What to put under Avalon speakers?

I installed Herbie's Audio Lab Big Fat Black Dots under my Köchel K-300 loudspeakers last night and am floored by the high performance they offer. They are only 5/8" high and will compress to slightly less than that. If these are feasible for use with your own speakers (porting issues?) I suspect that you'd love them. At less than $50 for a set of six these are, without doubt, the best bang for buck product I've encountered.

Glai: Of course there's a difference intreatment between bottom ported and sealed spkr designs... In the first place, the bottom ported model (should) have factored the distance between port & floor into the spkr design -- hence, for example Avalon (& others) supply specific devices WITH their spkrs (i.e., specific height fm floor)-- cones in the Eidolons' case. The distance fm the floor is set by the manufacturer... You can change the low frequency reproduction by changing that distance (i.e. using more or different supports) but that's another matter.

Incidentally, when I used Eidolons they sat directly onto the (marble in my case) floor with a coin protection -- just like you. Then I raised them simply by placing them directly on a concrete slab, slab on floor. Too complicated, and all I achieved was to hit a response at ~25 degrees fm the tweet.

In a sealed design things are a bit different and yr concern *would* be (i.e. again, theoretically) to DECOUPLE the spkr fm the floor mass -- but in a rigid way so as to avoid undue motion fm the spkr while playing...

I'm sure Avalon themselves could make recommendations -- not which specific PRODUCT/brand to use, but what TYPE of support: to couple, decouple, what type of material (soft, hard, etc)...

BTW, yr hard floor *should, in theory* contribute to good sonic results; good imaging, for one! Cheers

Hi Glai,

The arcus is also ported, like the opus. The avatar was a closed concept.

Thanks guys. The Opus like the newer Avalon, is ported downward. I thought the Arcus & Eclipse are sealed. Would you think that makes a difference in choosing an isolation device?

Jimmy Hoffa's body?

My Friend owns the Eclispe and tried the Sistrum 101 and it blew him away!!The difference is so large that you basically get a new speaker,audiopionts are good but only hint at what is possible.My other friend uses them under Martin Logan sl3 and that experience totally changed what the speaker was capable of,especially in the bass region.If you can afford them then they are totally a bargain compared to the cost of everything else in your system.Take care Dennis

I saw in a recent article in Hi-Fi news (Nov '05) a reader's system with Avalon Eidolons sitting beautifully on Finite Elemente Cerabase interfaces which gave me the same idea to use under my ProAc D38's.
Personally I couldn't have asked for a better solution.
There is also a Cerapuc model that supports up to 300kgs (4) and costs quite a bit less too.

I use GPA APEX for some time now under my Avalon Arcus.
Most obvious was and is a better defined low end (never thought that they sounded "wooly" in that department.

audiopoints would be my recommendation

I think Symposium makes platforms especially designed for speakers. If they don't lift the speaker too high off the floor, they might be worth a look. Good luck!