oleschool---theaudiotweak’s argument promoting the notion of transferring energy from one object into another of higher mass via hard cones or spikes---the "mechanical diode" theory, wherein energy coming from a source component is transferred through a "one-way" energy path (the cones or spikes) into the higher mass of a stand, or floor, or whatever---can be, and has been, shown to be a myth. As Max Townshend explains and demonstrates in his You Tube videos, any object that can transmit energy in one direction can, and does, transmit it in the other direction just as easily. The idea of cones or spikes being isolators is an incorrect one; they transmit energy up through them as well as down out of them---up from your turntable’s support, through the cones or spikes, and into your tables plinth. They are couplers, the exact opposite of what you want in a turntable support.
You want isolation---from the Earth’s seismic activity, from street traffic, from nearby construction, from your home’s heating and cooling system, from the transformers in your amps, from the vibrations created in your room from music playing, and from what is right under your table---it's shelf. You want a very low frequency low-pass mechanical filter under your table---springs, air bearing, ball bearing, etc. For a while people were using lossy rubber isolators---Sorbothane, Neoprene, Navcom. Their failing is in having too high an effective filter frequency---in the audible range, creating "spongy" bass and soft transients, and in being non-linear---they treat different frequencies differently, making their sound unpredictable.
