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My home's slab is old--poured in 1958--and I have a thick carpet and pad atop it.I have a pair of Sanders 10es coming tomorrow; I currently have a pair of relatively heavy Serenity Super-7s...
...in my system, on isolating pads..
I asked Roger Sanders about spikes, etc.. He said the speakers need to be coupled to the concrete floor; he called it something like adding the weight of the floor to that of the speakers to make them heavier and more rigid and nonmoving and better resolving.. I was e-mailing with Steve Herbelin years ago about my quite stable, nonvibrating floor that I spiked speakers to and he said something like 'you only think your concrete floor doesn't vibrate'.. That got me to realize that they do indeed vibrate, and since then I've been an isolatist and not a couplist.. I once* tested coupling against isolating, and isolating won, with more resolved sound, overall.
So what do you do with YOUR heavy planar speakers? Couple with spikes or isolate with pads or something more expensive?
* It was once only because testing the two is a lot of work for this chubby oldfart.
Here are Jim Smith's views on this.
Edits: 07/22/22 08/05/22 08/05/22Follow Ups:
OK, there are several issues here.
On one hand, as Roger Sanders says, the concrete floor adds mass to the speaker.
OTOH, concrete does vibrate and unlike wood, it doesn't sound good when it does. And it is very well coupled to the air because of its large surface area. Think of it as a sounding board.
My instinct would be to go with Roger Sanders -- he's the one with the experience after all!
But there is a better solution. That's to bond the speaker tightly to a massive base and *then* float that over the concrete floor.
That way you get the benefit of added mass without imparting vibration to the floor. The massive base has a small surface area, so it doesn't couple to the air as effectively as the floor does.
A tweak for the obsessives among us!
If possible why not employ a floor similar to that used in Magnepan's test (auditioning) room?
After all that should be the sound a listener is trying to recreate.
with spikes there will always be a decoupling frequency 200-1000Hz. you might as well decouple to move in out of the audio range - below 15Hz is easy.
My Mapnepan 3.6s on Mye stands are also on a "vintage" concrete slab.I tried a moderately heavy carpet plus a pad in my room (~14'x24') and it was worse than awful. Sucked the life out of the music and the room. I removed the carpet pad and everything was significantly better.
I thought the Mye feet sounded ok, but then, I tried the CMS Center Stage "LS" Loudspeaker Feet. They noticeably enlarged the soundstage, and improved the image density in it while reducing the noise floor with no detrimental effect on tonal color. I have used these with great results under my equipment which is why I decided to try them. These are not spikes - Jim Smith will never lead you astray.
These CMS feet won't work using the Mye threaded holes. You can just position the feet on the carpet under the stands as everything is more than heavy enough.
I also modified the Mye stands' mid-brace rear mounting system so that the speakers are rigidly clamped to them instead of to the wooden styles that hold the grill cloth. This helps to directly transmit speaker vibration to the stands and feet so it can be drained away. This is well worth doing even if you don't buy feet and only costs a couple of bucks for a few screws, nuts, and metal washers.
These feet will not be a viable option for most as they will set you back $5K. I'm probably the only person who's spent 20+ years and $20K on mods to a $4k set of speakers. Now that there's nothing left to upgrade, I can stop eating cat food, and spend all my time doing COTD posts on CENTRAL.
Edits: 07/23/22
I love them! One of the better upgrades I've done, and very cost effective.
my answer is use spikes on the base of each that can dig deep through the carpet and padding. The more narrow the spike, the better. My concrete is a 4 inch slab from 1962, solid as a rock
And it cleans up EVERYTHING and not just 'the bass'. Even more benefit to the treble
But first make sure you have speaker position correct, then get somebody's help just in case, and tilt them to put the spikes into place.
It may take a few days for things to settle and have full effect. Stick with it. I've done exactly this with my Quads and it does make a difference.
I use these. Very good, cleaned up the bass.
http://www.sonicdesign.co.uk/homepage.html
Not an easy answer...give it a read
Edits: 07/23/22
Thanks for posting.
Andy
Did you ever get the MiFlex caps installed ?
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2022/03/30 Historical Records CENSORED
...versions which are BIG.. The pair of coupling caps are 0.1s while the Voltagegain-supply bypass cap is a 0.47.. I bypassed the output-stage supply with one 1uF SoniCap Platinum (Teflon and tinfoil) per pole and also replaced the huge outputstage supply caps with new Nippon-Chemicon 27000/160s. Also added much SoundCoat the Thicker vibration-damping material to everything that rang, which was about all the sheetmetal chassis..
I drove the Quad 2905s for several years and the Super-7s several weeks with those A-S 160s, and both systems sounded fabulous.. The S7s also sounded excellent with my earlier A-S 60s, and I now have another pair of 60s that arrived today, this time model III.3s..These have the V-Cap, Caddock, and main-PS-supply uprades.
Sanders believes in huge (as in 500 Watts into 8) amounts of power even with his medium-high (94dB)-sensitive 10s and thinks the 140 watts of the A-S 160s are barely adequate; Sonic Craft's Jeff Glowacki thinks the A-S 60s should be enough.. Since I'm NOT a headbanger and don't listen at high levels, I plan to start my Sanders system with the A-S 60s.. We'll see how it goes.
I bought the 10e system for 14K$ without amplifier and he waved the shipping charge if I would pay by check instead of CCs or electronic systems that would cost him a substantial fee.
Edits: 07/23/22
Sorry, I meant your Super 7 XO Miflex caps.
.
2022/03/30 Historical Records CENSORED
I and my goodbuddy Pat will install the x-overs and rewire the drivers.
I side with Sanders; spikes.
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