Tweakers' Asylum: REVIEW: Vibrapod Vibrapod Accessory by Bruce from DC

I'm naturally suspicious of reviewers' claims for dramatic benefits from magic tweaks. But curiousity overcame my suspicion with respect to these --and the price of experimentation was low. So, I bought a set of 4 to support my Mirage BPS-150 subwoofer. (I weighed the sub on a bathroom scale to select the correct weight range for the 'pods.) The sub sits in the corner on a suspended hardwood floor in my 100-year old house. It has four hard rubber feet, about 1.5 inches in diameter. It also comes with spikes, which I do not use on the bare floor. The BPS-150 is a bi-polar subwoofer. It has two drivers at opposite ends of a rectangular cabinet, with their axis horizontal. The drivers move in phase, so their mechanical motions cancel each other out. I placed the sub on the four pods, leaving the original hard feet in place. As a result, the sub sits about 1" higher off the floor. The pods greatly improved the quality of the bass, especially at higher levels. Initially, using the pods there appeared to be less bass. Turning the gain up restored the bass level, with the added benefit of much better definition and control, especially under 40 Hz (the sub goes down flat to 28, and produces useable output to about 24 Hz). Clearly, when the sub got going with the hard rubber feet, it was exciting the floor. This made the bass louder, but less defined. The 'pods eliminated this problem. As a general matter, I would think that one would not want a sub (or any speaker generating substantial low bass) coupled to a suspended wood floor, whether carpted or not. The pods accomplish this decoupling well. With a concrete floor that is relatively immovable and non-resonant, I would probably go with spikes. As for using these things under electronics, I can't say. I am going to use a set in conjunction with a solid block of wood to support my cheapo Dual turntable. I'll report back on that.

REVIEW: Vibrapod Vibrapod Accessory Review by Bruce from DC at Audio Asylum