If it looks like marketing blather, smells like marketing blather and walks like marketing blather, chances are good it’s marketing blather.
Shocked removed spikes, used blue tack, what other non spike footer
My floor standing speakers, monitor stands always came with spikes so I used them always, it's the way they were designed at least I thought. I know everyone can't do this because of there floor type, mine is hardwood over concrete slab. Bass, more natural tone( I'm a tone junkie) gives the music a nice rhythm, may just be flavor of month but I'm really enjoying it. Highs maybe little rolled off, I just did it yesterday, maybe not as hifi, but no lose of information. Have other people experienced this.Can someone with my floor type suggest a nice reasonable priced non spiked footer, these are floorstander filled with shot so pretty heavy,maybe 70- 80 lb. thanks
Showing 19 responses by geoffkait
More stuff on LIGO Announced by the LIGO collaboration in February 2016, the discovery of ripples in spacetime known as gravitational waves was momentous enough to merit the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. Now, another Nobel laureate says LIGO has unknowingly made another spectacular discovery: gravitational waves from merging black holes that have been amplified by the gravity of intervening galaxies. Called gravitational lensing, this phenomenon is routinely used to study light from objects in the very distant cosmos. But the new assertion, if proved correct, would make it the first such sighting for gravitational waves. The controversial claim, which has been dismissed by members of the LIGO team, comes via physics Nobelist George Smoot of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and his colleagues. “We are wagering our reputations on this,” he says. LIGO (for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), comprising two detectors in the U.S., and Virgo, a detector outside Pisa, Italy, have together so far announced observations of gravitational waves from the merging of 10 pairs of black holes as well as a pair of neutron stars. |
audiopoint Getting back to sound reproduction if any are still interested: Geoffkait wrote, As I’ve oft described, performance of cones is also a function of Hardness. Brass for example is a relatively soft metal, and carbon fiber is a relatively soft material, whereas tempered steel and NASA grade ceramics rank very high on the Mohs Hardness scale - and are audibly superior to softer materials like brass. We disagree with this claim. First, NASA does NOT grade, advertise, recommend nor receive any compensation for sponsorships of any material - whatsoever. NASA Grade Ceramics is a wishful analogy or marketing line of some kind that only exists in the mind of a person who once was employed there. >>>>I never said NASA did any of those things. I use the term NASA grade ceramics to show that the particular ceramic material used in those DH (diamond hardness) Cones is the next HARDEST material next to diamond on the Mohs scale of Hardness. Does this work for anyone? - Saxophones, trumpets, tubas, bones and all musical instruments made or contain brass alloys in their manufacture should use NASA grade brasses. >>>>I never said ceramics should be used for musical instruments. Do you have attention deficit disorder? The ‘harder the better’ distraction that is repeated all too often is one “opinion” and has been disproven multiple times over. In some cases, hard materials reproduce the sonic effects associated with hard or edgy, brittle sonic and that is not a desirable result for most listeners. >>>>Again, you’re distorting my words. I said that hard materials should be used under components and under isolation stands for best results in evacuating residual energy from the system. Since you have no experience with the entire range of materials of various Hardness - as I do - you have no real basis for your opinion. Disclaimer: We’ve never heard or prototyped an audio cone made of diamond, gold, silver, platinum,glass, minerals or tin so cannot comment on those materials. >>>>Exactly! By contrast, I have had experience with those materials and many others. Information for the DIY and Audio Designers: All metal and ceramic alloys have different damping factors that affect the attack, sustain and decay characteristics of sound. These factors are a part of material science therefore it is very important to analyze, document, reference and learn how materials react to resonance formed from vibrations when designing anything related to audio reproduction. >>>>Again, I only referring to Hardness related to cones. Another Crucial Element Related to ‘any’ Vibration Device: The overall function of cones (Not including $0.45 cent spikes), spheres, pucks or springs heavily relies on the mass and chemistry makeup of the two surface materials coming in contact with both the top and the base area of the device. These outlying surfaces, their chemistry makeup and mass greatly influence the functionality and sonic performance of any device. Spring rates should be selected based on load. Our primary issue with springs was weight limitations where you require a spring for this weight and another for that and every time you get heavier or lighter gear one has to match up the sonic result to or with a mass to spring ratio. >>>>Once again you demonstrate your ignorance on the subject of vibration isolation in general and springs in particular. A spring with low spring rate cannot support a load over its weight range and that a spring that’s too stiff, high spring rate, cannot achieve a sufficiently low Fr. Sonic results of isolation are related to Fr of the isolating system. Obviously one spring can’t be used for all loads. Geez, Robert, have you considered spending some time in the library? Perhaps you can have your seismologist give you and your team a short non technical tutorial on vibration isolation. Since we are the company in audio with the most years of experience modeling, prototyping and manufacturing conical devices and are developing a newfound vibration technology, we remain extremely confident and have proven that our choice of brass and its chemical makeup delivers the function and sonic results essential for industry and product expansion. >>>>>marketing blather. We sampled, tested and listened to many materials including many brasses along with twenty-five different varieties of steels; applied multiple geometries to a host of prototypes that failed or had shortcomings related to limiting frequency response. The cost over time was extensive and most did not make the grade for our research and development projects, especially when it came down to the ‘all’ important musical and sonic relationships we require. >>>>The one thing you didn’t experiment with that would be pertinent to this discussion is vibration isolation. Moh’s has nothing to do with musical performance unless you include Larry and Curly in the band. ⌣ >>>>Yuk, yuk. This illustrates once again you failed to comprehend what I actually said, that Energy dissipation effectiveness is related to the Hardness of the cones. |
Robert “...we’ll call this a simple misunderstanding.” Robert, this whole discussion is a misunderstanding on your part of the physics involved. God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason. What’s needed is a comprehensive “belt and suspenders” approach to seismic isolation and resonance control. As I’ve oft suggested, isolate the component from the structural vibration AND provide an EXIT 🔝 for residual vibration in the iso system from all sources, e.g., motors, capacitors, transformers, acoustic waves. Problem solved! It’s not rocket science. 🚀 |
audiopoint138 posts05-15-2019 8:04pm Tom Geoff, Too bad on the LIGO thing, bet that one hurts since you have used that analogy on so many people over the past couple years. >>>>>And you still don’t understand the analogy. I still can’t get my head around what LIGO has to do with music reproduction? >>>>Yes, I know. Or maybe you’re pretending. Who knows and who cares? Maybe if they were to increase the mechanical grounding mechanism and improve the speed of resonance flow to earth, the isolation portion of the experiment might improve? >>>>Yeah, sure. Are you out of mind? I wish funding kept coming from outside sources when our experiments fail; that’s what I call leading the good life - yes? >>>>The funding keeps coming for good science. Maybe it’s time for you take a science class. Then your experiments wouldn’t fail. It occurs to me we haven’t heard anything from the Danish team recently. What’s up with that? |
Tom “LIGO is mechanically grounded to Earth.” >>>>>>No, actually it’s not. You haven’t been paying attention. LIGO must be at least 99.999% mechanically decoupled from Earth to be sensitive enough to detect gravity waves. I trust your boss is not paying the seismologist very much. By the way, We never see your “seismologist” post here. Is she the shy type? Is she a ghost? 👻 |
LIGO Is a giant seismometer. Tom, don’t you know what seismic waves and seismic isolation are yet? Here’s a quick study sheet for you courtesy of LIGO isolation page. Vibration Isolation For an instrument that needs to remain as still as possible, it is ironic that LIGO is so sensitive that it can feel the smallest vibrations from near and far. LIGO is essentially a giant seismometer capable of sensing vibrations from traffic on nearby roads, weather patterns on the other side of the continent, staff biking alongside detector arms, ocean waves crashing on shores hundreds of miles away, and of course nearly every significant earthquake on the planet. Since gravitational waves will make themselves known through vibrations in LIGO’s mirrors, the only way to make gravitational wave detection possible is to isolate LIGO’s components from environmental vibrations to unprecedented levels. The change in distance between LIGO’s mirrors (test masses) when a gravitational wave passes will be on the order of 10-19 m. To achieve this level of sensitivity, LIGO was constructed with multiple levels of active and passive vibration isolation systems. Many of LIGO’s larger infrastructure systems that provide some additional levels of isolation are discussed in previous sections. But LIGO’s most sensitive components (its optics) required even more complex and highly specialized mechanisms for isolating them from even the smallest imaginable vibrations. Outside of its pre-stabilized laser, LIGO’s vibration isolation systems are comprised of two basic elements: Optics Suspensions and Seismic Isolation. |
LIGO Receives New Funding to Search for More Extreme Cosmic Events News Release • February 14, 2019 Grants from the U.S., United Kingdom, and Australia will fund next-generation improvements to LIGOThe National Science Foundation (NSF) is awarding Caltech and MIT (Excerpt) Since LIGO’s first detection of gravitational waves from the violent collision of two black holes, it has observed nine additional black hole mergers and one collision of two dense, dead stars called neutron stars. The neutron star merger gave off not just gravitational waves but light waves, detected by dozens of telescopes in space and on the ground. The observations confirmed that heavy elements in our universe, such as platinum and gold, are created in neutron star smashups like this one. "This award ensures that NSF’s LIGO, which made the first historic detection of gravitational waves in 2015, will continue to lead in gravitational-wave science for the next decade," said Anne Kinney, assistant director for NSF’s Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate, in a statement. "With improvements to the detectors—which include techniques from quantum mechanics that refine laser light and new mirror coating technology—the twin LIGO observatories will significantly increase the number and strength of their detections. Advanced LIGO Plus will reveal gravity at its strongest and matter at its densest in some of the most extreme environments in the cosmos. These detections may reveal secrets from inside supernovae and teach us about extreme physics from the first seconds after the universe’s birth." Michael Zucker, the Advanced LIGO Plus leader and co-principal investigator, and a scientist at the LIGO Laboratory, operated by Caltech and MIT, said, "I’m thrilled that NSF, UK Research, and Innovation and the Australian Research Council are joining forces to make this key investment possible. Advanced LIGO has altered the course of astrophysics with 11 confirmed gravitational-wave events over the last three years. Advanced LIGO Plus can expand LIGO’s horizons enough to capture this many events each week, and it will enable powerful new probes of extreme nuclear matter as well as Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity." |
If springs weren’t part of LIGO’s comprehensive and complex approach to seismic vibration isolation they would never have been able to detect and observe gravity waves, the amplitude of which are atomic scale. In fact, the observation of gravity waves, which occurred two years ago, was not possible for many years because the system was not sufficiently isolated from local vibration. It is the same situation for audio reproduction. Sufficiently effective means of seismic isolation are necessary to avoid noise and distortion that low frequency vibration causes. Some obvious reasons for isolation are the relatively low natural frequency of the turntable tonearm and cartridge and the susceptibility of the CD laser assembly and the CD itself to external low frequency vibration, with the nanoscale laser and CD data in mind. Almost all competent isolation devices and systems use springs in some form or another so the only reason I can think of why someone would disparage cryogenically treated springs is out of desperation and/or ignorance of physics and strength of materials. |
Nobody ever said you can’t use cones or spikes in conjunction with springs. In fact, gentle readers, I have been campaigning for just such a comprehensive program of isolation and shedding energy (vibration) and damping for ages. Ideally, we wish to curtail as much as possible the transmission of low frequency vibration from the floor to the component and incorporate some sort of means to shed or dissipate “residual energy” from the component and or TOP PLATE of the iso device. Recall that isolation is provided by Mass-on-Springs, not by springs alone, so in the case of speakers the mass is provided by the speakers. The mass + springs is what creates the low pass mechanical filter. In the old days a good solution for speakers would be springs under the speakers and Tekna Sonic Dampers on the cabinets, for example. Today a comprehensive approach for a CD player would be springs under the CD player and damping for the chassis and printed circuit boards, capacitors and transformer. That would get you in the ballpark. One final word - the vibration of the CD itself is a big problem since whilst spinning the vibration and flutter of the CD interferes with the laser’s ability to read the nanoscale data on the disc - in spite of efforts of the laser tracking servo mechanism. Thus, sound quality of CDs is compromised in the first one millionth on a second. And there’s nothing that can be done about it upstream. Geoff Kait Machina Dramatica we do artificial atoms right! |
“No two spikes, springs, discs, cones or wood blocks sound the same if they are shaped differently, even if they are manufactured from the same material. As an example, pick up any two different brass products and listen to their performance as the differences are surprisingly ‘not’ close at all.” >>>>>Brass composition varies wildly. Springs have even more variables. Geez, talk about comparing apples 🍎 and watermelons 🍉. To whit, “Brass is an alloy made primarily of copper and zinc. The proportions of the copper and zinc are varied to yield many different kinds of brass. Basic modern brass is 67% copper and 33% zinc. However, the amount of copper may range from 55% to 95% by weight, with the amount of zinc varying from 5% to 40%.” As I’ve oft described, performance of cones is also a function of Hardness. Brass for example is a relatively soft metal, and carbon fiber is a relatively soft material, whereas tempered steel and NASA grade ceramics rank very high on the Mohs Hardness scale - and are audibly superior to softer materials like brass. A strange thing about the Jumbo and Super DH Cones, which are the same NASA grade ceramic material, and the same size. The only difference is that the Super DH Cone has a slightly more ballistic shape, whereas the Jumbo is more conical. That slight difference in shape translates to noticeably better performance of the Super. But even the smaller size DH Cones, Medium and Small, outperform, it’s just a matter of cost vs performance. You would not believe how many Supers I had in my system at one time. They make excellent tuning devices as their Hardness allows vibration to exit very rapidly. So just placing them on top of speakers or tube traps or components can be quite beneficial. Springs are decouplers so probably shouldn’t be compared to cones, though cones can act as mechanical diodes. Springs can be rubber airsprings, rubber bladders, rubber tubes, or metal. Metal springs can be any of a wide variety of alloys and can undergo varies performance treatments. Spring rates should be selected based on load. |
Robert The band I refer to were responsible for the oversight in building the world’s first transistor production line. Obviously their genius was definitely ahead of their time. I saw microscopes everywhere so there is no doubt they knew more than most with regards to isolation techniques - of this I am sure. >>>>>Yeah, that’s always a tip off for me, to see lots of microscopes and guys running around in white lab coats. 🤗 Say, aren’t you the guy who says isolation is impossible? |
This is what sometimes happens when a manufacturer shows up all of a sudden to gush (at length) over his product (spikes) before reading the OP that specifically pointed out spikes were not all that in his system. Maybe the band of intellects the manufacturer referred to would be happy to see how isolation and damping have progressed in the past fifty years. Well, maybe they wouldn’t, how the hell would I know? |