Auva Footers

[MAB]

Regardless on what technical performance level, if you constantly worry more about improving the sound than actually listening to music, you're doing it wrong.

^THIS^
Is a great criteria.

 

[MAB]

On one hand it is amazing that we can get so much joy from imagined changes to the sound, but on the other it is terrifying how easily we are then fooled to spend huge amounts of money for nothing real.

Maybe it could be possible to test the audibility of the feet by having someone lift the speaker few millimeters while listening? You could then do quick A/B testing that way. If there is no change then you can repeat the process with different feet to see if you get different result. A measurement would of course be much easier and accurate way to prove the change to yourself.

Agree that the alleged effects of feet should show significant differences in the sound. Yet no manufacturer or commercial interest in the sale of these accessories has ever shown a measured difference in sound in a room. The few data ever shown (accelerometer measurements) do show differences in cabinet vibration, but are so minuscule that they are on the order of noise in a very quiet room. I’m probably being very generic assuming those cabinet vibrations couple to the air with 100% efficiency, which of course they don’t.

 

[Dumu]

Absolutely, if there would be actual measurable benefit from isolation feets, there would be measurements to prove it. It would increase the sales so much that every product would present those.

Speaker height change tho can make a drastic change, especially if they are way too low in the first place. I am lazy and have couple of books under my bedroom floorstanders and they make a very noticable difference. Maybe some day I will make some better lifts for those...

 

[topdownsound]

I found that when I put a cheapo pad under my center speaker, the dialog became less "buzzy", especially for people with resonant voices, when watching TV. My center was in a wooden cabinet, on a shelf which had those plastic L shaped supports, just lying lengthwise on its side. The speaker cabinetry had no feet, so it was just a speaker lying sideways on a loose shelf, about the worst scenario possible. A pad got rid of the buzziness. So that was unscientific but made sense. Cost - about $10 Improvement - very nice. I took some advice from here, repositioned it again, got it off the shelf, higher, and that helped even more. But it was a dialog improvement, not music. Music doesn't come out through my center speaker unless it is part of the movie score or something and I'm not looking to the center speaker for music as such.

I did the same with my tower speakers. These I do use for music. They are vintage and were on a sort of perimeter box-like support (part of the cabinet, just wooden supports like if you put a 2x4 on edge, no padding) that raised them off the floor. My old wooden floors were also contributing to resonance, I believe, and sticking a carpet square underneath did the trick. Again, cheap but effective.

I can't say it made bass "more tight" or something. I'm not really sure what that even means. It got rid of buzziness for certain and that sounded good. It was more about clarity than anything.

 

[Dumu]

Lifting the center channel might have made the biggest difference, especially if the drivers are not flush with the edge of the shelf. In my experience it can have huge effect if you get reflections from the shelf in front of the speaker. But like said many times here, some foam or rubber buttons are everything you need to isolate the two surfaces if there is no audible resonances.

I have never had a floor that would resonate audibly. I even made a heavy subwoofer box from solid wood to upstairs of our cabin and was really expecting the wooden floors to resonate quite a lot, but in the end it didn't make any extra noise even with just those tiny furniture felt pads. Not saying that it is not possible tho.

 

[MAB]

Lifting the center channel might have made the biggest difference, especially if the drivers are not flush with the edge of the shelf. In my experience it can have huge effect if you get reflections from the shelf in front of the speaker. But like said many times here, some foam or rubber buttons are everything you need to isolate the two surfaces if there is no audible resonances.

I have never had a floor that would resonate audibly. I even made a heavy subwoofer box from solid wood to upstairs of our cabin and was really expecting the wooden floors to resonate quite a lot, but in the end it didn't make any extra noise even with just those tiny furniture felt pads. Not saying that it is not possible tho.

Yeah, position is way more important than the footers. We have an entire thread from a no-microphone member, where speakers are moved around and tilted while attempting to prove without data that footers make a difference. It's likely the member imagined the differences while moving speakers around, but if they did actually perceive a difference, not likely it was the footers given moving a speaker is orders of magnitude more important. I provided a few measurements in the thread, and debunked some of the claims. I am sure it made little difference to the people who want to believe footers are an important thing that requires money to be spent in order to enjoy music.

I have a few floors that resonate. I can make measurable changes and improvements in the performance of the room by speaker position. I cannot affect the rooms resonant performance meaningfully with footers. There isn't enough energy in the chassis' vibration to effect movement of the floor, even of a moderately built speaker cabinet. For sure the sound produced by the speaker proper vibrates the floor and walls. People get so confused about actual cause without measurements.

 

[stvnharr]

Then based on the response i suppose that you are referring to the tonality of the sound (the tonal character or sound signature of the sound reproduced by that equipment).

And first of all, it's not just related to sound like 'live acoustic music' that you said is just that the system is able to reproduce the source faithfully and that is clearly measurable, the first graph of all the speaker analysis that you have in this forum is basically that, a graph of the frequency response that show the response of the speaker to each frequency.
And again i'm almost 100% sure that the tonality of the sound couldn't be affected in a significant way by any speaker footer.
You said that are not related at all to the characteristics that i said, and I really don't know what to answer. I think I could start an answer about how each of these elements affect the sound of the equipment and can be relevant in making the music sound more like a live concert, but I really think it's a bit useless and wasted effort.
At this point I'm not really sure if you are explaining yourself really bad, i am the one that are not understanding anything in the whole thread or you are trolling us but i'm stopping answering just to avoid bore anyone further with answers that I think already contribute little.

That's fine. If you cannot follow what I have written, okay. Just ignore and move on. It doesn't change anything with me.
As for everyone else, do the same, ignore and just move on.

 

[stvnharr]

Juan,
I have moved on. But I have also thought about all this. So, I will try once again to explain and hope I do better this time.
The products that are the thread subject attach to the bottom of the speaker cabinet in a floorstanding speaker. They are designed to absorb and dampen cabinet vibrations, such as they exist in the cabinet. The result of the absorption is that low-level music information that was previously not heard because of the vibrations is now heard. That's it, and it doesn't sound like much.
The results of this additional low-level music information will tend to vary, depending on the speaker, how it is set up, placed in the room and the speaker-room interface accommodation. The results will also vary according to how one listens to music and the music that is listened to.
I have had good benefit from this additional music information. And it has added significantly to my music listening enjoyment.
And as to the variance in all this, there is one other post with stated first-hand experience with the Auva footers. This is in post #17 in this thread. Perhaps you have already read this. I understand the poster's perspective. It's just it went a bit differently with me.

Steve

 

[Purité Audio]

That’s the marketing blurb unfortunately not the actuality.
Keith

 

[RexrothPigeon]

there is [...] worthlessness in [...] postings [...] I have done

 

[egellings]

So long as he knows that the footers are there, he will believe that the sound quality improves, and as far as he is concerned, for him and him alone, it will sound better. The perceived sound will go though that belief filter (S.Q. improvement caused by footers) and be modified by it to his liking. The dirty trick comes when someone removes the footers without his knowing that they have been removed, and he still continues to rhapsodize about the sound quality. Then he later discovers that the footers have been removed. I did that experiment on a 'phile using RCA interconnects instead of footers, and I lost a buddy because of that. I swapped out his preferred interconnects (very expensive ones) with cheapies that came with a low cost CD player when he temporarily left the house to get something from his car. He never knew the difference until he looked behind his equipment rack and saw the cheapies doing interconnect duty between the preamp and power amp a few days later. I would have been really impressed if, after coming back from the car, he had asked me if I did something to the system because it sounded off to him. Nope. I can see where a footer set could make a difference, say, when used to isolate a turntable from vibrations of the surface it sits on. Some microphonic tube amplifiers could benefit from the isolation, too. So footers do have their place in certain settings. Magic, they are incapable of doing that.

 

[xray]

I did that experiment on a 'phile using RCA interconnects instead of footers, and I lost a buddy because of that. I swapped out his preferred interconnects (very expensive ones) with cheapies that came with a low cost CD player when he temporarily left the house to get something from his car.

It's sad that the Kool aid is so strong that the believers are willing to sacrifice a friendship for it.

 

[egellings]

It's sad that the Kool aid is so strong that the believers are willing to sacrifice a friendship for it.

Shattering a cherished belief is a tried & true way of terminating a friendship. In my case it was just an acquaintance with him though the audio hobby. If someone had done the same experiment with me, I would have been grateful that I discovered such a sham, and would have promptly tried to get a refund on the cables or footers and go back to my cheap but adequate ones. The saved money could then have gone for more music recordings. As an EE person, a cable is just R, L, and C (mostly C) interacting with input-output impedances of the equipment they connect together. There's no magic.

 

[stvnharr]

No Post

 

[Juanrdp]

The result of the absorption is that low-level music information that was previously not heard because of the vibrations is now heard.

Just a couple of quick question.

What is 'low-level music information'?, sound that is 20-30 db under the main sound signal strength?, sound only in some range of frequencies and not the speaker whole range?, why it was not previously heard by the vibrations of the speaker transmitted to the furniture or the floor?

It's way easier that any furniture of the room vibrate due the sound waves (specially low frequency ones) that any of the vibration of the speaker is transmitted to any other element of you are not using footers.

 

[stvnharr]

Juan,
For purposes of this thread, low level music information is music information at the noise floor of the speaker. If the noise floor is lowered, even a little, that lets more music through to be heard. I seem to hear that. While you and others may think this is not so. I'll just leave it there.

As to vibrations of the furniture or the floor.......
I have no experience with that whatsoever.

I can only add..........................
Some speaker manufacturers spend a lot of time and effort in trying to make speaker cabinets inert. This can be with materials, and shape and design of cabinet. This will make a better speaker, no question.
However, I am a DIY'er. I glue together mdf with interior bracing and parallel walls. I made the cabinet as solid and as best I can. My speaker cabinets are not inert. I have received good benefits from the footers.
But as my previous post mentions, there is a lot of variability in this. My experience is just my experience.

Steve

 

[Juanrdp]

Juan,
For purposes of this thread, low level music information is music information at the noise floor of the speaker.

The noise floor of the speaker is as i understand it is the sound that the speaker is making when no signal is being feed to the system (but it powered), along all the factor that could contribute (power amplifier hum, cabling interference, power supply noises, DAC noises...) the cabinet or the footers of the cabinet have no influence at all in the noise floor.

If the noise floor is lowered, even a little, that lets more music through to be heard. I seem to hear that. While you and others may think this is not so. I'll just leave it there.

Right and wrong at the same time.

True if the noise floor is lowered for the system, lower interference with the music is being produced and more low signals could be noticed.

At the same time, if a signal is being feed to the system you could not longer talk of noise floor. For the cabinet to vibrate (and a footer have any effect) you need to have the cones to move and therefore you could not longer talk of noise floor.

I really think that when you are talking of noise floor you are really talking of somewhat like distortion, that is affected by the db's of the signal being reproduced and a lower distortion would allow to notice more details in the sound that could be other way covered by the distortion.

My speaker cabinets are not inert. I have received good benefits from the footers.

That's something i could purchase, that a concrete speaker (probably with flaws on the design) could get some gains for certain footers (that for example dissipate the vibrations better or help to avoid certain resonances), but is due a flaw of the design/fabrication of the cabinet, not due magical properties of the footer.

But as my previous post mentions, there is a lot of variability in this. My experience is just my experience.

And i respect it, but then i think is understandably that if you want to elevate your personal anecdote to a general recommendation people as for proofs.

 

[stvnharr]

Juan,
I will make this one short.
If there is no music signal going to the speaker, there is no sound and no noise floor. The speaker cabinet is inert in that state. It all changes once the drivers start to move.
My experience, personal anecdote if you wish, is nothing more than that. I have never presented it as a general recommendation for anyone else in my posts. People just think that.
Please read Post #5 where I addressed the worthlessness of anecdotal evidence, "worthless anecdotal listening experiences, and nothing really factual".

I think we are done.
Steve

 

[RexrothPigeon]

If there is no music signal going to the speaker, there is no sound and no noise floor. The speaker cabinet is inert in that state. It all changes once the drivers start to move.

"The noise floor of speakers is the inherent level of unwanted background noise generated by the speaker system itself and its environment when no intentional audio signal is playing."

 

[Juanrdp]

If there is no music signal going to the speaker, there is no sound and no noise floor. The speaker cabinet is inert in that state. It all changes once the drivers start to move.

So many thing wrong in a single sentence.

'If there is no music signal going to the speaker, there is no sound': Wrong, is no signal is being feed the amplifier and interference's could bleed into the system and are a lot of times able to move the cones of the speaker. The typical examples are the 'humm' that a powered system makes or the signaling cracks that a receiving call in a nearby phone (more common in old mobil phones with older bands) that are reproduced by the speakers.

'The speaker cabinet is inert': True, because these noise floor is so low level in db's that is not enough to make the cabinet being affected, but that not make that the speaker cones of the speakers are inert, specially if they have a very high sensibility.

'It all changes once the drivers start to move': Bingo, that's your problem... the drivers are already moving (therefore you have the noise floor), you don't need music signal on a system to have the drivers move.

You don't use the correct term, and are using 'noise floor' in a wrong way (as RexrothPigeon stated in previous post) but you insist on that term incorrectly.

I think we are done.

That's the only thing that we could agree i see. I try to told you several things that you are saying that i think that are not correct (being the noise floor the last one) but again it's clear to me that you are not listening to the others (or in my opinion trying to learn) and only blindly defending your inaccurate facts.