Isolation Cones vs Cheap Cables

I have "Sound Anchors" speaker stands under my Thiel CS3.6 speakers. These come pre-drilled on the underside for either 3 spikes or 4 spikes. I use 3 spikes.

malatu- I was looking reading about BDR cones and it seems like a lot of folks place three of them under a speaker instead of four. I’m going to purchase some and have to ask the question: Why three cones and not four? My floor standing speakers are about 48" tall and the base is only about 10" wide.

People use three for two reasons: three is cheaper than four, and three points define a plane. Cheaper needs no explanation. The plane part, depending on the floor or shelf with four your speaker might rock and need to be shimmed up but with three it never will.

I can tell you however for a fact that four is better. Check it out: https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 There’s four under each Talon Khorus speaker. That speaker comes with some pretty beefy impressive looking spikes. They are on BDR Cones because BDR Cones are light years better than anything else- and I would like to say period but let’s be cautious and just say for the money. In order to get better than anything else period you do like I did and put BDR Round Things under the Cones.

I would use 4 Cones under each speaker.

Thanks for the pics! Actually, I looked at your speakers via another post about cones and before I created the thread... I make an attempt to do my due diligence, .... I just couldn’t make out whether you used 3 or 4. My common sense (which at times, doesn’t work) told me that speakers gotta use four, I just needed some confirmation!
Yea, and they are on sale at Music Direct for $16 per cone.
Very sweet setup, by the way!

@malatu - I agree with others- about using 4 cones, but as stated you may need to "shim" one of them

However, should you want to try 3 cones there are a couple of approaches you can use but it depends on the weight distribution of your speakers.

"Generally" if the majority of the weight is at the front of the enclosure
- the single cone would be at the rear of the enclosure
- the two cones would be at the front, spaced as wide as you can get them

However, placing the two cones along one side of the speaker and the third cone in the center on the opposite side may provide sufficient stability.

If oyu would like to try the 3 cone method above I would recommend low profile cones and the surface on which the speaker stands should be hard.

I have three cones on my components and their position is very much dependent on where the bulk of the weight lies. Each component sits on a granite plinth

Something to try perhaps? :-)

Regards - Steve

Too bad but even with four cones many speakers are just too tall and top-heavy to be safe. A Maple board with dimensions around 2x2 feet under the speaker, then the cones under the board, should be more stable. Nevertheless......