Thanks @johnread57 for the video. Very helpful!
To couple, or not to couple, that is the question
There seems to be a fundamental difference of opinion between those who would couple their speakers to the floor (e.g., with spikes), and those who would decouple them (e.g., with springs). I’ve gone both ways, but have found that I prefer the latter; I’ve currently got Sorbothane feet attached to my tower speakers, so that they wobble or "float"—much like the Townshend Platforms videos show for that similar, but more expensive, approach. My ears are the final arbiters of my listening experience, so they rule my choices. But my mind likes to have a theoretical explanation to account for my subjective preferences.
That’s where the question comes in. A very knowledgable audiophile friend insists that what I prefer is precisely the opposite of what is best: that ideally, the speaker enclosure should be as rigid and immovable as possible so that the moving cones of the drivers can both most efficiently and most accurately create a sound front free of the inevitable colorations that would come from fighting against a moving cabinet. He says that transients will be muddied by the motion of the cabinet set up by the motion of the speaker cones. And this makes perfect sense to me in terms of my physical intuitions. It’s perhaps analogous to the desirability of having a rigid frame in a high-performance vehicle, which allows the engineers to design the suspension without having to worry too much about the complex interactions with a flexing chassis.
Am I just deluded, then, in preferring a non-rigid interface between speaker and floor? Or does it depend on the kind of floor? (I get that most advice seems to favor decoupling from a suspended wood floor, and coupling to a slab; my floor is hardwood, but not exactly "suspended" as the underflooring structure is very rigid.) Or are there trade offs here, as there usually are in such options: do I gain something (but what, and how?) even as I lose something else (i.e., clean transients, especially in bass tones)?
The ears will win this contest, but I like to have my mind on board if possible. So thanks for any input you may have on this question.
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Every speaker is different the floor you're setting them on etc. I liked speakers without spikes due to more body, inter detail, and natural highs. A few with them on. One show setup specialist wants no spikes on any speaker and much due to what I've mentioned. I spoke with a speaker designer once and he told me they have to use spikes because its become expected, without having spikes it would hurt sales, an ingrained myth you could call it. But in the end it what you like, your room impacts the sound we hear more than a spike, footer of any design, all they all do is change what is more present from the speaker, be it the lows, midrange to the highs and that what you may enjoy than the speaker el-natural. |
i personally believe speakers should ideally be well grounded, so that the driver movements occur against a stiff, inert backdrop question is when you spike speakers in your room, are they spiking into a medium/environment that indeed provides excellent, solid grounding - wood floors bounce, and so on...you get my drift... if very good grounding can’t be done, one might profitably look into letting the speakers ’float’ via softer mount points, simply give up the idea of proper grounding entirely as it is impractical in said room... that is where isopucks springs and so on could well be the lesser of the evils the idea that a speaker should float as an ideal is to me, simply misguided |
@johnread57 +2. Very informative vid. |
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