[dura]

For loudspeakers not only placement is very important; at least equally important is the coupling or decoupling to the floor (and the stand, for stand mounters).
 
I've got a laminated floor with an isolating under layer, so direct coupling to the concrete with spikes is out of the question.
My speakers have heavy self made iron feet screwed onto them, both to increase the weight (with 10 kg each, giving a total weight of 24 kg a piece) and to broaden to the footprint to increase stability.
The speakers plus the attached feet stand on concrete slabs.
For the decoupling between the iron feet and the slabs I did a lot of experimentation; basically there are dampers, which gave a full soft slow bass and reduce dynamics and spikes; which give a tight dynamic sound but slightly hard mid treble. I liked vibrapods (#4) which gave an open slightly dry sound without the characteristics I associate with dampers, but they loose their shape rather fast under pressure and the sound gets kind of deteriorated then.
So I went back to cones, one in front, two at the back, attached with blue tack to the iron feet and pointing down.
Last month I read about Sonic Design feet, which claim to have none of the characteristics of dampers. There is also a "non audiophile"variant in ugly beige, which would cost me about €25,- including p&p. (the audiophile variants have more attractive colors and are 3 times as expensive with some vague extra benefits claimed). Worth the experiment.
I must say I've been very happy with those, there is no loss at all in bass, dynamics or detail, and the very slight mid treble harshness and the occasional mid bass "bonk" by higher volumes is gone, giving a purer sound on my system.
These are probably not for all systems, my floor standing speakers are rather small and I can imagine large floor standers with deeper bass might suffer, it also depends on your floor, but I'm mightily impressed by this sensibly priced dampers, the first I ever heart that worked really well in my system, all advantages and no new disadvantages.

 

[dura]

After 3 weeks I decided to re-investigate the working of these feet and I replaced the cones under my speakers; immediately the sound got more edged, with unpleasantly bonking bass if the music got too dynamic. Dynamics and detail did not really improve, and the sound in general got messier.
I endured it for 30 minutes, then back under went the Sound Design feet and the smoothness was back. 
Again I would recommend those who suspect their speaker (de-)coupling could improve to experiment with these feet. In some cases I would be careful; in case your speaker is capable of really deep deep bass (say <30Hz, +/- 6 db) or if the sound of your system is already on the smooth side.  
In case your system sounds etched and/or your system sounds unpleasant on peaks you might experience real improvements. Apparently these things can also be used under component, but I did not experiment with that, having experienced in the past that neither my amp nor my DAC seems very sensitive to vibration (probably because these are rather heavy, solid state components standing on a very very solid rack made of massive 5cm thick wood).
 
BTW, I find it strange that threat did not elicit any response at all while powercord discussions are good for hundreds of answers; IMO the audible effect of these feet is larger; is this tweak too cheap to be of interest for head-fiers? In that case one can always buy the audiophile version.

 

[Lenni]

thanks for the info. I've been concerned about the floor and what impact the stands may have on the overall sound. I've sanded the stands which partially reduced some of the resonance I was experiencing, but not completely. I've a carpeted floor, and the stands have screwed metal spikes at the bottom.
 
what would you recommend I could try for this conditions?

 

[gateseocq]

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Thanks for the posting, It's good for reference.

 

[dura]

thanks for the info. I've been concerned about the floor and what impact the stands may have on the overall sound. I've sanded the stands which partially reduced some of the resonance I was experiencing, but not completely. I've a carpeted floor, and the stands have screwed metal spikes at the bottom.


 


what would you recommend I could try for this conditions?

Unfortunately there is no universal right answer. F.i, it depends on the amount of bass, the weight of the speakers and especially the floor.

My views are like this:
Basically, what happens is action=reaction, a speaker that moves the air starts to move itself, no arguing with Newton. So the speaker starts to vibrate, and thus brings the air in vibration. If this happens on an audible frequention, you hear distortion.
Two possibilities to reduces this are:
- make the speakersystem heavier; the energy stored will remain the same (like filling your stands with sand), but the amplitude of the vibrations lessens and/or
- move the vibrations to a frequency that gives a less intrusive distortion.
Spikes on a concrete floor will couple the speaker solidly to the floor, raising the weight of the total system, especially if 3 instead of 4 sharp, carpetpiercing spikes or cones are used. But in dynamic peaks the couplings might break temporarily, giving unpleasant distortions at peaks ("bonking" f.i.). Easy to imagine that heavier speakers suffer less from this.
The sonic design feet go for the second solution, the speakers prefered resonance is pushed back below 20hz, giving an inaudible diatortion. It is not perfect though, there are still audible resonance frequencies if my ears do not deceive me, but less so and there is no peakrelated distortion.

But if you got a concrete floor and standmounters, I would couple the speakers to the stands with bluetack, and use spikes (4 is possible, but in that case be very careful to level them. You can also remove the spikes and use 3 cones, one in front, two at the back seems to be the general preference of people that experimented). If your floor is not concrete but f.i. wood, coupling is not a good idea; the floor will move along.
Sonic design advices to use their feet between the speaker and the stand. Personally I would prefer coupling the speakers to the stand, use dempers under the stand and under those a (painted) concrete slab, that way the total weight of the system is raised.
But if the slab is not desirable, go for the dempers under the speaker.

Problem is, there is no cure that always works: it depends enormously on lots of variables; f.i. a little distortion in the midbass can sometimes sound pleasant; trying to reduce this and in the proces also chancing the frequency might reduce the absolute total of vibration, but still result in subjectively a more unpleasant sound; we seem to be more sensitive to some distortions then to others, probably even differ amongst indiciduals as well. So experimenting is all you can do, but a little background theory can help you to search in the right direction sometimes.

 

[Lenni]

slabs+dampers really seem the right answer. I'll definitely experiment with this once I've a chance. thanks again! good info, appreciated... 

 

[dura]

You're welcome!
Keep in mind the Sonic Design dampers come in different weight classes; once you order them for the speakers+sand filled stands you apparently cannot use the same dampers between speakers and stands, sins the weight probably differs too much.
If you use the slabs, it certainly is worth experimenting with cones/spikes too.