Springs Under My Speakers: What's Happening?

[Pareto Pragmatic]

may i suggest trying a concrete paver with a dense mat between it and floor.

...

im not good with the measurements thing. i do like what i hear. ymwv.

Thanks for the suggestion, but what I hear when I have more weight on/under the stands I do not like.

Shows in measurements too, but to my ear it is a clearly worse situation.

 

[Sal1950]

Sand/weight would make a difference in my room. It would shift a peak near 30 lower a bit, and make all the things my floor does happen at slightly higher SPL. That's just from the weight (think of tuning a driver by altering the weight of the cone). But if the stands resonate at a frequency that lines up with one/some of the MANY resonances in my floor, resonances that change with SPL, then stopping those will show a measurable difference.

Back in the day when I was still hanging out with the Rick Krispies crowd the best assault against a rubbery floor was to set-up a wall mounted shelf
to decouple the table from the floors vertical movements. A couple of very rigid 90 degree mounts lagged screwed into a wall joist and then a 3/4 or 1 inch walnut base to set the table on. Also some type of rubber pad to insulate the table from air borne vibrations to top it all off.
I'm glad to help when I can, but I wrestled with all the headaches induced by vinyls mechanical weaknesses for decades. But back around 1985 I was danning in the streets happy to be done with it all and change over as quick as possible to digital.. Have fun.

 

[Pareto Pragmatic]

Back in the day when I was still hanging out with the Rick Krispies crowd the best assault against a rubbery floor was to set-up a wall mounted shelf
to decouple the table from the floors vertical movements.

Sure, I could also hang then from the ceiling. While effective, that's a non-starter for a main room in the house.

 

[Sal1950]

Sure, I could also hang then from the ceiling. While effective, that's a non-starter for a main room in the house.

A turntable is a fairly large piece of gear but still it has to go somewhere. ???
Otherwise just use a DAC.

 

[Philim]

Just came across this thread and realised I had ended up where the OP had.

 

[MattHooper]

View attachment 462521Just came across this thread and realised I had ended up where the OP had.

Fascinating.

That looks like a DIY version of the Townshend speaker bars that I tried:

But using the affordable spring footers I originally started out with.

Can you tell me a little bit more about how you ended up there? And also: did you make those speaker bars yourself?

I considered doing something similar originally, before I moved onto buying the actual Townshend product.

 

[Philim]

Fascinating.

That looks like a DIY version of the Townshend speaker bars, using the affordable spring footers I originally started out with.

Can you tell me a little bit more about how you ended up there? And also: did you make those speaker bars yourself?

I considered doing something similar originally, before I moved onto buying the actual Townshend product.

Like you I didn't want to spend £1500 on townshends springs. I bought the same springs off Amazon and used ai to calculate the correct springs for speaker weight. The bars I got custom made for £80 at local merchants. Just 5mm steel bars bent to a shape. I have been trying yellow dot squash balls under the bars for damping but seemed to over damp. I tasted both with a vibrometer. Without damping you get longer ringing and a more sparkle to the sound.

 

[DVinylfan]

(Sorry I don't have speaker measuring equipment to post data. For now I just have to say "this is what I heard...any explanation"?)


I recently tried a "tweak" for footers under my speakers that has had fascinating results. And I'm wondering about the explanation.

I've never been big on trying out tweaks and footers for my speakers, only once in a very-long-while throwing something in to the mix.

But my experience building my turntable isolation platform, and employing the Townshend spring-based isolation pods under the platform did pique my curiosity about springs used in other "vibration environment" cases, like speakers. I ordered and tried a huge number of isolation/vibration reduction materials and footers to test out when doing the turntable platform, and nothing came remotely close to the spring-based design of the Townshend pods. Without them under the turntable base, if I stomped around the floor big vibrations were easily felt with a hand on the base, and easily measured as huge ringing spikes with a seismometer vibration measuring app on my ipad and iphone. With the springs under the base, it just killed these vibrations. Stomping around yielded virtually imperceptible results hand on the base, and showed almost nothing on the measurement app.

I was intrigued therefore that Townshend also makes spring-based isolation bases for speakers to sit on, to decouple them from the floor. They are pricey so didn't want to just roll that dice (yet). I noticed some relatively cheap versions of the idea on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B08DFHS7QT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

So I thought what the heck and bought 8 of them.

To back up: I've tried spikes under my Thiel speakers and, when I had all that material around from making my turntable base, I tried throwing in a few things under my speakers, including some Isoacoustics pucks I had on hand. Frankly I didn't notice anything remarkable or too compelling in any case and preferred the speakers sitting on the floor, except that I had to add some Herbies Fat Glider footers to the bottom to help me slide around the speakers on my rug.

With loud, bass-heavy music the floor around my speakers is easily felt to vibrate quite a bit. First thing I did was put 4 spring footers under only my left speaker. With loud music, the floor vibrated as normal by my R speaker. But around my L speaker with the springs, vibration was gone in the floor. Couldn't feel a thing around the speaker. Plus, the spring-speaker did sound "different" when music was playing through both.

Anyway...replaced the footers on both speakers and slipped those spring devices under the speakers (making them a bit wobbly).

Whoah!

Basically it was like the entire sonic range "tightened and cleaned up." Bass instruments tightened, bass instruments became more holographically located in the sound field, the entire soundstage expanded, imaging more 3D, instruments and voices became smoother, more clearly defined, with distinctly finer resolution and nuance.

My Thiel 2.7 speakers replaced my earlier larger flagship Thiel 3.7s. The 2.7s are a slightly scaled down more budget friendly version and one thing the 2.7s never did was "disappear" quite to the extent of the 3.7s. Maybe it was due to the more heroic bracing and aluminum front baffle of the 3.7s I don't know. But all instruments floated free of the 3.7s, even hard panned instruments. But hard panned instruments have been more "stuck" to the 2.7s, making the soundstage a bit more triangular or curve shaped - good depth the more you move to the middle, less so, converging towards the speakers to the sides.

With the springs under the speakers this "triangle-shaped" soundstage completely went away! It was like the soundstage simply opened up width-wise, like one of those Cinerama screens opening up in the old theaters. That, with the increased soundstage depth, has me hearing a scale of soundstage I'm not sure I've experienced before (except possibly my MBL omnis).

To dial it back: all these are somewhat subtle, but the improvement in every area makes for a very significant change in the character of the sound. It's like a level of "blur" has been removed.

When I went back and re-read reviews of the Townshend speaker isolators, it was like word-for-word the type of sonic changes I have experienced. I'm not trying to pimp for Townshend audio so won't post videos for now, but he's done some interesting videos explaining the purported benefits of spring decoupling. I'm somewhat more skeptical about the Isoacoustics explanations for their products in that it's hard to see how it would work. But the very fact that I can so obviously feel (and measure) the decoupling effects of springs makes me think it's entirely plausible they may be doing something.

Does anyone have a good idea as to what may explain this effect?

Would the floor vibration have been adding some sort of "burr" to the sound, that is now removed? Or would the vibration of the speaker somehow interacted with the floor, the vibrations going back in to the speaker, when not decoupled?

The speakers are a teeny bit higher on the springs than on the footers, and I adjusted my seating height. But no matter how high or low my head, the overall change in sound was there.

Thoughts?

Measurements, please.
Otherwise what you're reporting is a bunch of $ spent on some..springs, and the consequent impression of your (sighted) expectation bias.

 

[Philim]

Measurements, please.
Otherwise what you're reporting is a bunch of $ spent on some..springs, and the consequent impression of your (sighted) expectation bias.

Lol sorry only had my vibrometer on my phone. I described as best I can.

 

[MattHooper]

You’re a bit late to the party

Measurements, please.

You could stop reading at the very first post which mentions you’re not gonna get the measurements you want. As I said since this was posed not simply as a set of claims but as inspiring an open set of questions, plenty of people clearly found the thread interesting.
And a number of knowledgable folks explained that some of my results were plausible. Within the thread there are actually links to some people who had done measurements with the Townshend products, showing measurable differences.

The only thing I could supply was vibrometer measurements showing some isolation from vibrations between the floor and the loudspeakers.

Otherwise what you're reporting is a bunch of $ spent on some..springs, and the consequent impression of your (sighted) expectation bias

If we’re going to talk about evidence… what’s your evidence that my impressions were due to expectation bias, and not to perceptible changes in the sound?

People get a little trigger-happy around here automatically ascribing sighted listening impressions to bias effects. If you can produce studies or measurements showing that, with my speakers on my wood floors my room, there’s no way springs isolating my speakers from the floor could’ve had audible effects…. Please present it.

Otherwise, it’s worth being cautious about leaping to conclusions that you can no more demonstrate than I have demonstrated mine.

 

[DVinylfan]

Lol sorry only had my vibrometer on my phone. I described as best I can.

The only thing I could supply was vibrometer measurements

Uncanny.

 

[OldHvyMec]

Otherwise what you're reporting is a bunch of $ spent on some..springs, and the consequent impression of your (sighted) expectation bias

Yes, exactly what I'm looking for. Honest opinions from people who are willing to experiment with well-known decoupling suspension devices that have been working in the automotive, DOT, aviation, construction of high-rise/bridges, and the HD equipment market for 100+ years.

The science is very well known, apart from the HiFi world, for some reason.

Measurements give people like me, data if I need it to fix a problem, not fix a solution. Vibration control adds longevity to any product it's attached to, no matter what it is. Vibration and heat are the number one killers of anything electronic, along with dust, soil, or moisture.

Decoupling any speaker system, especially sub/bass removes the huge passive driver called the floor that arrives at your bottom/feet before it arrives at your ears. It will always add clarity in the sub/bass frequencies and, in doing so, add clarity to all other frequencies.

Vibration control in all combustion engines is the main reason they stay together and last as long as they do (now). Currently, it's not uncommon the see 10,000 hours or 1.5 million miles on a diesel engine or 350,000 miles on a gas or LPG engine behind designed front and rear crankshaft damping/vibration control. Better lubricants, and cleaner burns in the combustion chamber, resulting in practically ZERO wash from over-fueling and near ZERO wear as a result. If not for the air (that always has some contamination) in combustion engines, engines would likely live longer than most humans under normal, everyday use.

The facts are simple: most of the HiFi world is still in the stone age. Another fact is top-notch engineers don't work for speaker companies or people who design and build HiFi gear. They are building sound walls, bridges, high-rises, freeway overpasses or crap for NASA, not Marantz or Wilson.

This is for fun, keep that in mind, most current manufacturers of HiFi gear sure do.

My best Regards

 

[Philim]

Uncanny.

Have a drink or something. You seem angry and want a fight.

 

[MattHooper]

Uncanny.

You ascribed my impressions to sighted bias.

Still waiting for your evidence.

In your terms: “measurements, please.”

After that, we can bond on our shared fondness for vinyl

 

[DVinylfan]

Another fact is top-notch engineers don't work for speaker companies or people who design and build HiFi gear. They are building sound walls, bridges, high-rises, freeway overpasses or crap for NASA, not Marantz or Wilson.

Amen

 

[MattHooper]

The bars I got custom made for £80 at local merchants. Just 5mm steel bars bent to a shape.

That’s what I was thinking of doing at one point. It’s really cool to see somebody who actually did it.

I have been trying yellow dot squash balls under the bars for damping but seemed to over damp. I tasted both with a vibrometer. Without damping you get longer ringing and a more sparkle to the sound

Yeah, it can be a game of just sort of pushing resonances around and seeing what happens.

I quite enjoyed having fun with the process.

(there’s a good review of new Magico speakers in the latest issue of Stereophile, where John Atkinson discusses material resonances with the Alon Wolfe. And they discussed how it’s a misunderstanding somehow have that materials like stone or aluminum don’t vibrate audibly, when they do ring quite a bit, and so if you want to make a heroically designed enclosure, and you are using something like aluminum, you also have to incorporate damping. Otherwise you’re just moving around resonances. That’s basically the approach I took. I noticed that even two thick sheets of granite still rang when I knuckle rapped them, and then I used car sound taping material between them, and that really deadened the sound. However I assume they still resonate, so they still may be contributing something to the sound of the set up, and how they interact with my speakers and or the floor.

 

[DVinylfan]

Have a drink or something. You seem angry and want a fight.

How dare you.
I most never have a drink, seem angry, or want a fight.
But you would already know that, thanks to your total 7 posts, and 4 likes.

 

[Heinrich]

You ascribed my impressions to sighted bias. Still waiting for your evidence.

What a twist, it's an artform in itself! Of course suspension could isolate, and honestly, it is undergraduate physics, kindergarten. Now you make such a big fuzz of it. Maybe after decades of quantum field theory the basics got forgotten? C'mon, is this true?

... seeing what happens.
I quite enjoyed having fun with the process.
(there’s a good review of new Magico speakers in the latest issue of Stereophile, ...

Where's the mystery, other that the brand has named itself 'Magico'?!

 

[MattHooper]

What a twist, it's an artform in itself! Of course suspension could isolate, and honestly, it is undergraduate physics, kindergarten. Now you make such a big fuzz of it. Maybe after decades of quantum field theory the basics got forgotten? C'mon, is this true?


Where's the mystery, other that the brand has named itself 'Magico'?!

It’s probably just me, but I don’t understand the point you’re making exactly.

Do I understand correctly that you’re not particularly skeptical that isolating floor standing loudspeakers from a wood floor via springs could alter the sound?

 

[Purité Audio]

No physical mechanism for the sound to change.
Keith