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IsoAcoustics Isolation Feet - Does it really make positive effect or fancy accessories

They work in that they prevent the surface the speaker is sat on from vibrating, I don't make any further claims for them.
Sure, I get that. My point was that pads should ideally be designed for a low Rf wiith a given mass load, e.g. below 5 Hz.
 
Sure, I get that. My point was that pads should ideally be designed for a low Rf wiith a given mass load, e.g. below 5 Hz.
You're absolutely right and I would have been disappointed if no-one had pointed that out :)
 
I cannot prove this with the measurements but during performing the measurement sweep I could totally hear resonance coming from the speakers at certain frequencies. With the pucks it is not there at all - the sweep becomes clear; I have tried this many times to make sure I am not hallucinating :)
I assume that audible resonance is caused by the stand - the pucks must isolate them better so they are not vibrating that much
Yes, often the stands resonate audibly during a sweep and against such some damping on the interface can be helpful.
 
-Your speaker cabinet needs to be vibrating a significant amount, which it can, but shouldn't be
-Your floor needs to be resonating due to the speaker cabinet's vibrations and re-radiating that audibly into the room

I would add that if the floor is moving, it can send vibrations UP into the speaker as well. Which I know because... 100 year old floor that bounces.

So, I think we can agree that un-braced Heresy 1 cabinets vibrate a lot, and I have a modified pair I use for AV. I recently took them off stands that sat on Sorbothane discs, carefully calibrated to weight, and set them directly on the floor. Let's just say that the bass got WAY worse, much muddier. Way back when I put them up, measurements showed some improvement, mostly as I recall some higher frequency issues I have (300-1700hz, because heresy cabinets).

For bass, a bit of improvement, audible, but not a huge change on the sweeps because...

... they really didn't solve my main issue, which is that relatively moderate SPL (75db/1m) makes my floor bounce (with a fundamental frequency ~30hz ). Sorbothane, and most non-spring systems, work by damping sheer forces, so basically sideways movement. They do little for vertical movement. Springs do, but I have not seen any with damping mechanisms, which I would want for my room.

So if the floor is vibrating, from speaker or ambient SPL, such systems will help. How much? Depends on how much vibration, how much vertical movement, and how well you calibrate the weight to the specs of the system.

If you are on concrete, or a very stiff floor, I would not bother at all for speakers, not based on my experience.

BTW, sorbothane has a service life of 3 years. IsoAcoustics, no idea, but I would want to know what they claim for it before spending.
 
So this morning I had some time to perform the measurements

tldr version: no real difference (at least in my opinion) on any of the curves

Measurement was done in the MLP (approx. 250cm from the speakers)
Speakers used were these heavily modified Adam Audio T5Vs (that reminds me that I will need to update that thread too with the latest changes/measurements)
Speakers are on a tripod shaped stand (actually an IKEA standing lamp....)

View attachment 413557

View attachment 413558

View attachment 413559

On all curves: blue is without the Iso-Puck and orange is with the Iso-Puck

Frequency response:

View attachment 413560

Distortion:

View attachment 413561

Phase:

View attachment 413562

GD: on this one there are some differences but I would have a hard time telling which one is better

View attachment 413563

IR:

View attachment 413564

Waterfall and Wavelet also look the same
You can scrutinize the measurement file in the attachment :)

The pucks are staying nevertheless and here is the reason why:
I cannot prove this with the measurements but during performing the measurement sweep I could totally hear resonance coming from the speakers at certain frequencies. With the pucks it is not there at all - the sweep becomes clear; I have tried this many times to make sure I am not hallucinating :)
I assume that audible resonance is caused by the stand - the pucks must isolate them better so they are not vibrating that much

And how does it 'sound'?
To be honest I am sure I would fail a proper blind test but I *think* I hear more air and vocals sound clearer too (this is all subjective and I cannot prove it and I guess it is just the honeymoon effect)

So as said above, I will keep them since they are doing a good job at least in my case with reducing the vibration of my speaker stands but if one has a 'proper' speaker stand that does not vibrate that much in the first place then I doubt you would need these pucks

I hope this helps, in case of any questions please shoot
Have a nice weekend everybody :)

Thank you so much taking time to measure and share measurement and subjective feedback too. Glad to hear that you could hear the difference with and without IsoPuck.
 
I was checking with a couple of audiophiles who have personally used IsoAcoustics IsoPuck/Orea products as well as other products in the marketplace earlier today and some of them recommend Stack Audio Vibration Feet which happen to use different technology (patent pending).


AUVA is speaker feet which uses particle impact damping (looks like it contains some kind of particle inside solid aluminium cylinder shape feet which convert vibration into heat to dissipate) with spikes under.

CSA is Audio component Feet which contains particles inside with special type of silicon absorber.

Some audiophiles swear that this is much better than IsoAcoustics but also more expensive than IsoAcoustics and made in UK.

Above linked page briefly explains technology behind and it sounds impressive to someone like myself who is not savvy on material science.

Is Particle Impact Daming something new in vibration isolation solution? Has anyone tried this product before?
 
I was checking with a couple of audiophiles who have personally used IsoAcoustics IsoPuck/Orea products as well as other products in the marketplace earlier today and some of them recommend Stack Audio Vibration Feet which happen to use different technology (patent pending).


AUVA is speaker feet which uses particle impact damping (looks like it contains some kind of particle inside solid aluminium cylinder shape feet which convert vibration into heat to dissipate) with spikes under.

CSA is Audio component Feet which contains particles inside with special type of silicon absorber.

Some audiophiles swear that this is much better than IsoAcoustics but also more expensive than IsoAcoustics and made in UK.

Above linked page briefly explains technology behind and it sounds impressive to someone like myself who is not savvy on material science.

Is Particle Impact Daming something new in vibration isolation solution? Has anyone tried this product before?
Yes, just this week in fact.

My speakers have castors, putting the feet underneath the speaker cabs raised the speakers by about 5mm compared to them being sat on the castors. At a listening distance of 20 feet I don't think this change in height would make any audible difference.

My impression was they did make some improvement to bass, and cleaned up the mids and top a little. It was a small difference, but right across the spectrum, so I suppose that might add up to a significant difference.

Of course there's the problem that you have to try to recall what it sounded like before, after a five minute or so pause to install them. We think we recall what the sound was like before such a long pause, but the fact is we don't really.

However - one of the records we listened to was Erykah Badu - live album. There's one point where someone in the crowd does a very loud whistle, and they must be fairly close to a mic. Without the feet it was positively piercing - enough that it stuck in my mind.

With feet in, volume at same level, it was no longer piercing. It was still loud and apparent, but seemed to have lost that bit of distortion that made it actively unpleasant. Unless this was due to some other unknown factor, there's no question for me that the Auvas made a real change to the sound with that.

I'm not 100 percent sure, but it was quite a convincing demo. Not a night and day difference for me by any means but I was still quite tempted to get some.

EDIT - probably should have mentioned the floor is a concrete slab with thick underlay and carpet on top. So I wouldn't expect much of a difference with isolation products. Friends who have reported considerable improvements with this particular product and bought it on the spot all have suspended wooden floors which have more problems to solve. Which is why I bought a place with a solid floor to begin with.
 
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I've presented a bunch of these devices on the Snake Oil threads. They all fall into the category of "HiFi jewelry" in my opinion. The idea that mechanical vibrations can affect the operation of solid state electronics is preposterous. However, this does not occur to the shills who review these devices as they rely not on science or logic but their ears. Amazingly, sighted testing of these useless add-ons always produces some new level of audio nirvana, even in equipment that that costs more than your house! This is something that always amuses me, audiophools spend ridiculous amounts of money on components which, based on price, should be the premiere performance grade product but this peak equipment can be improved somehow with the addition of doo-dad's that defy logic in their operation! Still, there's lots to choose from.

This guy "listens" to them all

View attachment 413433
I have this stuff under my TT and my external HD, it dampens vibrations and sound from the HD quite well, so it should (at least in theory) do the same for the TT, whether it has any audible effect, for the audio, who knows.

1734106976129.jpeg
 
if you want to test some materials i can send you something to test. i work in vibration management in different industries now. i have compound solutions that work way better than feet with foamy bottoms. if i was to get into detail about cool solutions ive worked with some people on this forum might not like it. i can tell you one thing. materials matter, the weight of your components matter with what specific material to be used. this means expensive heavy record players can actually become more coupled to a table with vibration if the wrong density feet are used or aftermarket feet with the jelly foam on the bottom.

the solution is duplex decoupling effect. two different materials makes the world of difference. not here to sell, but i have rolls of all kinds of specialty materials used even in analytical hardware and semiconductor vibration isolation. i swear by these materials and ive seen major benefits. you dont need expensive feet. you can use regular feet that come with your turn table. ideally its whats under it and how decoupled the item is from its environment.

im probably going to be attacked over this. but pads arent expensive like feet but they work better persay. ive seen all kinds of hoorah products on the market, ive had analytical gas spectrometers and hplc devices on tables and carts with vacuum pumps and electronically controlled switch bays and gear pumps cause havoc in detection hardware. when the surfaces were treated, and specific pads installed properly with was like 1000s in fold reduction. to the point where vibration sensors wouldn't even trigger during calibration modes. since then ive been cutting my own pads with circle molds and i use them under all my gear. i did a duplex appplication under my vpi where i cut a whole mat to cover the area, and then placed pads where the feet were. you can tap a wooden pole against the table stand and the turn table dowsnt make a peep.
materials matter, the weight of your components matter with what specific material to be used.

this so very much. i have zero scientific background but slept at what's that hotel?

my floor is suspended wood. when i upgraded from floorstanders to towers and subs, i could hear the floor and wall resonances. outside my apartment if loud.

after trying lots of stuff, my towers are now naked-footed on pavers with a horsestall mat beneath it. the subs sit on isoacoustics sub stands on a paver. the difference is more than palpable, greatly reducing floor and wall resonances.

my thinking is the pavers deaden most of the vibrations and the horsestall mat (seriously dense rubber) absorbs some strays. keeping them from being transmitted to the floors and walls. i got my ideas seeing wood and stone plinths.

i hated the rubber/sorbothane pads under my towers. dulled the presentation across the board. that was the only thing i used that didnt present a plus.

as everyone that decouples says, tighter bass, a bit of mid attenuation, and solid highs.
 
First post in the forum. Hi everyone :). Saw this thread and "needed" to write some stuff.

Mechanical isolation (to any relevant degree) is easily achieved. I like using cheap purpose made foam pads with studio monitors/bookshelf speakers, when the weight and design supports it. Otherwise I have recently been using a 1 cm thick dense polyester absorption panel, which does the trick while supporting the weight and not transferring vibrations.

I mean, really anything that won't mechanically translate significant vibrations would work. You're trying to be rid of the mechanical coupling that would excite audible resonances (or just literal rattling in the lower freqs).

Ethan W uses corrugated cardboard for his monitors in his home cinema setup. That works really well too, I'm just not a big fan myself of the aesthetics.

Not exactly the same, but sort of relevant:
A long time ago, when living with my parents, I had big floorstanders in my room on the second floor. Standing on the floor with only regular furniture pads, the bass was terrible in the room below. Just horrible. So I built small stands for them. Wasn't very knowledgeable at the time, so I made a contraption where the speaker was basically standing on two 1/2" pieces of dry wall, then wooden feet and finally some thick furniture pads. Maybe 2" total height of the stands. This worked great, reduction of noise downstairs was tremendous.
 
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Why did Ethan employ close-mic measurements in his test? ("I put the microphone one meter (39 inches) away from the speaker, standard for loudspeaker testing, pointed at the woofer since we're concerned mainly with frequencies below the speaker's 3 KHz crossover".) Did he expect the output of THE SPEAKER to change? I certainly wouldn’t, at least not appreciably. The objective of speaker isolation is to reduce bass bleed INTO THE ROOM and the resulting sympathetic vibrations, and I suspect that close micing is ineffective at revealing those differences. I believe measuring the sympathetic vibrations of the room’s floor and other surfaces would have been more informative.

I've never bought into the notion that isolators under electronics without any moving parts can provide any discernable sonic improvement. That simply makes no sense to me. Obviously, turntables are an entirely different matter, since their pickups are susceptible to acoustic feedback. On the other hand, I believe that decoupling can be beneficial for subs and speakers with deep bass response, particularly those located on "live" surfaces, e.g. wood floors over open spaces. The isolators I placed under those in my main system provided minimal improvement, because the speakers are all located on a concrete slab. I perceived a slight improvement in clarity that was probably mostly psychological in nature. But they certainly didn't degrade the perceived sound quality, so they're still in place. However, in my upstairs system, the improvement was pronounced. Decoupling provided a readily apparent reduction in bass boom.

SVS interview with Ed Mullen on reducing bass bleed Spoiler alert - considerable marketing hype included.
 
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Why did Ethan employ close-mic measurements in his test? ("I put the microphone one meter (39 inches) away from the speaker, standard for loudspeaker testing, pointed at the woofer since we're concerned mainly with frequencies below the speaker's 3 KHz crossover".) Did he expect the output of THE SPEAKER to change? I certainly wouldn’t, at least not appreciably. The objective of speaker isolation is to reduce bass bleed INTO THE ROOM and the resulting sympathetic vibrations, and I suspect that close micing is ineffective at revealing those differences. I believe measuring the sympathetic vibrations of the room’s floor and other surfaces would have been more informative.

Since there is no reference for us to look to (as far as I know?), data on the sympathetic vibrations would be useless in determining audibility.

Using a microphone at the listening position is really the only fair way to measure, I think. Being closer to the speaker like Ethan were might bias slightly toward not showing the effects of mechanical coupling (if vibrations spread through a medium where 1/(r^2) would not apply), but is the difference really so big we should not be able to discern it at 1 meter? I don't think so.
 
I have a cheaper version of the Isoacoustics Gaia, called the Isoacoustics Stage 1. Essentially the same thing at about quarter the price, aimed at music makers, who are evidently a bit less spendy (or gullible?) than audiophiles…

Subjectively they improved the bass in my living room, which has a suspended wooden floor - it was admittedly a small but still very much audible improvement. They also raise my speakers by a couple of inches, which also helps align the speakers’ reference axis with my ears better.

Another possibly interesting thing: without the isolators between the speaker and the stands, the stands ring when tapped. With the isolators in place the stands do not ring. Perhaps in certain circumstances the isolators will damp speaker cabinet resonances, working in a similar way to dampers on a vehicle.

Whether this is audible or not remains to be seen, obviously.
 
Of course there's the problem that you have to try to recall what it sounded like before,

When I was testing various footers and different isolation materials between my speakers and the wooden floor, I had a system where I had scissor jacks underneath my speakers, so that I could very quickly raise the speaker just enough to slip in a different material or footer and back down again. Depending on the material or footer, I’d say the swap could occur within a minute (or two or three).
 
When I was testing various footers and different isolation materials between my speakers and the wooden floor, I had a system where I had scissor jacks underneath my speakers, so that I could very quickly raise the speaker just enough to slip in a different material or footer and back down again. Depending on the material or footer, I’d say the swap could occur within a minute (or two or three).
i like your way of thinking. i actually machine scissor jacks for fluid pumps
 
Since there is no reference for us to look to (as far as I know?), data on the sympathetic vibrations would be useless in determining audibility.

Using a microphone at the listening position is really the only fair way to measure, I think. Being closer to the speaker like Ethan were might bias slightly toward not showing the effects of mechanical coupling (if vibrations spread through a medium where 1/(r^2) would not apply), but is the difference really so big we should not be able to discern it at 1 meter? I don't think so.
It is my understanding that the purpose of measuring a speaker's response at 1M is to minimize the room effects and achieve a quasi-anechoic measurement. Is that not so?
 
So this morning I had some time to perform the measurements

tldr version: no real difference (at least in my opinion) on any of the curves

Measurement was done in the MLP (approx. 250cm from the speakers)
Speakers used were these heavily modified Adam Audio T5Vs (that reminds me that I will need to update that thread too with the latest changes/measurements)
Speakers are on a tripod shaped stand (actually an IKEA standing lamp....)

View attachment 413557

View attachment 413558

View attachment 413559

On all curves: blue is without the Iso-Puck and orange is with the Iso-Puck

Frequency response:

View attachment 413560

Distortion:

View attachment 413561

Phase:

View attachment 413562

GD: on this one there are some differences but I would have a hard time telling which one is better

View attachment 413563

IR:

View attachment 413564

Waterfall and Wavelet also look the same
You can scrutinize the measurement file in the attachment :)

The pucks are staying nevertheless and here is the reason why:
I cannot prove this with the measurements but during performing the measurement sweep I could totally hear resonance coming from the speakers at certain frequencies. With the pucks it is not there at all - the sweep becomes clear; I have tried this many times to make sure I am not hallucinating :)
I assume that audible resonance is caused by the stand - the pucks must isolate them better so they are not vibrating that much

And how does it 'sound'?
To be honest I am sure I would fail a proper blind test but I *think* I hear more air and vocals sound clearer too (this is all subjective and I cannot prove it and I guess it is just the honeymoon effect)

So as said above, I will keep them since they are doing a good job at least in my case with reducing the vibration of my speaker stands but if one has a 'proper' speaker stand that does not vibrate that much in the first place then I doubt you would need these pucks

I hope this helps, in case of any questions please shoot
Have a nice weekend everybody :)

Thanks for the interesting report.

When I was looking to my turntable from floorboard vibration - my equipment rack would ache like a bugger with any footsteps on the floor - I tested all sorts of materials.
The best I could manage was using “ vibrometer” Apps on my phone and iPad, which would show differences in vibration transfer.

The isopucks made some difference, but not a lot. As I mentioned earlier, spring based footers made a way bigger difference. They essentially killed vibration transfer dead.

Which is why out of curiosity, I ended up, trying some under my loudspeakers which sit on sprung wood floors in my listening room.
When I played music at approaching loud, and especially if there was bass, standing near the speakers I could feel the floor vibrating, and I could also feel the Ottoman on which I would place my legs vibrating as well.

When I put the Springs under the speaker, there was no vibration on the floor, and I didn’t feel that vibration on the Ottoman.

It all seemed to clean up the bass quality, and the sound generally speaking, but it also felt a bit odd, like I didn’t “ feel” the sound as much anymore. Kind of like what I get from electrostatics versus a good old box speaker.

I ended up buying some isoacoustic Gaia footers to get a sort of in between effect - they seemed to isolate enough to tighten bass and clean up the sound a bit, but still coupled enough so they didn’t totally lose that “ room feel” and impact.

I also also tried all sorts of layers of different materials as a platform beneath the speakers - some where commercial offerings used in some studios, which to me didn’t help the sound at all. (in most comparisons, I was being careful to keep the height of the speakers constant. )

I tried MDF, combined with different layers in between or on different spikes or footers. I ended up… for looks and simply to raise the speakers even higher as much as anything… building a thick granite base, with car sound damping in between the granite slabs, and that slab placed on short wide spikes into the floor. I think that was an exercise mostly in moving resonances around, not in getting rid of resonances. But the end result For me was just about perfect in terms of bass quality and tonality of the speaker, as well as raising the soundstage.

Here’s what I ended up with;

1734130138714.jpeg
 
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