Springs Under My Speakers: What's Happening?

[MattHooper]

Just popping in to say, for anyone left interested:

After having more fun playing around I've ended up with:

Speakers on the granite base
TWO stacked hockey pucks beneath the four corners
atop the Isoacoustic carpet spike discs.

Makes for a super solid structure in regard to any lack of tippiness (even though this raises the speakers several inches off the ground).

Result: the sound is glorious. Rich, punchy, no hash in the highs, speakers disappear beautifully, giant soundstage, bass is tremendous - beautifully controlled,
deep and in grip no matter how low the bass goes.

Fun times and great results! (For me...)

 

[MattHooper]

This is interesting...
ASR is a means to understanding and making relevant measurements.
For $100 and a spare laptop, you would have the actual means. Measurements are so trivial to do today, it's even built in to modern AVR...
A UMIK and REW would trivially answer the original question, what's happening (audibly, if anything)?
Otherwise the question just ends up a rhetorical one.
And since this is online, the thread goes in circles and argument ensues.

Yes I understand that point of view. I think most ASR members are happier to geek out and do room measurements than I am. I find that stuff a hassle on top
of what I'm already doing. (It's one reason I sold all my subwoofer gear/room correction etc). Different strokes...and I got to where I wanted.

The thread had a lot of interesting input so I think it was quite worthwhile. But you are also right that, since the only folks left commenting are those who just want to see measurements....(fair enough, but not coming)....it seems to have run it's course.

So, for now at least, "last one who leaves: turn out the lights"

Thanks to all those who engaged in fascinating discussion on the various topics that arose!

 

[Axo1989]

Can't you just wedge somehing under the speakers to disable the springs and do measurements with REW? ...

Clever! Might try that when I get my measuring gear back.

 

[jdjung]

I stumbled on this post searching to see if I should buy filler for my stands. I really enjoyed your (OP) post and your viewpoints as well as the positive portions of the debate going back and forth. I didn't enjoy some people, that in my opinion, seemed condescending to you and think you handled it well. You stated in the begining that you(OP) were not going to take measurements that some people want and that you enjoy the listening tests after making tweeks, some people in this thread ignore this and insist you do things their way or else you're crazy and delusional without posting measurements themselves.

 

[MattHooper]

I stumbled on this post searching to see if I should buy filler for my stands. I really enjoyed your (OP) post and your viewpoints as well as the positive portions of the debate going back and forth. I didn't enjoy some people, that in my opinion, seemed condescending to you and think you handled it well. You stated in the begining that you(OP) were not going to take measurements that some people want and that you enjoy the listening tests after making tweeks, some people in this thread ignore this and insist you do things their way or else you're crazy and delusional without posting measurements themselves.

Thanks jdjung! Glad you enjoyed some of the thread too.

FWIW, as a slight update, I seem to have landed on what seems my final version: I wanted a thicker looking granite bass. So I bought another sheet of quartz. The speaker
platform is now: Speakers on footers - isoacoustic Gia on back, outrigger with spikes in to hockey pucks on front (gives the correct angle for the speakers). Then the bass that sits on is a "granite base sandwich": 1.4" thick granite sheet atop the 3/8" quartz sheet, with a layer of car sound damping material in between. This is super dead to the knuckle rap test. That sits upon four hockey pucks beneath each corner, which themselves sit upon isoacoustic speaker spikes. The structure is VERY solid and doesn't budge an inch.

One of the main things is this raises the speakers to the height I want, for the larger sounding soundstage. But as per my previous posts, I was looking for just the right combination of reducing some vibration transfer to the floor to keep bass nice and tight etc, while allowing just enough to keep some "room feel" for the bass, so I don't get that ghostly detached sound I had when fully decoupling with springs.

The combo I described above is pretty much bang on now. Wicked tight, focused bass, but still punchy and impactful, and I feel orchestral crescendos, bass for funk, EDM etc, while the speakers totally disappear in to a huge, detailed soundstage.

As was detailed in this thread by others as well, predicting the exact effect of altering vibration interaction between a room/speaker is very complicated even from a technical standpoint. So in my case it was just a try-and-see-how-I-like-it approach. Whether I was measuring or not, it would still have been based on what I perceived and preferred.

 

[Purité Audio]

Pity you couldn’t actually acoustically measure to give at least some credence to what is otherwise just anecdote.
Keith

 

[jdjung]

Thanks jdjung! Glad you enjoyed some of the thread too.

FWIW, as a slight update, I seem to have landed on what seems my final version: I wanted a thicker looking granite bass. So I bought another sheet of quartz. The speaker
platform is now: Speakers on footers - isoacoustic Gia on back, outrigger with spikes in to hockey pucks on front (gives the correct angle for the speakers). Then the bass that sits on is a "granite base sandwich": 1.4" thick granite sheet atop the 3/8" quartz sheet, with a layer of car sound damping material in between. This is super dead to the knuckle rap test. That sits upon four hockey pucks beneath each corner, which themselves sit upon isoacoustic speaker spikes. The structure is VERY solid and doesn't budge an inch.

One of the main things is this raises the speakers to the height I want, for the larger sounding soundstage. But as per my previous posts, I was looking for just the right combination of reducing some vibration transfer to the floor to keep bass nice and tight etc, while allowing just enough to keep some "room feel" for the bass, so I don't get that ghostly detached sound I had when fully decoupling with springs.

The combo I described above is pretty much bang on now. Wicked tight, focused bass, but still punchy and impactful, and I feel orchestral crescendos, bass for funk, EDM etc, while the speakers totally disappear in to a huge, detailed soundstage.

As was detailed in this thread by others as well, predicting the exact effect of altering vibration interaction between a room/speaker is very complicated even from a technical standpoint. So in my case it was just a try-and-see-how-I-like-it approach. Whether I was measuring or not, it would still have been based on what I perceived and preferred.

Here's a cool site with a program that shows visually how introducing dampining force and driving force changes oscillation in Hooke's law. Play with the numbers and press the play button! Neat stuff. Link.

 

[Sal1950]

Pity you couldn’t actually acoustically measure to give at least some credence to what is otherwise just anecdote.
Keith

For sure, otherwise you can claim you heard Angels singing after the mods. LOL
Anything is possible as long as no supporting evidence is required.

 

[MattHooper]

Here's a cool site with a program that shows visually how introducing dampining force and driving force changes oscillation in Hooke's law. Play with the numbers and press the play button! Neat stuff. Link.

Thanks very much.

(I see the usual suspect has shown up to repeat the same point, already acknowledged, ad nauseum. Some sort of compulsion I guess...)

 

[Sal1950]

Thanks very much.

(I see the usual suspect has shown up to repeat the same point, already acknowledged, ad nauseum. Some sort of compulsion I guess...)

Which one of us disturbed you Matt?
What do you expect in ASR?

 

[jdjung]

For sure, otherwise you can claim you heard Angels singing after the mods. LOL
Anything is possible as long as no supporting evidence is required.

Are you saying a person's direct experiences isn't a type of evidence for themsleves to decide for themselves on what works and doesn't for themselves? A person's declaration on a direct experiences is evidence, the credibility to someone else is completely different.

 

[jdjung]

Pity you couldn’t actually acoustically measure to give at least some credence to what is otherwise just anecdote.
Keith

It's not a pity for him, he enjoys what he's doing and he likes the sound of what he did. I have also seen no facts that this has had any negative repercussions to his life but to deal with condescending people where the OP intentions have been positive and lead to an educational discussion.

 

[Sal1950]

Are you saying a person's direct experiences isn't a type of evidence for themsleves to decide for themselves on what works and doesn't for themselves? A person's declaration on a direct experiences is evidence, the credibility to someone else is completely different.

That's exactly what I'm saying.
If you can't measure it and provide repeatable, verifiable evidence,
it could very well be all your imagination.

 

[jdjung]

Which one of us disturbed you Matt?
What do you expect in ASR?

Wow, what did you expect from ASR? Really? Expectations doesn't excuse rude behavior.

 

[Purité Audio]

I just saw a pig fly past my open window.
Keith

 

[jdjung]

That's exactly what I'm saying.
If you can't measure it and provide repeatable, verifiable evidence,
it could very well be all your imagination.

So you're saying you don't make any decisions based on your own perceptions without supporting evidence for opinion based decisions for yourself i.e. Coke vs Pepsi, Heinz, vs. generic, favorite pizza places?

 

[jdjung]

I just saw a pig fly past my open window.
Keith

I'm curious do you think decoupled speakers make an audible difference?

 

[Emlin]

I just saw a pig fly past my open window.
Keith

Prove that the window was open.

 

[MattHooper]

Which one of us disturbed you Matt?

To be clear I was referencing Keith, who monotonously repeats the same thing in this thread, despite the point being acknowledged early on, and continually since.
It thus functions not to enlighten me or anyone, but just as a constant attempt at a "dig."

What do you expect in ASR?

Maturity.

As I've said: I did post measurements showing obvious vibration decoupling effects between the floor and speakers, using the springs.

And that I can not provide more elaborate measurements, therefore if someone feels the point of the thread is getting such measurements *from me* then this is not
the thread for that person. But this is why the OP was a question, opening up the subject to the input of others, who could bring technical opinions, and the conversation
could bring other measurements of speakers/vibration tests to bear on the general subject. (And this thread contained such references). Therefore, there was plenty
of things in the thread that could be of interest to various ASR members. Which is why so many participated.

Some ASR members can look at the reports I gave and say "Ok, that's plausible on X grounds or not." And there were varying opinions, some like Keith don't seem to think it's plausible, other technically informed members said it was both plausible and even expected, and explained why. In that sense, putting it as an open question can actually be fruitful, whether it's fully documented with measurements or not.

But if an ASR member sticks to "I want to see a full suit of room measurements or I'm not interested" then THAT person can state that once and exit the thread, rather than repeat, repeat, repeat the point over and over. It's clear many other ASR members found some discussion interesting or fruitful.

 

[jdjung]

Prove that the window was open.

LOL, let's keep going, prove that you have a window.