Gaia Isolation anything in this?

[Purité Audio]

A mouse pad, I am going to leave it there suffice to say really effective isolation over a broad frequency spectrum is not straightforward.
This is the company I spent some time with and it was really interesting.

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Keith

 

[Thomas_A]

A mouse pad, I am going to leave it there suffice to say really effective isolation over a broad frequency spectrum is not straightforward.
This is the company I spent some time with and it was really interesting.

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Keith

Microscopes and high-performance weighing scales need quite some different level of isolation, so while interesting, it is not really comparable I would say.

(Not sure if we have something from that company at my work, but there are special installation for microscopes/scales and some other equipment e.g. MALDI-TOF)

 

[Ciobi69]

For real and proven decoupling you should see for sorbothane

 

[MattHooper]

Microscopes and high-performance weighing scales need quite some different level of isolation, so while interesting, it is not really comparable I would say.

(Not sure if we have something from that company at my work, but there are special installation for microscopes/scales and some other equipment e.g. MALDI-TOF)

As it happens my son is an engineering student, currently working for a company that specializes in sound isolation/absorption/decoupling materials. Always interesting
to talk shop with him.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I'm in the market for something to put under my Revel F228be speakers, It needs to:

1) screw in to existing holes
2) raise the speaker1.5-2.5"
3) Slide on a hardwood floor (or be able to stick & release). No spikes.

I've seen some cheapo options that don't add a lot of height, and it's unclear if they would slide. So far the carpet idea looks pretty good, but I'd have to figure out the best removable way to adhere to the speaker.

Try these. I have used them with my Studio2s and my F206s. You can put the nylon capnuts on the inverted spikes, as shown, or you can buy longer threaded rods for what ever height you want.

 

[Marquant]

Spikes are not, in fact, necessary and don't decouple very effectively. Their purpose is to prevent speakers from sliding on carpet.

Hmm, I thought they were for minimizing contact with the floor. Googled a little and came to Fyne Audio and had a good laugh. " .....our crack team of white coated lab boffins concluded that spikes are designed to reduce the point ....."

On the one hand they say spikes to be used on carpet for levelling and making contact to the floor beneath but when they go over to hard floors they don't advice to remove them but to put cups under them because they are for minimizing contact. Whatever.

This is an expert in isolation, it is a great read:

Testing Loudspeaker Isolation Products

ethanwiner.com

Hmmm, I am not impressed. 1) It is a mix of hypothesis that he is testing. 2) Is his test setup valid for testing these hypothesis? I don't think so: a bookshelf on a wobbly table!! Pffff, is he testing the table or is he testing the isolation products?? 3) His conclusions are mostly not about test results but about what he believes. And think about what he himself says about this setup:

"....flimsiness of the table, which shifted slightly even though its legs were taped in place..."

".....Even with all this care I was still unable to get the loudspeaker in precisely the same spot for all seven tests....."

"....So what can we learn from these tests? First, it's clear that moving a loudspeaker even a small amount makes a very real change in the perceived and actual frequency response...."

I am also wondering about this: Is measuring the frequency response the way to measure the influence of isolation products on sound? Or maybe this should be stated otherwise: Is measuring the frequency response indicative for measuring the quality/amount of decoupling of isolation products??

In my opinion he can only draw one (more or less scientific) conclusion: With this methodology/setup he cannot show a significant effect from the different isolation products on the frequency response of this loudspeaker.

In the end, yes, the overpriced... Imagine a good power amp giving you a clean 2x120wpch into 8ohms costing 45k US dollars and a good amp/pre-amp combo giving you 2x150wpch into 8 costing 500$ second hand. What exactly do YOU think the other 44,500.00 dollars do? Even if you say it's the looks, is that the ratio anyone should go for? (I don't mean you would.) If it's for the looks, it looks silly.

Please let me know where I can buy second hand a good amp/pre-amp combo for $500 dollars.... and especially one that is as good as a new 45k$ one (okay almost as good is also fine).

I know you are exaggerating to make your point, but your exaggerating in exaggeration.....

 

[MattHooper]

I am also wondering about this: Is measuring the frequency response the way to measure the influence of isolation products on sound? Or maybe this should be stated otherwise: Is measuring the frequency response indicative for measuring the quality/amount of decoupling of isolation products??

It is an interesting subject. Plenty of knowledgeable people chimed in on my thread about various footers under loudspeakers, and my take away was that it is apparently difficult to predict sonic consequences (if there are any) of coupling/decoupling, especially given all the variables in speakers themselves, surfaces which they are placed on, etc. There isn't even, from what I've seen, an absolute consensus on what specifically to measure (e.g. some think that all that would matter is frequency response changes, others think other measurable behaviours may be telling...)

Just anecdotally, totally decoupling my speakers seemed to change the presentation of the sound. Decoupling with springs, without their vibrating the floor (which travelled to be felt under me on louder passages), the sound seemed more weightless, more like I hear from electrostatics in the way they energize a room. Though the sound seemed less confined to the speakers, the bass tighter. With the speakers directly on the floor (no spikes) the vibration behaviour added, the sound seemed to have more connection and the "room feel" gave a sense of body and solidity to the sound, which I preferred.

Ultimately I sought a balance between both and tried all sorts of combinations of materials, looking for a mix of decoupling...but not to much...with some coupling. I found what seemed to be close to an ideal balance for my preferences.

 

[Marquant]

Which is irrelevant in terms of sympathetic resonances.


Sorry. Corrected.
I wouldn't consider the Gaia II too expensive to use with something like the 228BE (if I needed to screw things), although I've always used cheaper solutions, like the pads I linked. At the same time, I wouldn't order them, just in speculation, expecting sound improvement. I only use decoupling after audibly detecting resonances.

Well, yes. And no for the second part:

Aren't the claims from Iso acoustics and co not about something else? After all in their 'test evidence' they are not measuring (room) resonances, they are measuring loudspeaker cabinet vibrations with and without their product. I thought the claim was, that by decoupling there is no energy/vibration transfer to the floor and so there is no reflection of energy/vibration back into the loudspeaker. Reflected vibrations (timing differences?) would interfere with the movements of the coils of the speakers which would result in a smearing of the sound. This would explain the anecdotal evidence of 'tightening up the bass' using isolation products.

So if your speakers are acoustically coupled to the floor I think (if these claims are true), you should expect a sound improvement using effective decoupling products.

Funny enough, just going over the 'test evidence' from Iso acoustics again I noticed that they use an anechoic chamber to show that their product has no influence on the frequency response of the speaker.

Hmmm, in what kind of room are there no resonances at all and would you expect that there is no effect from a decoupling product??

 

[Marquant]

It is an interesting subject. Plenty of knowledgeable people chimed in on my thread about various footers under loudspeakers, and my take away was that it is apparently difficult to predict sonic consequences (if there are any) of coupling/decoupling, especially given all the variables in speakers themselves, surfaces which they are placed on, etc. There isn't even, from what I've seen, an absolute consensus on what specifically to measure (e.g. some think that all that would matter is frequency response changes, others think other measurable behaviours may be telling...)

Just anecdotally, totally decoupling my speakers seemed to change the presentation of the sound. Decoupling with springs, without their vibrating the floor (which travelled to be felt under me on louder passages), the sound seemed more weightless, more like I hear from electrostatics in the way they energize a room. Though the sound seemed less confined to the speakers, the bass tighter. With the speakers directly on the floor (no spikes) the vibration behaviour added, the sound seemed to have more connection and the "room feel" gave a sense of body and solidity to the sound, which I preferred.

Ultimately I sought a balance between both and tried all sorts of combinations of materials, looking for a mix of decoupling...but not to much...with some coupling. I found what seemed to be close to an ideal balance for my preferences.

I think it is interesting that you prefer not only to hear the music but also to feel its vibrations. It makes me wonder about my own system: the sound is very clear, very natural but I am missing something. Was already thinking about trying another amp but maybe I should play with less decoupling and see whether that gives me more of the feel of the music. Whatever that is.

 

[DJNX]

Well, yes. And no for the second part:

Aren't the claims from Iso acoustics and co not about something else? After all in their 'test evidence' they are not measuring (room) resonances, they are measuring loudspeaker cabinet vibrations with and without their product. I thought the claim was, that by decoupling there is no energy/vibration transfer to the floor and so there is no reflection of energy/vibration back into the loudspeaker. Reflected vibrations (timing differences?) would interfere with the movements of the coils of the speakers which would result in a smearing of the sound. This would explain the anecdotal evidence of 'tightening up the bass' using isolation products.

So if your speakers are acoustically coupled to the floor I think (if these claims are true), you should expect a sound improvement using effective decoupling products.

Funny enough, just going over the 'test evidence' from Iso acoustics again I noticed that they use an anechoic chamber to show that their product has no influence on the frequency response of the speaker.

Hmmm, in what kind of room are there no resonances at all and would you expect that there is no effect from a decoupling product??

IsoAcoustics claims are all over the place, and I think they do not hesitate to exploit audiophoolery. After all, they have products to isolate DACs...
That being said, all their claims, strictly involving speakers, are not outright outrageous. But that's largely to the factor (and the main point I'm trying to drive) that there is scarce serious research on the subject.
And, as you question in your response to someone else above, there is no established way to measure the influence (or lack thereof) of isolation products. Therefore, IsoAcoustics has plenty of leeway in their claims.

Personally, claims like "Internal reflections from the hard-supporting surface are attenuated resulting in greater sound clarity and openness", I would expect to be largely overblown and inaudible. What interests me about the subject of decoupling, is the elimination of resonances with other elements in the room, specially when excited by lower frequencies, and the possible introduction of distortion, as the resonant object introduces additional waves into the room.
IsoAcoustics products seem to be an effective, even though unnecessarily fancy and expensive solution to the problem.

At the end, I just would like some certainty introduced into the subject, by proper and thorough research. I don't expect it any time soon, though.

 

[MattHooper]

IsoAcoustics claims are all over the place, and I think they do not hesitate to exploit audiophoolery. After all, they have products to isolate DACs...

I agree that their products aimed at thumbs like DACs or other such equipment is to say the least dubious.

I get it: there’s a sizeable market to sell that stuff too, audiophiles who thing everything is sonically altered by vibration. So it makes good business sense. But it doesn’t help the company’s credibility.

 

[Thomas_A]

Hmm, I thought they were for minimizing contact with the floor. Googled a little and came to Fyne Audio and had a good laugh. " .....our crack team of white coated lab boffins concluded that spikes are designed to reduce the point ....."

On the one hand they say spikes to be used on carpet for levelling and making contact to the floor beneath but when they go over to hard floors they don't advice to remove them but to put cups under them because they are for minimizing contact. Whatever.


Hmmm, I am not impressed. 1) It is a mix of hypothesis that he is testing. 2) Is his test setup valid for testing these hypothesis? I don't think so: a bookshelf on a wobbly table!! Pffff, is he testing the table or is he testing the isolation products?? 3) His conclusions are mostly not about test results but about what he believes. And think about what he himself says about this setup:

"....flimsiness of the table, which shifted slightly even though its legs were taped in place..."

".....Even with all this care I was still unable to get the loudspeaker in precisely the same spot for all seven tests....."

"....So what can we learn from these tests? First, it's clear that moving a loudspeaker even a small amount makes a very real change in the perceived and actual frequency response...."

I am also wondering about this: Is measuring the frequency response the way to measure the influence of isolation products on sound? Or maybe this should be stated otherwise: Is measuring the frequency response indicative for measuring the quality/amount of decoupling of isolation products??

In my opinion he can only draw one (more or less scientific) conclusion: With this methodology/setup he cannot show a significant effect from the different isolation products on the frequency response of this loudspeaker.


Please let me know where I can buy second hand a good amp/pre-amp combo for $500 dollars.... and especially one that is as good as a new 45k$ one (okay almost as good is also fine).

I know you are exaggerating to make your point, but your exaggerating in exaggeration.....

Frequency response is meaningless. Distortion is a better measure however.

 

[Marquant]

IsoAcoustics claims are all over the place, and I think they do not hesitate to exploit audiophoolery. After all, they have products to isolate DACs...
That being said, all their claims, strictly involving speakers, are not outright outrageous. But that's largely to the factor (and the main point I'm trying to drive) that there is scarce serious research on the subject.
And, as you question in your response to someone else above, there is no established way to measure the influence (or lack thereof) of isolation products. Therefore, IsoAcoustics has plenty of leeway in their claims.

Personally, claims like "Internal reflections from the hard-supporting surface are attenuated resulting in greater sound clarity and openness", I would expect to be largely overblown and inaudible. What interests me about the subject of decoupling, is the elimination of resonances with other elements in the room, specially when excited by lower frequencies, and the possible introduction of distortion, as the resonant object introduces additional waves into the room.
IsoAcoustics products seem to be an effective, even though unnecessarily fancy and expensive solution to the problem.

At the end, I just would like some certainty introduced into the subject, by proper and thorough research. I don't expect it any time soon, though.

Surely IsoAcoustics is marketing their product and so making claims beyond what they show they tested. Example? Take the weight ranges for their loudspeaker products: If you test a product with a speaker that has a certain weight you cannot extrapolate that to a weight range without doing the tests. Maybe they did, but they don't show it. They advice that if the weight falls in the top 10 percent of the range, to use their product with the higher weight range. That in itself seems to imply that their products according to themselves are not being equally effective over the whole weight range. The same goes for extrapolating results from one Gaia product to the two other Gaia products. Again, maybe they did test all of this, but they don't show it. And if I assume that they did all the tests, I still wouldn't know if they did choose to only show their best case scenario results!!

After my WTF-disbelief moment seeing/hearing some youtube video's (yeah, youtube, not trustworthy!) and I could test them out for myself I concluded that it does work for me, my speakers in my room. Still apart from just being screwable feet, it is possible that I fool myself with the change in sound. Since on one speaker the logo is to the back and on the other one the logo is to the front I still have an excuse for doing this test:
Mono sound music; one speaker on Gaia's, one speaker at the same height on spikes directly next to the other speaker; switching from only left to only right speaker (by a third person, with a short silence in between); listening chair acoustically decoupled, blind folded/legs up ). Maybe not perfect, but good enough.

 

[krabapple]

Who is going to do the research, though?
There isn't even a standard way to measure this (or even a real consensus on what to measure), so there's no chance to expect enthusiast end-users to do it.

I have a concrete floor, with a layer of thin foam and cheap thin wood on top, as floor.
I've had in this room: floorstanders, bookshelves, subwoofers of various sizes, and all have coupled very differently (or not all) with the room.
Sometimes creating annoying vibration that my feet can feel, sometimes resonating doors, furniture, or any other stuff in the room.

So again, considering houses are built so different, with such varied construction methods and standards, all around the world, who is going to do the research?

A speaker coupling with the floor, and effectively making the floor an "phantom" speaker, is a very real thing.
Who is going to do a thorough analysis of how this effect, affects different structures and how fancy expensive products like the Gaia thing, is better equal or worse against, cheap rubber or cork pads, and under what circumstances?

Is a stream of highly subjective impressions from random people better?

"whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" -- Wittgenstein

 

[CleanSound]

In the name of science I just disassembled my Gaia 2 and took a picture so that you all can see inside.

The center is a dense plastic that fits into the rubber hole. The chassis is probably chrome plated steel because it is heavy. The base that makes contact to the floor is a concave rubber, so that when the speaker weights it down, it sucks the floor in quite a strong manner. Makes moving the speaker very difficult, so for testing better put a cloth between them and the floor until the final position is found, then remove the cloth. On top is the screw with different thread terminations depending on the thread the speaker uses, and between them 2 washers to fix one to the top and the other to the bottom.

Installation instructions say that all 4 logos must face forward for best effect. That is both the long axis of the center plastic, and also promotes the brand, double win in their book.

As far as I know the design is patented.

View attachment 232647

Edit: From what I see in their drawing, the rubber hole also has a concave side on the inside, probably sucking the top chassis the same way the bottom rubber sucks the floor.

Edit 2: Since they are designed to be used with a certain weight range, it is probably when both concave rubbers are part way deflected, so that the speaker is "floating" to the rubbers' mechanical compliance. Like a piston compressed between 2 air bags.

View attachment 232652

I just ordered a set since they are on sale. They are coming today. Now that you took it apart and I see how "little," "simple" and lack of any meaningful value, I am kind of pissed. Will be returning it immediately, thank God for Amazon.

My speakers already comes with dampening feet and I suspect it's no worse than this overpriced product.

 

[MattHooper]

I just ordered a set since they are on sale. They are coming today. Now that you took it apart and I see how "little," "simple" and lack of any meaningful value, I am kind of pissed. Will be returning it immediately, thank God for Amazon.

My speakers already comes with dampening feet and I suspect it's no worse than this overpriced product.

There were already diagrams of the design available on the company website. Right on the first page with descriptions. I guess you didn’t take a look before buying?

Personally I was happy enough with the Gaia footers which seemed to tighten up the bass a bit in my system. Just anecdotal though.

They also have a high quality look and actually add to the aesthetics (if you like that kind of thing) vs many other bland or invisible footers/spikes.

 

[Andysu]

There were already diagrams of the design available on the company website. Right on the first page with descriptions. I guess you didn’t take a look before buying?

Personally I was happy enough with the Gaia footers which seemed to tighten up the bass a bit in my system. Just anecdotal though.

They also have a high quality look and actually add to the aesthetics (if you like that kind of thing) vs many other bland or invisible footers/spikes.

did it tighten up jaws at 40Hz when john williams score bites in JBL THX it felt like sound came from below me

 

[CleanSound]

There were already diagrams of the design available on the company website. Right on the first page with descriptions. I guess you didn’t take a look before buying?

Personally I was happy enough with the Gaia footers which seemed to tighten up the bass a bit in my system. Just anecdotal though.

They also have a high quality look and actually add to the aesthetics (if you like that kind of thing) vs many other bland or invisible footers/spikes.

There is a drawing but the drawing looks as if it's much more complex inside, as if there is some sort of mechanism. The picture revealed something very simple, basically plastic and rubber, it could not have cost them more than $70 to manufacturer.

I don't know, it's delivered, I have till end of Jan to return it. The SVS isolators are $100 for a set of 8, probably work just as well. I have the Gaia III, on sale, it's $800. Need to really think it through if I should keep it or not.

 

[kacos]

There is a drawing but the drawing looks as if it's much more complex inside, as if there is some sort of mechanism. The picture revealed something very simple, basically plastic and rubber, it could not have cost them more than $70 to manufacturer.

I don't know, it's delivered, I have till end of Jan to return it. The SVS isolators are $100 for a set of 8, probably work just as well. I have the Gaia III, on sale, it's $800. Need to really think it through if I should keep it or not.

FYI,
I tried 4 SVS isolators on an Elac 3030 sub (on marble floor). One day I started playing the movie "Edge of Tomorrow" (2014).

At the start of the film there is a tremendous low frequency passage where (never seen this before) the sub started 'walking' -> it moved almost a meter before I paused the playback. A week later I swapped the SVS isolators with GAIA feet and tried playing the same film at the same volume. Sub stayed firm.
The suction cup of the "rubber" in the GAIAs works. Not all 'rubbers' are the same
(Same goes with car tires and the 'rubber' compound in Winter/Snow and All weather ones. Not the same compound and not the same performance.)

 

[CleanSound]

FYI,
I tried 4 SVS isolators on an Elac 3030 sub (on marble floor). One day I started playing the movie "Edge of Tomorrow" (2014).
View attachment 327168
At the start of the film there is a tremendous low frequency passage where (never seen this before) the sub started 'walking' -> it moved almost a meter before I paused the playback. A week later I swapped the SVS isolators with GAIA feet and tried playing the same film at the same volume. Sub stayed firm.
The suction cup of the "rubber" in the GAIAs works. Not all 'rubbers' are the same
(Same goes with car tires and the 'rubber' compound in Winter/Snow and All weather ones. Not the same compound and not the same performance.)

Good to know!