Black Diamond Racing products under speakers?


I am wondering if anyone out there has tried BDR Cones or Pucks under their speakers. I have a carpeted plywood floor and have been experimenting with Vibrapods under my floor standing speakers. I feel like their is a dramatic improvement in the overall quality of the sound using them. The thing is that I have Vandersteen 2Ce's and am using the Vibrapods between the T shaped Vandersteen stands and the speakers. The stands still have the spikes on them for stability on the carpet. With the pods set up this way their is a lot less vibration noticable with a hand laid on the cabinet durring loud percussive passages and the sand no longer leakes out of the stands which also tells me that there is a lot less energy being transfered into the stand and therefore into the floor. The problem is that the stands are bolted to the speakers(I use longer bolts to adjust for the added thickness of the pods)and since you dont want to overtighten the bolts in order to not crush the Vibrapods(which may diminish their effectiveness). With this set up over time the bolts loosen up and you have to keep checking them to make sure that the speakers don't fall off the stands(made worse due to the fact that the speakers need to be tilted back slightly). My 2Wq is on pods as well, by the way.

I know that the Audio Point(Warrenh), cone foot, spike guys out there are going to scream bloody murder that decoupling anything is a travisty and that you need to have a pathway to drain...bla bla bla... I will say that if it works for you do it. I am a dampening/isolation guy myself. This may just be because of differences in room/floor construction.

Has anyone tried using the BDR carbon fiber products instead of something like Vibrapods under their speakers? I think that some of "The Pucks" or "The Thick Pucks" might solve the problem. I could even put the speakers on a Bright Star Big Rock with Pyrimid cones under the stands with The Pucks between the stand and the speaker. I know I can't afford to set the speaker/Puck/Cone combo on BDR "The Shelf Boards". The 3/4" BDR material is said to have 25 times the resistance to resonance of 8" of granite. This way I can tighten the stands a bit more firmly since the BDR material is not elastic like the Vibrapods. Any ideas or comments?
maxgain

Showing 6 responses by maxgain

Timo, you have the speakers on a bare hardwood floor? How did you feel about what it did for the sound and what were they on before?
Lugnut and Bob, thanks both are good ideas. I think I have some blue Locktite and I might give that a try first.

I would still like to hear from others who have played with different ways of decoupling speakers. Townshend Audio makes a Seismic Sink loudspeaker platform which I would love to try. The smallest one of three models is $900 a pair. So I won't be doing it any time soon.
Lugnut, another good point. Do you supose that a Home Depot would carry the Nylock bolts? I don't live in a big city and anything remotly exotic is hard to find in this locality. Perhaps an auto parts store, I don't know of any Hot Rod shops around here. Anyone out there know the thread spec for the Vandy's stands? The instructions for the stands makes no mention of it. I was able to get the right thread last time by taking one of the old bolts with me for a match. I suppose I could get the thread spec the same way at a hardware and then keep looking for the correct Nylock bolts. If needed to order them from a specialty supplier at least then I would know what to get.

Bob,no, I am NOT the recent Powerball lotto winner!
Chazzbo, If I understand your question, I think that you are talking about the same company. BDR makes, or did make, a clamp for use with VPI tables.
I am having second thoughts about the pods under the main speakers. They seem to solve some problems and cause some new ones. I need to experiment further when I have some time. They seem to allow for a more dynamic persentation but now I am hearing a boom problem that I can't seem to work out or explain.
I figured out the problem. When I put the pods under the cabinet I screwed up the amount of tilt. I tried them tilted further forward thinking that was what I needed to do. Wrong! I leaned them back a bit until the boom went away and everything came back into focus. The spacial info came back and I still have the improved dynamics. Anyone with Vandy 2's needs to be careful with the proper tilt angle. I also found out that the screws on the back plates needed to be tightened slightly as I tracked down an odd buzz to them. Tweeking can get confusing sometimes!