Spikes - when to use and when not to

That's why they invented carpet!

 

Because carpet can subdue amplified bass? Weird.

 

Gel-filled isolation pucks.

I've always thought spikes were of dubious utility, truthfully ...

 

I have the stainless steel gliders and these benefited the SQ most. My speakers are set on a laminate floor on top of a concrete slab. I tried no spikes on the area rug, no spikes on the laminate, neoprene pads, neoprene & cork pads, spikes on the rug, spikes on the laminate, spikes on 1950's pennies on the laminate. Ultimately the spikes on gliders worked best. And as mentioned above, so much easier to adjust speaker placement.

 

I use these on my hardwood floor under the Yvette's. Because of space limitations I have to move one speaker to get behind my rack. The gliders are great for this and don't inhibit the sonic quality of the speakers.

 

A long shot I know, but has anybody experience of comparing the gliders with the Iso Acoustic GAIA's?

 

Try it, you will find that the reflections from the floor cavity are absorbed by the underlay!

 

Also, have you never heard of rugs being used to take room resonance, including, but not not always, as part of wider room treatments?!!

 

Sorry but rugs won't do jack for bass frequencies. Room treatment 101.

 

Ha, ha, ha!

 

Without taking measurements and doing controlled test I think we're all speculating but I believe it's the whole room rather than just the floor causing the problems and I would expect carpets to limit any reflections or the amount of air that can be moved in the room, that's derived from energy within the floor.

 

Thinking about this, if I had a suspended floor again I'd seriously consider using the 2mm mass loaded vinyl (previously linked), as a underlay.

 

Don't forget that the actual carpet is more about reducing reflections up and breaking up. or disrupting, waves /resonances.

 

Yes, for high frequencies. It will do nothing for lows.

It's not speculation in any sense. These are well-known principles of room acoustics. Typical carpet thickness will do jack jor mitigating bass modes or damping a resonant floor.

 

I'll just comfort myself with the fact that Russ Andrews and I are on the same wavelength then (pun intended)!
Russ Andrews - Hi-Fi mains and cable specialist

 

You do that.

 

As someone else said on another thread,
I"done feeding the trolls"!

 

ignorance is bliss i suppose.

 

Clearly!

 

Damnit, I wasn't going to deed the trolls anymore.

 

I want to listen to the speakers and NOT the floor or walls vibrating!! That is why I isolate my equipment and speakers.

You would be surprised how much of an effect the floor has on the sound, particularly the low bass and in a sense becomes a part of the speaker, especially with suspended floors or wood over concrete.

 

Agreed. May I ask what you use to isolate your speakers?

 

I'm thinking about energy moving through the floor to the walls being reduced by extra mass, rather than reflections.

 

You could stiffen the wooden floors by adding an additional layer of wood flooring. It would need to be glued and/or screwed down (if it were me I would do both) in order to ensure that the two layers act as one unit rather than two semi-independent layers. This of course reduces overall room height by the thickness of the additional layer, which may or may not be a problem.
Additional cross-bracing, perpendicular to the main beams, would also help but would need to be a tight fit between the beams.

 

Well my approach is to get as little energy in to the floor as possible, yet for some reason you brought up the problem of energy in the floor to question my approach.

I'm also pointing out that reducing energy going in to your equipment will vastly improve the SQ and that this energy is mainly coming through the floor from the point you couple your speakers to the floor, not the sound waves in the room being the main problem.

If you have reflection problems then that's a different issue than to couple or decouple your speakers, in fact as it's rented property I've got concrete covered by a laminated floor at the moment and yet the issues with my room have been resolved by my approach.