I've recently purchased a pair of Acoustic Zen Crescendos. I now have them positioned in the room, and I am ready to add the spikes. The floor in my room is a suspended wood type. After researching whether or not to spike speakers or decouple them on a suspended wood floor, the majority seems to recommend not spiking them directly to the wood floor, but decoupling them. So here are my questions: 1). Do I couple or decouple? 2). Anyone use the Boston Audio Tuneblocks S under your spikes? How do you like them? 3). Any recommendations of other decoupling devices to use? Thanks for you input!
You might want to check out Herbiesaudiolab.net website, then make a call to the isolation master himself for advice. Although I use Big Fat Dots for my floor-standers (a simple, easy and very effective de-coupling method) his site has items to address every type of pre-spiked and unspiked speaker.
I wouldn't worry about that with new speakers. Buy a set of herbies gliders so you can move them around easily and take some time to get used to the sonics. After a few months, you can experiment with couple/decouple or whatever floats your boat. I find that all the conventional wisdom doesn't mean squat in your room. It's all a matter of what sounds best to you.
I am a follower of the Anti Spike Movement, due to having tortured wood floors for years and then discovering that relatively inexpensive Vibrapods placed under my speakers make them sound better, in my room using my ears. Or, you could simply get ears and a room like mine, but maybe that's not so simple.
They got to be heavy suckers; I have the Adagios which are almost 90 lbs each. Depending on the dimensions of the bottom footprint, you may want to take a look at the Mapleshade Internet store collection of decoupling wood bases. Unfinished wood is less money. Also, check out a stone yard where you could get a marble slab cut to the size of the footprint. A one inch thickness should be sufficient. Good Luck!!
I second the Herbies gliders, if only to make moving/positioning the speakers very easy. Much disagreement about whether to couple/decouple. My experience is that unless you play at very high db's it might not matter. YMMV
Vibrapods (or things like them) are MUCH less expensive than what I consider to be over-machined accessory porn (!) stuff like Stillpoints, and they accomplish the same thing...turning vibration into heat or at least decoupling direct speaker vibration from a floor. I'm waiting for magnetic levitation pods for speakers...should cost as much as my car.
It's a very good question that I really had to think about. I would say decouple first then couple perhaps if all else fails.
That's not to say that coupling might not sound better in some cases but each case of coupling will produce different results. So how can a speaker be designed to couple when every case is different? Therefore decouple to achieve what was intended best. In most cases coupling will result in hearing the room more rather than just the speakers.
I recently added a pair of isoacoustic speaker stands designed to decouple and these have helped make a believer out of me. I then added a pair of auralex sub dude isolation platforms under my ohm speakers in my family room with common suspended plywood flooring and the results in both cases are a revelation.
Cones that pierce the carpet, followed by granite or bluestone or maple slab, then the component - on springs. Remember isolation also acts as damper. Two, two devices in one!! Problem solved! 🤗
I have a (carpeted) suspended floor as well. I put Isoacoustic Gaias + Gaia spikes under my Tannoy X8TFs and the difference was significant. Bass was less muddy, actually not muddy at all after it, and even imaging improved. This was one tweak that made considerable difference!
You really should try both ways yourself and evaluate the results. My speakers are spiked....I decoupled them and which were a large step backward.....I understand with your wood floors the results might be reversed. (travertine tile on cement slab)
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