Experience with Townshend Seismic Podiums on Concrete Floor (they're great)


​I have tower speakers on a concrete floor covered with carpet. Recently, I tried out the Townshend Seismic Podium (size 1)  on my Ascend Acoustics Towers (RAAL tweeter) for about 4-5 hours. Here is a brief recounting of my experience.

At first, I set up the podiums and just listened to well known tracks; next, a few days later, I used that same set of tracks to compare, A & B, the speakers on the podium vs. without the podium (but at the same height). A friend with me also compared this A/B setup. We listened to a simple jazz arrangement, a Mozart aria, a rock recording by Chesky, and a country/rock piece. All were well recorded.

The difference made by the podiums are not subtle. In general, it is as if the entire sonic presentation was brought into focus, as if a light veil or layer of dust had been wiped away. It organizes everything; it makes the parts of the whole make sense.

More specifically, these were the effects I noticed: 

Bass was slightly fuller, much cleaner and more distinct; for an electric bass, this meant that rounded notes that previously blurred in a sequence (too legato) become individual notes. String bass notes gained dimensionality and texture; the finger on the string became more real, and the resonance of the large wooden bass got fuller and richer. Rhythm sections were better able to stand out *as* rhythm sections, that is, as musicians who are working together.

As far as midrange and treble go, there was -- as with the bass -- more definition, clarity, detail. They sound more like instruments-in-the-room rather than the presence of instrument appearances. Not much about their tonal character changed, but they became more palpable and more exactly located.

That brings me to the soundstage. The width of the soundstage grew by about 10-14% — 5-7% on each side. It was remarkable. Instruments gained space, separation, and definiteness of location. They didn't sound apart or isolated but just more distinct, separated from other instruments. I imagined this as fidelity to the way the microphone recorded them or as the mixing engineer intended. 

When I ordered the podiums, I made sure to ask for the ability to return them. I was assured that I could return them if I just paid shipping. (No restocking fee.) I was skeptical and wanted an escape clause. I had watched a few videos and was curious about whether Mr. Townshend's scientific claims would translate into audible differences that would be worth the money (the podiums cost about 1/3 of my speakers' cost). 

Well, my skepticism is gone — and it disappeared rather quickly at first, and then after careful comparison. I am keeping the Townshend podiums. Are they better than Isoacoustics footers or other products? I don't know, because I have not compared them. But they're making a huge difference and, should I want to put other speakers on them, they'll fit the others I have, easily. I'm pretty sure I'll never give these up.

 

128x128hilde45

I read the Townsend website write up on their seismic pods and sorry not buying it.

....Speaker interaction with suspended plywood floors is a very common and way more significant acoustic issue. All one has to do is jump up and down in a room and see if anything moves or vibrates to know.

@mapman By "it" what are you referring to? The seismic factor alone? What?

@brownsfan noted three types of issues -- without mentioning the seismic one:

  1. movement of the speaker cabinet back and forth and side to side due to Newtonian action reaction caused by the driver motion
  2. cabinet vibration also due to the drivers motion
  3. floor resonance being transferred back and forth between the speaker and flooring until it finally dissipates.

You are using Isoacoustic isolation and you say they help. Might the Townshends simply be doing what those devices do?

Are you mentioning "jumping up and down" on the floor as an adequate test of whether the kind of vibration capable of smearing midrange and treble are is present? It seems too crude a test, no? Not sure what the geology textbooks say on that one.

I have owned the Seismic platforms for a couple years and they are transforming .

Prior to the Podiums I was using spikes with Combak Harmonic footer. 

It is one of the few audio products that is universally praised by people who actually own them. Yes they are expensive but chances are they make up less than 10-15 percent of total system cost. They’re improvement is actually a great value. The beauty is every single piece of your equipment benefits and changes in cables,fuses,power supplies, are much easier hear. 
My biggest takeaway from them are the space around the instruments and not only the depth of the stage but the actual placement of the players. Live recordings are especially impressive as you will hear the audience in front and the singer a few feet back and guitar player a couple more feet back and to the left  and the drummer 12 ft behind the singer but 8 ft behind the guitar player etc. I guess you would call it layering . 
All the other goodies apply, texture in vocals, improved bass control, etc.

I do have a golden ratio room which helps, it is a converted garage with a cement floor. 2x12 floor joist filled with foam built on top of the existing cement slab. I knew where my system was going to be so much more than typical cross bracing etc. 

Finished flooring is LVP with cork backing . It floats so probably not the best but it looks great and easy to take care and self installed   Could be another reason I felt I had such an improvement with the Podiums  

The Townshend folks are awesome to work with and will work hard to make sure you can afford your Podiums . I went thru all Herbies, Stillpoints,Combak Harmonic ,chain . Save up your money and buy the Townshend Podiums .You won’t have to worry about selling them for 50 cents on a dollar in a couple of years!!

 

 


 

@hilde45 and @mapman .  To the points you have made above.

  I did not include vibrations transmitted to the speakers that have its origins outside the confines of the listening room as a 4th type of kinetic motion because the medium through which those vibrations are transmitted is the room flooring.  So my type 3 above is inclusive of anything that is transmitted to the speaker via the flooring.

In addition, I don't think anyone has said that such vibrations are not audible.  But I did say that they are probably orders of magnitude less significant on concrete than they are on typical wood subflooring over a crawl space or in a second floor application.  In my estimation and in my experience, the worst offender is usually type 2 if one is on wood flooring.  If not, then it would appear that type 3 vibration is the more significant.

The problem here is that we can't determine with any degree of certainty which of the 3 types is most significant in our particular setting.  Another problem is that addressing one type of kinetic energy may exacerbate the other two.  This is why I don't hear many people claiming spikes are the answer.  

The answer here is finding a way to rapidly (instantaneously would be ideal) convert these three (or 4 if you insist) types of kinetic energy to heat.  The idea of isolation only works if you are isolating from an external source (seismic, as example).  If you are talking about type 1 energy, you might address the movement of the speaker using spikes.  But the law of conservation of mass and energy tells us that the energy that wanted to move the speaker and now can't, must express that energy in some other form.  So spikes are converting the type 1 energy to a combination of type 2 energy plus heat.  Thus, if type 2 energy is worse in terms of audible effects than type 1 energy, spikes could make your speakers sound worse. And spikes can't do anything at all to address type 2 and type 3 vibration. 

This same argument can be applied to products designed to address type 3 or type 2 energy.  Unless a particular device is capable of converting all three types of energy to heat, and doing so rapidly and efficiency, the device is robbing Peter to pay Paul.  

I really think the manufactures that are super engineering their speaker cabinets have recognize what I am saying above.  That is what these super rigid cabinets are doing.  They are efficiently and rapidly converting type 2 kinetic energy to heat.

For those us that don't want to pay more for our speakers than we did for our house, we are forced to look for products like the Townsend for a poor man's solution, and the reality is that we are going to have to try some different types to see (hear) what works best in our particular setting. 

 

@brownsfan  Good point. Type 4 (seismic) is part of type 3, and would be small in comparison. It would be nice to see an interview with a speaker maker that addressed these vibrational issues in these terms. 

@benzman  -- I love your description and it is certainly what I heard, especially: "My biggest takeaway from them are the space around the instruments and not only the depth of the stage but the actual placement of the players. Live recordings are especially impressive as you will hear the audience in front and the singer a few feet back and guitar player a couple more feet back and to the left  and the drummer 12 ft behind the singer but 8 ft behind the guitar player etc. I guess you would call it layering . 
All the other goodies apply, texture in vocals, improved bass control, etc."

@hilde45 I agree regarding the desirability of having the manufacturers actually get down into the grass with consumers on the physics and their engineering answers to the physics.  Unfortunately, their first task is to retain a competitive edge in a competitive market.  So everything runs through the filter of how does this advance sales.  Nothing wrong with that.  That is how the free market operates.  Also, not all audiophiles are interested in understanding the science, indeed, some people are put off by excessively technical explanations. 

It is easier from me to get from St. Louis to the west coast than it was for Lewis and Clark.  The difference is entirely one of knowledge and understanding.  It is hard under the best of circumstances to get an audio system to really sing in our homes.      Starting from an understanding of those things that always must be true in every instance is very helpful.  That can take us a long way, but in the end, there are important things that can't be known by a home audio guy in sufficient detail to obviate the value of empiricism.  Sharing of knowledge and experience in this forum is really a somewhat efficient and cost effective way to mitigate the inefficiency inherent in pure empiricism.  OK, I've used up my daily quota of big words and need to shut up.