What should I use between spikes and wood floor?


My new (mostly used) system is almost complete. I was lucky enough to find a pair of Osiris stands for my new Green Mountain Europas, but I need advice regarding the spikes which came with the stands. Are there any products which work particularly well protecting the hardwood floor without hurting the sonics?

Thanks in advance!

Tony
whipsaw
I use my grandmother's old glass rug protectors that she used under the sofa feet......
ditto on don't use the pennies...or other coins...before I ordered the audiopoints the Vandersteen 2cesigs poked holes through pennies as noted above...and it only took about a week or two.
I initially used quarters under my Revel Salons (which are, admittedly very heavy speakers) and found that the spikes gradually drove holes through the coins and into the floor. I switched to Sound Anchors Conecoasters to rectify the problem.

Link to Sound Anchors Web Page

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Coancoasters do what they are advertised to do. They do an excellent job of minimizing the vibration that is passed through from the speaker to my suspended wood floors. The resulting impact on the sound was tighter bass with noticeably less vibration of the floors. Common sense would tell you that coins would accomplish roughly the same thing. However, with my system and in my listening room, the Conecoasters produced a noticeable improvement in sound quality.
I use short spent pistol shell casings.Plenty sizes shapes and use softer alloys in aluminum or brass. Polish up very nice. Spike sets through neck and flash hole on primer anvil. Taper of the spike self-limits at the flash hole keeping it from pushing out the dead primer.If you want weight distibuted on more floor area a larger spent shell such as .44spcl/mag/.45acp are very common and easy to trim down w/Weiss snips if needed.
I used dimes on my hard wood floors, the whole project cost me .80 USD. You can also use pennies if the budget is real tight, or quarters if you want a higher level of performance. All joking aside though, I got this reccomendation from Sumiko audio, and it has worked well for me.
I realize that this is not an answer to your question, but I wonder why you (or anyone) wants to couple speakers to a (suspended) wood floor. Personally, I want to hear my speakers not my floors, and I isolate them from the floors for whatever good that really does, which I assume has something to do with the frequencies at which the speaker resonates and whether or not these resonances would excite the resonance modes of the floor. Where have I gone wrong (or have I)?
I agree with Slappy. My neighbor was putting in new countertops and I grabbed the chunks of finished one-inch pieces of marble from the debris pile. Works great.
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Er, don't use pennies. Tried that with a pair of ProAc RS2s and Target RS4 sand-filled stands. The spikes punched through the pennies and still marred the floor...
I use the Audiopoints and coupling discs that WarrenH suggested. They work really well and they're fairly cheap. Looking at your system pictures, you may benefit from the Audiopoints under all of your components too. I know that I did. I just purchased their Sistrum SP-6 stand, which is even better, if you ever want to change things up a little.

The coupling discs are $6.99 a piece at www.audiopoints.com, so basically $56.00 and you're all set.
Try Herbie's Audio Lab "combat boots" depending upon weight of the speaker. Find the website under Audiogon Mfg list. Terrific products!

Jack
Don't use spikes. Go to office depot and buy a sheet of cork and cut 8 small squares together, glue them so there are four and put them under each corder. Cork is used in soundproofing rooms and is mostly air. Another alternative is felt pads. Or both.
I use pennies with a little felt on the side making contact with wood floor. It works fine.
I second the audiopoints...got some for my dad...they are soooo damn flat that they are actually pretty hard to pick up.

I went a more custom route myself but didn't save any $...and I'm sure they aren't as good.
go to audiopoints.com. That is Star Sound Technologies's website. They have a brass coupling disc. Will do just want you want it to. Looks great, as well. peace, warren
Instead of spikes I use common hex bolts with same thread as supplied spikes. They don't mark the hardwood and provide solid contact. Just be sure to thread a nut on the bolt for tightening.
I may be cheap but spending alot of $ on some esoteric feet strikes me as absurd when the local hardware store sells nuts and bolts for pennies.
I put a slab of marble beneath the spiked stand with felt pads beneath the marble to keep it from scratching the floor.
works pretty good, you can pick up the marble from home depot for 3-4 bucks a tile.
Polycrystal makes some inexpensive floor protectors that don't degrade the sound. You can probably get them from The Cable Company.
Linn makes some they call "Skeets," and are supposedly very good.