[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] 4 or 3?

[Gandhi]

I have a problem. I'm sure many of you have had, or still have the same
one.

When I try to trim the four spikes underneath my floorstanding speakers
to make them level and stable and hence not prone to vibration, I always
rigorously curse the designers who didn't put three spikes there instead
or four, which would make the problem moot and also the speakers a
little cheaper.

Is there any benefit from using four, or are speaker manufacturers just
generally rigid and, well, dense? Or are they perhaps all conspiring and
doing this for the sole reason of annoying me?

Please help my tormented soul and enlighten me!

PS
Or, to open up Pandora's box, do I even need spikes in the first place?
Perhaps they're just remnants from the dark 80s? Perhaps small pieces of
self-adhesive felt instead would solve my problem, without scratching my
hardwood floor?



Best Regards,
Gandhi

not often enough well recorded and mastered cds *|* dbpoweramp with
accuraterip *|* flac *|* fanless asrock z77e-itx intel i5-3570t *|*
ubuntu 12.04.1 lts 32-bit *|* lms 7.8.0 *|* brutefirdrc 3.0 (rewv5) *|*
transporter (balanced out) *|* thule ia252b *|* audio physic scorpio *|*
no fancy cables. *+* also some booms. *+* harmony 525s for them all,
including waking the server from s3.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gandhi's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=58909
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=102384

[Mnyb]

I actually used soft feets tuned to the speakers weigth but they are
rather thick not only a felt piece , sort of floating suspension . The
resonance frequency should be realy low with the rigth feets . The
speaker is actually more still at audio frequencies this way .
Another positive side effect is that the speakers does not tranfer
vibrations to my hardwood floor . Besides spikes drives the mechanical
resonance into the midrange .

It can actually be a question if interior design , in countries with a
lot off wall to wall carpeting the spikes could hep in actually making
the speaker stand on the floor not the carpet . Then they are beneficial
.

The spikes delivered with the speakers are probably just fine .

Pandoras box is more like thoose aftermarket carbon fiber cones and
whatnot , and people put those under their DAC , or spikes on the hifi
stand .

Here are the feets i use .

http://www.sonicdesign.se/sdfeet.html

They of-course try to sell them for CD players too ,that’s more bunk
than science but hey they want to make a buck lie everyone else .
And they to have testimonials on their site *sigh*

Sometimes its just fashion statement from the speaker manufacturer ,
like bi-wiring binding post that are standard ( even if they are useless
unless you biamp )



--------------------------------------------------------------------
Main hifi: Touch + CIA PS +MeridianG68J MeridianHD621 MeridianG98DH 2 x
MeridianDSP5200 MeridianDSP5200HC 2 xMeridianDSP3100 +Rel Stadium 3
sub.
Bedroom/Office: Boom
Kitchen: Touch + powered Fostex PM0.4
Misc use: Radio (with battery)
iPad1 with iPengHD & SqueezePad
(in storage SB3, reciever ,controller )
server HP proliant micro server N36L with ClearOS Linux

http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mnyb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4143
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=102384

[Gandhi]

Ah yes, I actually found this site a few years ago. The audio society
Ljudtekniska Sällskapet, which is mentioned, is honourable enough, but I
didn't dare purchasing anything. Both 'audiophile' and 'standard'
damping feet, both for speakers and CD players. A web site that hasn't
changed since about the year 2000, with reviews from 1991. Hm. I smelled
a rat.

But I like the idea of tuned suspension. When I do my laundry I often
admire the double suspension under the washing machines that absorbs
almost all of the different vibrational frequencies and amplitudes. Very
efficient and very instructive, and yet I never thought of applying that
principle to speakers.

Also interesting to see the jagged graph of the floor movement with
spikes.

I'll look into this. It seems like a sound idea and I haven't even had
the prospect of a hardware tweak in more than a decade. And the
grandchildren of the original seller might still be alive. :-)

Perhaps there is another solution out there somewhere, based on the same
principle...?



Best Regards,
Gandhi

not often enough well recorded and mastered cds *|* dbpoweramp with
accuraterip *|* flac *|* fanless asrock z77e-itx intel i5-3570t *|*
ubuntu 12.04.1 lts 32-bit *|* lms 7.8.0 *|* brutefirdrc 3.0 (rewv5) *|*
transporter (balanced out) *|* thule ia252b *|* audio physic scorpio *|*
no fancy cables. *+* also some booms. *+* harmony 525s for them all,
including waking the server from s3.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gandhi's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=58909
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=102384

[Mnyb]

Post by Gandhi
Ah yes, I actually found this site a few years ago. The audio society
Ljudtekniska Sällskapet, which is mentioned, is honourable enough, but I
didn't dare purchasing anything. Both 'audiophile' and 'standard'
damping feet, both for speakers and CD players. A web site that hasn't
changed since about the year 2000, with reviews from 1991. Hm. I smelled
a rat.
But I like the idea of tuned suspension. When I do my laundry I often
admire the double suspension under the washing machines that absorbs
almost all of the different vibrational frequencies and amplitudes. Very
efficient and very instructive, and yet I never thought of applying that
principle to speakers.
Also interesting to see the jagged graph of the floor movement with
spikes.
I'll look into this. It seems like a sound idea and I haven't even had
the prospect of a hardware tweak in more than a decade. And the
grandchildren of the original seller might still be alive. :-)
Perhaps there is another solution out there somewhere, based on the same
principle...?

Yes the business seems sort of dead , on the other hand the product
don't have to change much , but an updated web site could improve sales
methinks :)

It's usually not recommended to drill new holes in a speaker , back to
topic 3 holes would be easier to adjust .

When I had spikes I usually had the speaker on felt feets at first to
find a good placement , then I finalised it with spikes .
If you care for the floor , there is some kind of small washers you can
put under the spike too.



--------------------------------------------------------------------
Main hifi: Touch + CIA PS +MeridianG68J MeridianHD621 MeridianG98DH 2 x
MeridianDSP5200 MeridianDSP5200HC 2 xMeridianDSP3100 +Rel Stadium 3
sub.
Bedroom/Office: Boom
Kitchen: Touch + powered Fostex PM0.4
Misc use: Radio (with battery)
iPad1 with iPengHD & SqueezePad
(in storage SB3, reciever ,controller )
server HP proliant micro server N36L with ClearOS Linux

http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mnyb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4143
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=102384

[pablolie]

like mydnb, i use soft feet. i think the material is called sorbathone,
but several brands provide solutions based on soft feet designed for a
certain weight.



...pablo
Server: Virtual Machine running Ubuntu 12.04 + LMS 7.7.3 on VMware
Player
System: SB Touch --optical->- Benchmark DAC2HGC --AnalysisPlus Oval
Copper XLR->- Creek Destiny Power Amp --AnalysisPlus Black Mesh Oval->-
KEF LS50
Other Rooms: 2x SB Boom; 1x SB Radio; 1x SB Classic-> MusicalFidelity
M1PWR -> Totem DreamCatcher
Computer audio: workstation --USB->- audioengine D1 -> Grado PS500e
------------------------------------------------------------------------
pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=102384

[Gandhi]

The washers I use with my spikes cost me $12 for 8 pcs, I think, and it
seems highly unlikely that they perform worse than gold plated ones. But
still, it's hopeless to adjust four spikes, so I believe vibrations are
in principal unavoidable. But does it constitute a problem?

For some background, I found a paper that uses a smidge of science for
an introduction to a bit of the basics of (de)coupling using spikes and
(visco)elastic materials 101:
www.genesisloudspeakers.com/whitepaper/Genesis_Loudspeaker_Coupling_Decoupling.pdf

If I'd buy something from the site mentioned above, I'm afraid I'd get
stuff that's been lying around in his garage for 25 years. The material
might have hardened in that time span. And I suspect that it's
Sorbothane, by the way.

Also, I rarely believe what I can't verify by myself, so I'd feel
intellectually naked if I used sighted listening tests for evaluation.
And it would be truly exhausting to perform any kind of blind listening
tests in this case. What to do?

The obvious answer is of course to measure the vibrations objectively:
au naturel, with felt cushions, when adjusting the spikes, with spikes,
with Sorbothane cushions, ... (Almost as exhausting.)

There are plenty of apps that measure vibrations, some even in 3D.
Perhaps one of them would suffice? For instance:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vibrationmeter
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vrmobile&hl=en
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lul.vibration.monitoring&hl=en
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kr.sira.vibration&hl=en

Has anybody done this already?

I'll see if I can find the time to play a little with all of this. But
unfortunately it'll take a while. Right now my main stereo that drives
the floorstanders isn't even functional, as my media server is, ehm,
resting.

Thanks for your input, guys!



Best Regards,
Gandhi

not often enough well recorded and mastered cds *|* dbpoweramp with
accuraterip *|* flac *|* fanless asrock z77e-itx intel i5-3570t *|*
ubuntu 12.04.1 lts 32-bit *|* lms 7.8.0 *|* brutefirdrc 3.0 (rewv5) *|*
transporter (balanced out) *|* thule ia252b *|* audio physic scorpio *|*
no fancy cables. *+* also some booms. *+* harmony 525s for them all,
including waking the server from s3.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gandhi's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=58909
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=102384