Rubber isolation feet worsened speaker performance?

[Adhoc]

It might be possible to get the durometer specs of the cork pads from DiversiTech, I was able to find this detail durometer info of their higher performance rated EVA foam pads (3:1 vs cork), at the prohibitively expensive cost of twice the price of the cork pads:

Hardness specs for Diversitech’s EVA MP2E 2”x2” anti-vibration pads are as follows:
The black rubber component has a Shore A scale rating of 55 +/-7.
The blue foam layer has an ASKER C rating of 70 +/- 7 [as defined by SRIS 0101 (Standard by the Society of Rubber Industry, Japan)].
- https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/vibration-isolation-2

Would it be possible to compile a sort of weight class list for these budget isolation materials based on their durometer ratings?
for example, 1-100 lbs - cork, 100-200 lbs - rubber, 200-300 lbs - EVA foam?

(My bolding).
No, not really. One must consider the mass / area unit, as well as the geometry of the foot (its form factor). A circular disc shows different values compared to a rectangular one, even if the “flat area” is the same, -the area along the circumference x thickness is different for them.

Sylomer is an excellent isolation material, a trademark owned by Getzner. It comes in various hardnesses. One of them is “SR 450”. With thickness 12,5 mm it can with appropriate load of 0,45 N/mm² reach a natural resonance frequency of about 16 Hz => isolates from about 23 Hz and upwards. https://www.getzner.com/media/921/download/Data Sheet Sylomer SR 450 EN.pdf?v=5 gives some hard data. There are other good sources too with cheaper materials, like solid rubber. Real data is seldom or never disclosed by snake oil vendors.

With an inappropriate load an excellent material may be useless though if you wish to disturb your neighbors less, -like with too little load / area unit. Enclosed picture shows a diagram with the Sylomer SR 450. 4 discs Ø 90 mm with a total load of 200 kg / 440 lbs (= a sofa with 2 persons in it.) Natural frequency for SR 450 will then be about 40 Hz. At 40 Hz there will be about 18 dB amplification, roughly 7 times more of vibrations!!! Neighbors will surely not applaud that if vibrations from the speaker feet were amplified by 7 times through the floor / ceiling. GREAT if one wants some more tactile feeling though. Sitting in the sofa frequencies from around 56 Hz and lower will be felt more. (56 / root (2) = 40 Hz.)

 

[Hipper]

If it's a weight factor can you not:

1. Use only three feet. That will also deal a bit better with uneven flooring.

2. Put a weight on top of the speaker.

I use a lot of room treatment, principally bass traps, and this absorbs bass energy so reducing the amount in the room, which also means that less can escape to neighbours. Mind you how bass sound gets to neighbours is not a simple thing and I don't pretend to understand it.

 

[Unclevanya]

I wasn't surprised to see that the accelerometer showed the subs vibrating so much. Conversely, this should show that less sound energy is passed into surroundings.

Those results were from the phone placed on the floor, which seems to indicate less transmitted vibration into the surroundings.

 

[turbotuff]

https://ethanwiner.com/speaker_isolation.htm

 

[cookiefactory]

I'm having a surprisingly hard time finding "low profile" spikes. I want to add some stability to some 90+ lb floor standers which are located on low profile berber carpet. The OEM spikes are way too tall, and it seems the vast majority of speakers spikes for sale are the same way.

Ironic enough, when looking through my component storage I found what seem to exactly what I'm looking for - except I only have enough for one speaker! I also can't for the life of me remember where these came from (searches through my Amazon history, email archives, etc all turned up nothing). Anyone recognize these or know of anything similar? I'm open to all ideas.

 

[audio2design]

I don't think so, per SVS support, the SVS feet are rated at 35-40 lbs. per foot, and the speaker only weighs 42 lbs.

That would be a mismatch. That raises the resonant frequency 4x.

 

[NTK]

I'm having a surprisingly hard time finding "low profile" spikes. I want to add some stability to some 90+ lb floor standers which are located on low profile berber carpet. The OEM spikes are way too tall, and it seems the vast majority of speakers spikes for sale are the same way.

Ironic enough, when looking through my component storage I found what seem to exactly what I'm looking for - except I only have enough for one speaker! I also can't for the life of me remember where these came from (searches through my Amazon history, email archives, etc all turned up nothing). Anyone recognize these or know of anything similar? I'm open to all ideas.

Will these work?
https://www.mcmaster.com/9377K53/

 

[Beershaun]

Time to start a business reselling those cork furniture pads as audiophile grade isolators for 4x the price!

 

[Andysu]

Why not try chains to the ceiling with coach bolts in the joists and then suspended the subwoofer from the floor or you can raise it up while REW testing it and may find it better.

 

[win]

I'm having a surprisingly hard time finding "low profile" spikes. I want to add some stability to some 90+ lb floor standers which are located on low profile berber carpet. The OEM spikes are way too tall, and it seems the vast majority of speakers spikes for sale are the same way.

Ironic enough, when looking through my component storage I found what seem to exactly what I'm looking for - except I only have enough for one speaker! I also can't for the life of me remember where these came from (searches through my Amazon history, email archives, etc all turned up nothing). Anyone recognize these or know of anything similar? I'm open to all ideas.

View attachment 129708

Those are the stock feet included with SVS subwoofers. How many do you need? I have extras.

 

[cookiefactory]

Those are the stock feet included with SVS subwoofers. How many do you need? I have extras.

Ahhh it all makes sense now. Wow, I can't believe I overlooked that. Thank you, mystery solved.

Thanks for the offer. I'd gladly tale 4 of them if you don't need them, just let me know how much I owe ya.

 

[chips666]

https://frankenschaum.de/PolySound-Sylo-High-End-Lautsprecher-Fuesse-Schwingungsdaempfer-8er-Set

 

[cookiefactory]

Will these work?
https://www.mcmaster.com/9377K53/

Yes, those should definitely work. Thanks for finding them - are you a wizard?

I'll order those if I can't locate some more SVS stock feet. There's a small discrepancy between the two's max load rating (assuming SVS is rated at 44 lbs) which would give them the edge.

 

[win]

Ahhh it all makes sense now. Wow, I can't believe I overlooked that. Thank you, mystery solved.

Thanks for the offer. I'd gladly tale 4 of them if you don't need them, just let me know how much I owe ya.

Pm me your address

 

[Slayer]

After I typed the original post I remembered I had some 35 cent cork pads lying around somewhere, so once found I also dug out the speaker's carpet spikes and ordered some little spike feet for them to compare and to my surprise they performed much better than $50 SVS feet! Sound was not negatively affected by the cork pads and vibrations transferred past the spike was basically eliminated. With the SVS rubber feet I could feet vibrations in the rubber, but I felt nothing from the cork.

SVS feet:

Spikes + cork pads:

I myself, along with most of my friends and family, have been using those anti-vibration pads for years. Still have half a box full when needed.
Their not only great for under speaker and subs, their great under your audio equipment, they give that extra room for ventilation and security.
No better or cheaper place to buy them from than Supply house. I always get stuff from them in one to two days. They also have the best selection to choose from.
Pads - Equipment Pads - DiversiTech Pads - DiversiTech Equipment Pads - HVAC Parts - SupplyHouse.com

 

[flexy123]

Have a SVS PB-1000 Pro with the stock feet, looking into better absorbers. The SVS sound path are ridiculously overpriced (80 EU here), aside from that they look ugly and clunky. Then I learned about the Sylomer pads, which are available in various strengths for different weights.

But most importantly, now I saw people mentioning that a sub "floating" (as with sylomer pads) is not optimal, especially if a sub is front firing. The reasoning given is that the drivers will then have less mass to work against (only the mass of the subwoofer, as they're now isolated from the floor), so bass becomes less precise.

Now I don't know what to think about using such pads....

 

[Doodski]

Have a SVS PB-1000 Pro with the stock feet, looking into better absorbers. The SVS sound path are ridiculously overpriced (80 EU here), aside from that they look ugly and clunky. Then I learned about the Sylomer pads, which are available in various strengths for different weights.

But most importantly, now I saw people mentioning that a sub "floating" (as with sylomer pads) is not optimal, especially if a sub is front firing. The reasoning given is that the drivers will then have less mass to work against (only the mass of the subwoofer, as they're now isolated from the floor), so bass becomes less precise.

Now I don't know what to think about using such pads....

In the 80s people where putting CD jewel cases and cassette cases between the wall and the tower speaker(s) to prevent the speaker from having any sort of movement front to back. The claim was the bass improved and had more impact. I tried it with a few workmates and we could not detect a difference in blind listening tests. In your case you have a much more weighty subwoofer and the premise of there being movement seems more likely than a heavy tower speaker on carpet or spikes.

 

[DSJR]

In the 80s people where putting CD jewel cases and cassette cases between the wall and the tower speaker(s) to prevent the speaker from having any sort of movement front to back. The claim was the bass improved and had more impact. I tried it with a few workmates and we could not detect a difference in blind listening tests. In your case you have a much more weighty subwoofer and the premise of there being movement seems more likely than a heavy tower speaker on carpet or spikes.

In the olden days of the 1980s, we 'spiked' everything pretty much... Linn speakers *definitely* 'sounded better' with spiked stands, even into a suspended floor. BBC-Derived speakers with 'talky boxes' don't seem to change at all and my Harbeth tables/stands simply sit on a carpeted floor and are never played at a serious volume as I once did many years ago.

KEF tried decoupling their bass drivers from the enclosure and in one sense it worked, while totally destroying the perceived quality of bass. It only lasted one generation of speakers I remember...

 

[Bjorn]

KEF tried decoupling their bass drivers from the enclosure and in one sense it worked, while totally destroying the perceived quality of bass. It only lasted one generation of speakers I remember...

Do you mind elaborating? Destroyed the bass quality in what way?

 

[DSJR]

Do you mind elaborating? Destroyed the bass quality in what way?

Bearing in mind we listened to kick drums and electric bass, rather than bowed bass instruments/organ pedals etc., the 'perceived quality' of the bass went soft, 'phat' and not very distinct. This *subjectively* appeared to go up into the midrange, clouding subtleties better reproduced in earlier KEFs and their competition. We had master tape copies as well as radio and vinyl sources back then, so I can't blame it all on our favourite Scottish vinyl player of the period. KEF abandoned the idea and the bass quality of their reference speakers improved noticeably (and I remember the tall R107 and later 104/2 models from this era.

A shame the above is subjective memories, as in terms of responses, the 'decoupled' models measured pretty flat according to Hifi Choice tests of the time and off-axis didn't seem unduly troubled. Sorry I can't expand any further, or provide evidence apart from saying that this method only lasted a short time, never to be seen again.

My training/brainwashing of the early 70's as regards firmly coupling the speakers/stands to the floor, kind-of made me wince when the fad came around for softly decoupling the speakers again. Al the comments of a 'more organic' and 'softer' bass made me remember why I and most dealers of my generation, spiked everything

One thing we did back then to preserve dem speaker cabs was to use clear, self adhesive and approx 12mm x 3mm flat topped 'bump on style' feet between the stand and speakers (ours came from RS). They're hard but grippy enough to hold the box in place and not sliding, but don't have any 'give' to speak of. I use them to this day with great success still.

I think the feet I refer to live on as these -

RS PRO Cylindrical PUR Self Adhesive Feet, 12.7mm diameter x 3.5mm height | RS

uk.rs-online.com