Tweakers' Asylum

Posted by Paul_A (A) on April 26, 2010 at 05:15:25

In Reply to: RE: The jury is still out on spiking speakers to the floor posted by dave c on April 26, 2010 at 04:46:16

It may be small, but I believe that it was responsible for smearing the soundstage on my speakers. I used some #5 Vibrapods to decouple them from my wood-framed floor. It worked, and the bass boom was reduced, but the soundstage became less distinct and smaller. With Herbie's Big Black Dots, the bass boom was gone, but the soundstage returned. I believe that this is because they de-coupled the speakers from the floor, but are less springy than the Vibrapods, and allowed less reactive movement.

This is consistent with another influence that can compromise the soundstage--RFI. The influence of radio frequency on soundwaves must be of a very small order, but its removal can result in very large changes to the soundstage's size and definition. I heard this with an EP2050 AC filter put into my breaker box, and its sole purpose is to remove electical hash from the power line. It removes impulses up to 1 ghz, so the hash that is removed includes radio frequencies up to that frequency. More controversially, crystals have the same effect on the soundstage--I've heard it--and their piezo-electric properties suggest that they obtain this effect by absorbing RFI.

Putting these two observations together--that small mechanical movements in speakers and small modifications of electronic wave-forms can have large effects on the soundstage--suggests that the auditory cues responsible for this information are very subtle. This also lends credence to the idea that premium parts, solder and wire can make a substantial and real contribution to spatial information. It also indicates why mid-fi components, where the purity of the signal path is marginal, render three dimensional information poorly.