Isolation Cones vs Cheap Cables

I have "Sound Anchors" speaker stands under my Thiel CS3.6 speakers. These come pre-drilled on the underside for either 3 spikes or 4 spikes. I use 3 spikes.

Optimizing your 2 channel home audio is a worthy and necessary thing to do. It takes some inspiration to set out to improve your sonic performance for the better. The audio hobby rarely offers instantaneous fantastic clarity/power/detail/authority/quietness even with higher priced components. Expensive gear can have lots of odd, off-putting sonic characteristics when done wrong.

Could I ask a follow up question about the 3 versus 4 speaker footers discussed in your first post? Since my tall Thiel speakers are sitting on Sound Anchors low stands, I have one spike out the front onto a round stainless cup about 2” in diameter on the carpet. The other 2 spikes of the triangle are at the rear. I have no small kids or pets running through the living room. The Thiel speakers are sitting directly on the low Sound Anchors metal bar with no rubber cone or metal spike transitioning the bottom of the speaker to the low stand (these stands only raise the Thiele like 1” off the carpet). Could I improve the clarity of my vocals, +/or tighten the sound up a bit by isolating this critical area better? 

This is where the audiophile hobby involves actively listening and auditioning. For the time being I was going to slide 4 rubber discs, one under each corner then listen again to some of my more disappointing CD’s with veiled vocals or compressed sonics to trust if I can detect any change in the sound quality. 

The people who who responded so far seem to favor having 4 footers for speakers as preferable sonically and structurally for our heavy speakers. My Thiel CS3.6’s weigh #108 each. I would be bummed if one of them got knocked down somehow.

I just check some of my old CD’s from artists that I really like that didn’t quite hit a home run sonically but where the songs themselves have great merit. I’m a huge Cure fan and a more recent album of their’s - “4:13 Dream” is fatiguing to me due to too much compression. The songs are good, it’s just that the compressed production spits out the layers of the song all congealed, not open. I was really pulling for this album to be great but haven’t gotten there yet. Sometimes re-listening to crap recordings, I’m able to still gain some insight into my system. When I went from my NAD 2200 power amplifier to my Bryston 4Bsst2 amp, a lot of too bright, fatiguing CD’s of mine became listenable.