Coupling/Decoupling Electronics


All the posts I’m making are due to my recent purchase of KEF LS50s and my attempts to optimize them. I’m now the first to admit that little changes make a big difference. At 12” from the wall behind then, the bass gets a little muddy. At 13”, I get nice reinforcement without any muddiness. A couple of weeks ago, if you had told me that an inch would make a difference, you’d get a very skeptical look. 

Inevitably, I wandered into the coupling/decoupling, spikes/pads battle. After much reading and a lot of lessons in physics-lite, I have determined that there are too many variables at work—speakers, stands, carpets, floors—for any kind of blanket statement to be made. 

There seems to be less controversy about electronics. The word is: Isolate! Those same speakers that are producing so much vibration are a deleterious force. We must do our best to keep those vibrations away from our finely tuned electronics. 

So here is my question: Don’t electronics produce their own vibration? CDs spin, amplifiers amp. Lots of energy being produced. Like speakers, is isolating them from the world around the right thing to do? Shouldn’t that energy inside the boxes be passed off, as speaker energy is passed off by spikes?


I suspect that, like the speaker question, there’s too many variables at play for a simple answer but I thought I’d ask.


Here’s another, more mystifying question. I just traded up from KEF Q150s. Black ones can be had for $300 from Amazon. White ones—the identical speaker—are out of stock everywhere and cost $5-$600 if you can track down a pair. This seems not to be an example of an efficient market, as Adam Smith might define it. (I’m not complaining. I had white ones.) (And I think that Adam Smith’s ideas are long out of date, having been surpassed by managerial capitalism, advanced capitalism, and whatever is en vogue at this University of Chicago these days.)
paul6001
I agree with @mahgister - springs.
I would first try them without all the other suggested doo-dads.
However, you may want to try damping them with some foam inside each spring or thin heat shrink outside each (but not shrunk down too tight).

 may 
All electronics produce vibration as well as speakers and there are a lot of schools about how to isolate decouple them from their environment but i can say that if you put your gear on a heavy all wood rack you can naturally let the resonances disperse without the detail bright consequences that a lot of isolation products produce.
Post removed 
If you think the 1" from the wall was big, wait till you hear the image focus improve when the speakers are precisely equidistant and symmetrical.

Please note I said precisely. Not within 1/4". Not within 1/16". Precisely equidistant and symmetrical.  

Don’t electronics produce their own vibration? 

Sure they do. Lots of it. Not just the obvious moving parts either. Every component is chock full of alternating currents and fields of constantly varying strength. Signal fields push and pull against themselves resulting in all kinds of physical vibrations. 

Then once those vibrations do get created, the amp or whatever is vibrating on its own, some of that goes down into the shelf or whatever and so now that is vibrating. Vibrations never just flow off into infinity, they always reach a point where they reflect or refract back, and this results in ringing. Beautifully demonstrated with speakers and a seismograph in the Townshend video, but the same applies to everything. 

Shouldn’t that energy inside the boxes be passed off, as speaker energy is passed off by spikes?

So, we just answered that one: speaker energy is NOT passed off by spikes! Watch the video. Couldn't be more obvious. 

What happens is, the speaker is really no different than anything else, they are the same only more so. If the speaker is on springs then it vibrates, but only the drivers and cabinet, not the floor, etc. Because of this its vibrations die down faster and there is no ringing. Sounds are clean and clear. Unbelievably so. Without springs, does not really matter what cone or spike, all they can do is tune the character of the ringing but never eliminate it. Watch the video! Or better yet, try Townshend Podiums and hear for yourself.

There are a lot of variables, but not so much so that a blanket statement cannot be made. Springs will achieve far greater sound quality performance, both per dollar and in absolute terms, compared to cones, spikes, etc. Springs are so much better that for just $30 you can have a set of Nobsound that will perform better under more components than anything else you can find for ten times the price.  

Springs are so good in absolute terms that if you pay for really well engineered ones like Townshend Pods and Podiums they perform so well you will have a hard time finding better at any price. Not saying you won't or can't. Saying it won't be easy.