In my opinion, vibration isolation offers probably the largest improvement per dollar that one can make to a sound system. Start with speakers first, especially subwoofers. And proceed from there.
What we would like is for only the transducers to vibrate (loudspeaker drivers, cartridge stylus) - and of course the air - but nothing else. Every other bit of vibration will in one way or another add "grunge" or coloration which obscures or masks the music we wish to hear. Many of these effects are well described above, by Audiofile9, Albertporter, and others.
If you live in a wood frame house, the likelyhood is that you will have a lot of vibration of floor and walls which originates from the motion (desireable vibration) of the drivers in the speakers. Maybe Pbb listens in a basement with concrete floor and walls? A simple, fun way to learn about this is to explore your listening room with your hands. Feel your speakers, the floor, walls, equipment racks, and components.
Start with your speakers. You need something soft (and preferably linear - but that is a refinement...) under you speakers. The bubblewrap is a great way to start. When you are successful, the floor near your speakers (and as a result - all the rest of your room) will have no perceptible vibration due to mechanical contact with the speakers. Now what do you hear? In my case the improvement in sound quality is almost shocking (since I have flexible floors, etc). Some times it is helpful to add mass to speaker boxes to reduce motion (reaction mass). Speakers, when isolated on soft "springs", should be bouncy like a turntable (rigid body modes of around 8-10Hz) when you push on them by hand.
Remember that floors and walls have thousands of times the radiating surface area as a speaker driver, and they sound terrible, so the above should not be surprising.
Next, you can sense the need for or effectiveness of equipment isolation racks or platforms the same way: feel with your hands. In some cases, vibration of cables and interconnects can make a difference.
So why do people use pointed feet under speakers? Maybe they have concrete floors, and the vibration of the speaker boxes is reduced. We don't want speaker boxes to vibrate either...
So try it if you like, and share your success with us. What approaches work best? What materials? Has anyone compared metal springs vs sorbothane?
What we would like is for only the transducers to vibrate (loudspeaker drivers, cartridge stylus) - and of course the air - but nothing else. Every other bit of vibration will in one way or another add "grunge" or coloration which obscures or masks the music we wish to hear. Many of these effects are well described above, by Audiofile9, Albertporter, and others.
If you live in a wood frame house, the likelyhood is that you will have a lot of vibration of floor and walls which originates from the motion (desireable vibration) of the drivers in the speakers. Maybe Pbb listens in a basement with concrete floor and walls? A simple, fun way to learn about this is to explore your listening room with your hands. Feel your speakers, the floor, walls, equipment racks, and components.
Start with your speakers. You need something soft (and preferably linear - but that is a refinement...) under you speakers. The bubblewrap is a great way to start. When you are successful, the floor near your speakers (and as a result - all the rest of your room) will have no perceptible vibration due to mechanical contact with the speakers. Now what do you hear? In my case the improvement in sound quality is almost shocking (since I have flexible floors, etc). Some times it is helpful to add mass to speaker boxes to reduce motion (reaction mass). Speakers, when isolated on soft "springs", should be bouncy like a turntable (rigid body modes of around 8-10Hz) when you push on them by hand.
Remember that floors and walls have thousands of times the radiating surface area as a speaker driver, and they sound terrible, so the above should not be surprising.
Next, you can sense the need for or effectiveness of equipment isolation racks or platforms the same way: feel with your hands. In some cases, vibration of cables and interconnects can make a difference.
So why do people use pointed feet under speakers? Maybe they have concrete floors, and the vibration of the speaker boxes is reduced. We don't want speaker boxes to vibrate either...
So try it if you like, and share your success with us. What approaches work best? What materials? Has anyone compared metal springs vs sorbothane?