to go up in size to the larger products to support more weight. I used their 2.5-inch size under the front of my speakers and the 2-inch size under the rear. This worked out great since the weight of the drivers is in the front making the weight in the front of my stands heavier than in the back. In addition, the speaker manufacturer recommends a slightly sloped front to back orientation so having slightly larger footers in the front was perfect. You can simply stick the bumpers to the bottom of your equipment or speakers (which I have done with smaller power supplies and other ancillaries) but taking a cue from Herbie's, I attached the flat bottom of the bumpers to Magic Sliders and put the slider side down, which helps with sliding and positioning on carpet over concrete. The result provides a much closer approximation to a damped spring than I had with the Herbie's products. The speakers can actually move, as they could with the springs but they are damped so that when excited they become stationary after only a few oscillations. They sound good so far under both my main speakers and under my subs (4 each at 2-inches). Consider your options - YMMV.
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@audiom3 Hey thanks a lot man! I’m a long way from buying Seismic due to budget constraints, but I bet these give a good bit of what they do given your stated results at a fraction of the cost (they are springs too after all), and the fact that you can custom tune them by removing springs is WAY cool. Given how vibration along with noise is the mortal enemy of streaming sound I’m excited to try these. Thanks for introducing us to them!
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I should add that similar ones are under my 3" maple block turntable isolation platform (in my profile pics). I think I used 12 for under it because that block and the VPI Classic are so damn heavy. I also use 4 under my server. They work killer for that because servers vibrate like crazy with all of the fans, spinning HDDs and stuff.
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Spikes do not isolate, they couple.
Back in the 1970s and earlier, loudspeakers were often fitted with rubber feet that sensibly decoupled them to a degree from the surface they were placed upon.
Then, some time in the 1980s some reviewers began to try out spikes under their speakers. Before too long a whole sub industry had appeared, all on the words of a few reviews.
Such was the esteem the printed press had back then.
A decade or so later, enthusiasts such as the late Max Townshend began to experiment with decoupling loudspeakers from their surface, the same as the rubber feet had done previously, only to a far greater extent.
Only this time they had irefutable accelerometer data to back up their opinions. Lots and lots of it.
And so, here we are again in the present day, with decoupling now rapidly becoming the accepted norm once more. There are now literally dozens and dozens of manufacturers offering various form of decoupling products.
As they say, 'what goes around comes around'.
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@audiom3 Im very interested in the springs you mentioned. Can you provide the link so I can find them? Thanks!
I would say, though, that the most universally-praised tweak I’ve ever heard of are the Townshend Seismic isolation products that are based on springs, hence my interest in the cheaper springs above as the Seismic products are not cheap. But, without exception, the reviews and customer feedback I’ve read on all Seismic products have been exuberantly positive in every application (speakers, components, equipment stands, etc.) — something I’ve very rarely found with tweaks.
https://www.townshendaudio.com/hi-fi-home-cinema-equipment-vibration-isolation/
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It seems counterintuitive to have wobbly speakers on springs. However, I converted from spikes to springs a while back. Between speaker and stand. Stand remains spiked to concrete. Really cleaned the sound and opened up the imaging.
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I have spikes under all of my floor mounted speakers into a concrete slab subfloor. Under my center channel speaker, I use springs which sit on my central equipment rack. You can find them on Amazon for around $30/set. These bettered other anti-vibration products I’ve tried for more money. I also tried spikes into the bases which did little to nothing for me. Things I listened for when experimenting were: less bloat/chestiness, clearer vocals (especially sibilants) and better localization of sounds.
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Springs! Dampen Springs work the best
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@emergingsoul
I view this as 'points vs squishies'.
Points are used to move vibration into the mass to which the point is pointed. This is an old principle- I had an LP mastering lathe made about 1950. Its anti-vibration stand used adjustable points for feet.
Squishies are used to isolate- this is to prevent vibration from something else (like a shelf) from entering a piece of equipment (like a turntable).
Platforms are supposed to be good at vibration absorption so usually the equipment placed on them has points that bear on the platform's surface. But it might have squishies beneath it to isolate it from a vibrating shelf or the like.
Speakers are supposed to be kept still so its common to see them use pointy feet.
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I’ve done no spikes/spikes, no difference, gave the spikes to my friend. His positioning/toe-in is ’stuck’, i.e. he cannot make any toe-in adjustment when I visit and we both are off-center. Wonderful imaging when centered is gone.
I believe in easily adjustable toe-in, solved relative to the speaker’s weight:
a. normal toe-in, central listener, both speakers aimed directly at center chair, and tilted so tweeter is aimed at seated ear height. tilt alters the angle of reflection off floor/ceiling/walls,
b. cross-field toe-in for two listeners, both off center: nice little drink table between the chairs. I have a wood floor with grid, very easy for me to go from a to b back to a.
aim left speaker directly to right listener. aim right speaker directly at left listener. You get pretty decent imaging, hearing both l and r: because: you are nearer to the speaker that is not aimed at you; and to far speaker is aimed directly at you. It’s about nearer volume matched with directly aimed volume.
.......................................
solve movement relative to weight:
1st, use only 3 contact devices, so that there is more weight per contact, and no tilt/wobble issues as 3 always finds wobble free position.
light-weight, 3 pieces of felt, sized to just allow movement when you apply force.
my speakers, very heavy 3 way horns/15" woofer/heavy cabinet:, I use 3 wheels, dual wheel furniture casters (because their axels are tighter, no wobble than very expensive single wheels I tried). 2 front, 1 rear, sized so the speakers move, but don’t move.
See photos of my virtual system. Plenty of Donna’s treasures on top. No movement of either her stuff or the speakers.
btw, single wheel in the back: anti-tipping must be solved. My JSE’s, flat bottoms (come with 4 wheels) I changed to 3 and had corner blocks just shorter than the wheels, tall speaker starts to tip, corner block stops it.
current, wood skirt conceals wheels, and the skirt is the anti-tip solution. Photo of speaker laying on it’s face, back off, in Virtual System.
Note: front, 2x4 flat above front wheels is what aims the tweeters up to seated ear height (why I went to skirt base) .
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Like almost everything involving vibration damping/control, it is a matter of tuning, so there is no definitive answer. I've tried various speakers on damping platforms (the entire bottom of the speaker is in contact with a platform designed to transfer vibrations to the platform where the energy is dissipated as heat) and also tried the same speaker with spikes designed to transfer that energy to the floor. In some instances damping the energy sounds better (tighter bass), in others, transfer to the floor sounds better (excessive damping can make some speakers sound lean or "dry" sounding). It is really a matter of trial and error and personal taste.
Generally speaking, if you have a suspended wooden floor, and the bass sounds a bit boomy or muddy, decoupling from the floor would help. If you couple with spikes, vibration is transferred from the speaker to the floor which acts as a sounding board that may make this energy more pronounced (and also delayed in time).
What works best for any one person depends on so many factors that I find the best advice is to try different approaches.
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