What would you use to isolate small bookshelf speakers from a sofa table?

Here's the deal, I've got a pair of NHT SuperOne speakers sitting on a traditional sofa table with my integrated and CD player in between. While the speakers were sitting on little self adhesive rubber bumpers, it wasn't enough isolation from the table. I found some little hardwood kids blocks in the basement and have stuck those under the speakers to very good effect (reducing the somewhat boomy bass and making the speakers sound more like they were on stands). The problem is, I can't use stands in this application and the little kids blocks work but are inelegant in our living room. I need to protect the table underneath and wondered about the myriad of speaker spikes and cups but am hopeful some of you might have some inexpensive solutions for me.

Here's what I'd like to replace. Would like to keep the budget for the pair of speakers under $50. These are about 1 5/8" square and 1" tall. They work very well but are not attractive (according to my wife). The speaker's base is 7.25” x 8.5”.

 

Rubber hockey pucks. Spike directly into the hockey puck. Visit a hockey supply store and feel the difference between the hard rubber and softer rubber pucks. I am talking about the softer versions.

Woodworking tools called "Bench Cookies" work great too.

 

No hockey pucks available in my town. Unfortunately, neither those or bench cookies passes the appearance test. I'd thought of 1" tall rubber feet but I wouldn't want to screw them in, rather, use double sided adhesive tape (which I have on hand). I wondered about these spike and cup deals.

 

Just sand and stain/paint those suckers and use some bluetac on both sides to hold them in place. Bam.

 

Thanks but not looking for a project where sanding and staining is required. Besides, they belong to my kids (assuming you were referring to the wood blocks I'm currently using).

 

Get some felt pads. The thicker the better. They are only 1/4" thick or so at most, so they will be invisible. No scratch, no stain, no see.
-Bill

 

Not sure if this would pass WAF, bit I think this would do well to isolate vibration:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0002D0B4K?psc=1&ref=yo_pop_mb_pd_title

 

I want to get about 1" in height. I already have small rubber bumper feet but I want more isolation. I've experimented quite a bit and the placement of these is fine all things considered but too low to the table brings in too much unwanted resonance.

 

From what? What is resonating? I'd convince the wife that you need new speaker stands. ...And a sub. Heck, with that dapper swimsuit and handsome physique, how could she refuse?

-Bill

 

MoPAD™/MoPAD-XL™ | Auralex Acoustics

They work well, 2 sizes. I have a 5.1 system, I have their various products underneath everything in an apartment. Some consider these products snake oil. I like them.

 

Something like this (+/- fractions of inches)?

 

I would try a set of Vibrapod feet. Inexpensive enough to give a shot. Very discrete. For better performance use the base and the cone, but the base may be isolating enough.



https://www.amazon.com/Vibrapod-Iso...D6WFDKXKA0H&psc=1&refRID=665V2TWBBD6WFDKXKA0H

 

I like the idea of those. I ended up, for now, double stacking two self-stick felt pads onto the flat rubber pads (about an 1/8" thick) to get a total pushing 1/2". Seems to have helped to a similar degree as the wood blocks were but far less noticeable.

I like the idea of these too. Thanks for the suggestions. I'll live with my creation for a few days and see if I'm satisfied.

 

The felt should work fine. I keep an assortment of them and use them all over the house. My turntables and many of my small speakers sit on them. Been there so long I didn’t even think of them!

I actually have isolation bases under my LS50w’s and they work well, but they were about $200.

 

Cork sheet, cut to size. Easy, and works great.

 

You haven't isolated the speakers from the sofa table. Wood blocks continue to couple the speakers to the surface of the table. What you managed to do with the additional height of the blocks (compared to the small rubber bumpers) was raise the speakers just enough to reduce the effect of the front of the sofa table acting as a baffle.

When speakers are sitting on an object with a solid top and an extended front panel (just like your sofa table) you effectively extend the front baffle of the speakers (in which the woofer is mounted). That usually causes muddy-sounding bass. Separating the speaker by raising it away from the sofa table reduces that effect. Raising the speakers even more will further improve the bass. In your situation then, putting some space between the sofa table and the front baffle of the speakers makes the difference. But it has nothing to do with decoupling.

Use IsoAcoustics stands to put a bit more space between the speakers and the sofa table. Six inches should do it nicely. The IsoAcoustics stands will give you the height at the same time as they providing decoupling, and the WAF is much better as well.

 

That’s the ones is have under the KEFs . They look nice and work well.

 

Here's one more easy and cheap alternative: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JJ191Z6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I use them under my subs.

 

Send me your address.
I will get you eight softer rubber hockey pucks and mail them to you.
I will probably cost you $20 to mail them because hockey pucks are pretty dense and heavy.

Otherwise try the "Bench Cookies" from a woodworking store. Try "Rockler Woodworking"
www.rockler.com
These will be store labeled but you can paint them to match your decor.
The Bench Cookies do not work very well with spiked speakers because the soft isolation parts are thin.
Hockey pucks are better with spikes.
If your speakers are flat wood on the bottom, the Bench cookies work great because they are designed to grip the woodworking project to help you do the work.

 

The problem with this is that you then raise the speakers well above their ideal height to your ears when seated. The speakers sit at the front edge of the table so I'm not sure about the baffle effect.

 

Look at your photo of the speaker on the sofa table. The wood, front panel of the sofa table is a solid sheet of material. How can it not serve to effectively extend the front baffle of the speaker cabinet? By raising the speaker off the top of the table by a couple of inches, you gave some of the bass frequencies (among others) someplace to go other than refelecting off the front panel of the sofa table. That's why you heard an improvement in bass. The problem has little or nothing to do with coupling or decoupling. It has to do with raising the speaker cabinet just far enough above the sofa table to let the speaker do the work it was designed to do without unwanted and deleterious emphasis from the front panel of the sofa table.

If the front of your speaker cabinet is positioned at the front edge of the sofa table, the extended baffle effect will be even greater. If you position the speaker somewhat back from the edge of the sofa table, you'll get unwanted reflection from the top of the sofa table as well. A typical sofa table is approximately 30" high, which is already too high to act as the best stand for your speakers. So raising them another 6" won't reduce sound quality any further, but will have the effect of tightening up bass, and improving lower midrange and bass clarity.

By all means, experiment. But little bits of cork of silicone or rubber pucks won't help to sufficiently separate your speaker cabinets from that sofa table front panel. The problem has nothing to do with isolating the speaker cabinets from vibrations in the sofa table because there can't be any vibration significant enough coming from the sofa table. On the contrary, wide, flat surfaces adjacent to the front of a speaker cabinet literally ruin some parts of the speaker cabinet/driver design and muddy the sound. Nothing to do with vibrating sofa tables that can't possibly produce enough resonance to affect sound. 4"-6" stands (e.g., from IsoAcoustics) are the ticket.

 

Cut pieces from mouse pads, camping sleeping mats or similar.

 

No personal experience, but a friend uses them in his DJ/Recording Studio for power monitors and likes them. Possibly worth a shot and probably easy to return (depending on retailer) if you don't like them.

 

Rubber vape pen holders. Cheap cheap
Oh and maybe pop a ball bearing in the top