Spikes on tower speakers

To be clear, the spikes are not removable for me because they are strongly glued onto the speakers. If someone knows how to loosen the powerful glue, please help. Otherwise I need to sink the spikes into something that then can be put on a carpet or on a base that goes on the carpet.

As some have stated, you want to have solid contact with the floor below; so, yes, the spikes have to pierce the carpet. I don’t believe that a wood platform, even slate (or other stone) on top of the carpet will be completely free of rocking even with the weight of the speaker placed on it. Additionally, you don’t want for the bottoms of the speakers to be making much (if any) contact with the carpet below which will serve to dampen the speaker. My suggestion: get cones with sharp enough points to pierce the carpet and that are taller than the spikes on the speakers now; original tall TipToes come to mind. They don’t have to be glued on or screwed in to get most of the benefit. On the assumption that you currently have three spikes per side, simply reverse the 2&1 arrangement. If you currently have two spikes in the back, put one cone in the back and two in the front; or, vice versa.  Leave the spikes as they are.  Good luck.

The speakers have four spikes each. How would the cones be attached to the speakers? I would like to include a photo of the spikes but don't see how to do. Thanks.

Actually, it doesn’t matter if they have four as long as the cones are taller than the spikes, but do use only three cones of you decide to try this. The cones don’t have to be attached. The cones have flat upper surfaces, so the speakers simply rest on them. The original metal TipToes or similar were about 1.5 in. in diameter. Alternatively, you could simply use double sided tape to secure them lightly or a bit of Bluetac.  It’s the same principle as using cones under electronic components. It works well.

Spikes are for coupling, if you have a suspended wooden floor, it will cause the entire floor to resonate.
I tested both coupling and decoupling my speakers, and decoupled was better by far on my suspended wooden floor.

 

As for the speaker moving? Some folks have invoked the Great Isaac Newton, but didn't bother to do any Newtonian Science.

Your speakers weighs 14kg, a typical 15cm paper driver has about 8.5g (0.0085kg) of moving mass and an extension of about 4mm.

F = mass*acceleration

Work = Force*distance or

Work = mass*acceleration*distance

The force acting on the cone and the speaker body are equal and opposite, and the work done by the cone on the speaker is expressed as:

0.0088*acceleration*.004m = -14*acceleration*distance

cancel acceleration and simplify the left

0.0000352 = -14*distance

-0.000002514m = distance = -0.0025mm

your speaker will move 2.5 microns at full excursion.

This is in a frictionless un-damped setting.

If you are curious, a 12" woofer typically has a moving mass of about 100g, or about 11.7 times the mass of a 6" cone. In this case, the same enclosure would move about 30microns, which is in the vicinity of a 12MHz sound wave.

 

We get enough hand-waving junk science from Amir over at ASR, let's not infect this fine forum with more of the same nonsense. 

 

Spiking to a concrete floor often improves the damping of a speaker, isolating a speaker from a suspended floor improves the damping of the floor.

What works best in your system depends on your system and room.

 

I like the idea of setting the speakers on a board of some kind be it a cutting board or a hunk of MDF. Use your feet of choice on the board, spikes will require you to drill some holes and add inserts, isolators can be inexpensive "pucks" you put under the board. I suggest these things

It is possible they are already thicker than your spikes are long and you wont need a platform at all, or maybe you can add something under them like machine felt or heavy cardboard to give them a bit of extra lift.

I probably would not go with anything fancy, these are (according to the Piega manual) entry level speakers.