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In Reply to: RE: Makes sense. posted by Dave Pogue on October 28, 2015 at 07:18:40
The question is a matter of coupling vs. decoupling. I find that rigid coupling using spikes just isn't really cutting it in my room - too much low frequency energy is being diverted into my suspended wooden floor, resulting in a smeared, bloated LF presentation. Instead of exciting the air in the room, the entire floor is vibrating. Keep in mind my speakers (Coincident Total Eclipse II) are in a decent sized dedicated room - approximately 23 x 15, but they are also large speakers capable of moving a fair amount of air; bass traps are present (and beneficial) in the room. I've fiddled with placement to no end, but I just can't quite seem to end up with a bass I'm happy with. Everything I've tried as far as decoupling (think Herbie's Cone/Spike decoupling gliders) has resulted in an overly smooth presentation, with a flabby truncated low-end and decisive lack of HF air and detail. Hence my curiosity regarding the aforementioned feet - there are only so many devices to try, and after a while the cost becomes an issue (Stillpoint Ultras and Townshend Isolation bars for example).
What I wouldn't give to have my concrete floor back!
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A good friend had a similar-looking pair of Coincidents. He spiked his into 4" Mapleshade blocks which were in turn spiked to the floor. 'Course his floor was concrete, making the whole thing kinda academic as far as your problems are concerned.
Sounds like you need a floor transplant :-)
And if walls and furniture stand on the concrete, hey, we all sing together!
I have had better results from isolating (as far as possible) speakers from both concrete and wooden floors. Any negative from a speaker cone trying to move the cabinet is vastly outweighed by the clarity at the bottom end, where mid-bass bloom (pretty much) disappears and faster, leaner, deeper REAL bass takes over.
Maybe this doesn't work for you, but I spent a year or so going backwards and forwards around 2000-2002 and it's not likely I'd go back.
Are you saying that you have been using "compliant" feet since 2002 or thereabouts, and you prefer it to your pre-2002 set-up where apparently your speakers were sitting on the concrete floor? If your concrete floor is poured over solid earth, as in a true basement construction, you must have one hell of a woofer, if it can nevertheless make the concrete and all the furniture "sing". Isn't it more likely that what you experienced was due to resonances set up by the bass responsiveness of the speaker, rather than to a mechanical linking of the speaker to the floor? Just wondering.
Well, yes and no.
Here in Australia slabs are poured on earth for the ground floor and sometimes they are suspended and both can be made to resonate without much effort.
I have indeed been "isolating" my speakers from floors since 2002 and with very clearly good effect.
Now I am not going to say that NO resonant effects have been in play, but in what way would they change?
Along with another tweaker, I tried various arrangements and using compliant support for speakers pretty much always came out on top across all floors.
Bass became deeper (or at least deep bass became clearer)leaner faster and mid bass "bloat" became far less of an issue.
I have followed that approach since across perhaps 3 changes of speakers.
Thanks for your response. Perhaps it's a matter of semantics, but I too isolate my speakers from the floor, even the Beveridge electrostats that sit on the poured concrete slab that is the floor of my basement. Over the concrete I have indoor/outdoor carpet (handy when the basement occasionally floods), and the Bevs sit on large aluminum cone footers that hold them about 2 inches off the floor in 3-point stance. This seems to make a positive difference. My only point is and was that the method of isolation would best be one that does not permit the speaker to rock back and forth on musical transients. The speaker should be held rigid.
I would say that cones are a rigid connector and although I understand and accept the holding the speaker box fully "fixed" in space means the cone moves and the box doesn't (within realistic limits, I'd suggest that the deterioration in sound from allowing the speaker box to "float" (again within realistic limits)is in many cases more than outweighed by the improvement won by not vibrating the floor.
Whilst that vibration is more easily noticed with a suspended (wooden) floor, I have heard it clearly with a concrete floor as well.
Having said that it is now some time since I actually has a concrete floor and it's not exactly the sort of thing you can dummy up for a test.
My former, long lamented room had 8" of fiberglass reinforced concrete for a floor in a true basement. I had nowhere near the type of low-end problem I'm having now with a suspended wood floor above a garage (same speakers, roughly similar room dimensions). However I will note that concrete resonates (or at least that floor did), just at a much higher frequency and lower amplitude than what I'm dealing with now. More of a ringing than a resonance, but I'm mincing words.
In the last 2-3 years, I have set up a system in my basement. For the first time in my life, I now have a full-range system operating on a concrete slab. It seems impossible to upset the turntable or to hear any problem with feedback, at all. However, my woofers, which operate from 100Hz down, are probably too small to get anywhere near to affecting the concrete (KEF B139s in transmission line cabinets). They were chosen to mesh well with Beveridge ESLs.
"Sounds like you need a floor transplant :-)"
Ha, if only. I've been at this so-called hobby for too long now to be troubled by such matters - I just want to come home from work and spin some tunes, and not really have to think about audio equipment unless I want to; having to is a pain in the ass. Aside from a new cartridge six months ago and a few other doo-dads, I've been pretty happy with my system for a while now, aside from the low-end issue.
I just think you might be exchanging one set of problems or deficiencies for another, if you use compliant feet. Sounds like what you want to achieve is to mechanically decouple the cabinets from the flooring. You might consult with Israel Blume, since he designed the speakers. For one example, what about placing heavy slabs of something like cement, granite, or slate between the bottom of the speaker cabinets, which could be spiked or anchored to the stone in some fashion, and the true flooring? Some way to soak up energy while holding the speaker firmly in position.
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