Spikes for Meadowlark Shearwater Hot Rod

You cannot isolate anything, so if you try you are going in the wrong direction. Audiopoints are not isolators. In fact Audiopoints are not reflectors either. Audiopoints and Sistrum both have a collective bandwidth that extends over several megahertz . Think of these devices as being similar to the way a heat sink works. Instead of heat the Coloumb energy that is present in everything is provided a high speed conductive pathway to exit the device or devices the Audiopoint or Sistrum is placed under. If Stillpoints are designed to absorb what is their respective operating bandwidth and how do they dispose of this unwanted noise and resonance once absorbed? You know it should go somewhere and not cause an impediment for frequencies that will follow. All electromechanical devices will return higher maeasured efficiency when placed on Audiopoints or Sistrum because their very basic design is to relieve the ill effects of Coloumb's law of physics. Even if your speakers were in an isolated room and your electronics were alone on these devices you would hear a vast improvement in dynamics because of the reduction of frictional losses. You dampen or absorb you will only succeed in traping the nasties you are trying to suppress and have them reemerge, and again be amplified at a different time and different frequency. This is a continuim of dampening, release and reamplification over and over again. This method is illogical and totally inefficent. Tom

I have another direction for you. Spikes do provide some isolation for your speakers from the floor.
But spikes only allow the resonance of the speaker and the floor to interact less with each other.

The benefits of course coming from 1.) raising the speaker higher off the floor. 2.) decoupling the speaker from the floor. 3.) lowering the amount of vibration sent back into your audio system via the floor.

Try this, I think you'll find the results more musically satisfying. These work very well on carpeted floors.

A) Place you're speakers on Vibrapods (4 of them). You can either cut a board the size of your speaker to place on the carpet. Then put the Vibrapods between your board and the speaker.
What works better, but costs more would be to place Black Diamond Racing "things" under the Vibrapods rather than using a board. This is also the more attractive approach.

B) An even sonically better approach is to try some Stillpoints (point up) between the speaker and the carpet.
The Stillpoints will absorb speaker vibration, where spikes or cones will just change the resonant frequency reflecting some back to the speaker.
Stillpoints are the best I've tried. They seem to be very neutral and don't add an additional character as do brass, vinyl or carbon fiber. This also isolates the speakers (via the floor) from the components much more. Most of the vibration that makes it's way into your components is caused by your speakers. Either through the floor to the component rack, via speaker cables, or via the air.

These solutions address only part of the vibration feedback loop between component and speakers. To really inhibit this loop, resonance control needs to be addressed at the component level also.

You'll be very pleased with the results. Now if I can come up with better ways to deal with the resonance via the speaker cables. That's another topic.

If you'd like to try out either of these solutions, I can loan you some of these devices. Here is some Stillpoints info: http://audiobuff.zoovy.com/product/Stillpoints .
_Paul

If you really want to hot rod these excellent speakers Audiopoints or Sistrum platforms are the dynamically coherent way to do so. Tom

Are the spikes too short and fat to pas through the carpet? Target speaker stands come with long thin spikes which are available separately, but I'm not sure about their thread sizes. You could check with one of their dealers. They also have a kit which includes the threaded inserts for the bottom of the cabinet, if you're not opposed to installing a second set of inserts in the bottom of your speakers.

Here's a link to a page that shows the kit (third item down on the page):

http://www.uhfmag.com/MiscAccessories.html

I highly recommend the Audio Points from Star Sound Technologies. These will make your Shearwaters sound like the Herons. Website: www.audiopoints.com or call 877-668-4332.The President, Robert Maicks is a great guy and would love to tell you about the technology. By the way, these same folks have the Sonoran line which is also very good if you are interested in cables.