Townshend Springs under Speakers

MC I think questforhifi was suggesting that speakers with more rigid cabinets may benefit more from the podiums (i.e. not that rigid connection to the floor is better).

Ahh, okay. In that case then the answer is no. lol! We had some here, to be more rigid I think they would have to be solid tungsten carbide or something like that. Compared to my Moabs made of ordinary braced MDF the Podiums were about the same either way. Also these particular speakers, while the cabinets were a lot smaller and a lot more rigid and highly damped, they were so dense that together with their stands they were very close in terms of mass and center of gravity to the Moabs.    

I can see where it would make sense to think a rigid cabinet would benefit more. A speaker that is truly dead, almost all the smearing is ringing. Podiums eliminate ringing, there is almost nothing left. Should be bigger improvement than a less rigid speaker that still has a lot of residual cabinet vibration.   

Makes sense. In practice though it seems, if anything, to go the other way. But full disclosure, I have only a very few examples to go by.  

I now use the Gaia's under my JL subs.

Springs will work just as well under your subs as under your main speakers.

Makes sense. In practice though it seems, if anything, to go the other way. But full disclosure, I have only a very few examples to go by.

Certainly there have been Wilson and Magico owners that have found big improvements over spike coupling.
I think the take away is that both conventional MDF cabinets and those made from rigid exotic naterials benefit.

Same experience here with Gaia’s. I liked them better than spikes, but the Townshend Pods were a substantial level beyond the Gaia’s. Townshend helped my speakers disappear and gave my system a wonderful sense of ease that the Gaia’s could not match.

Well, I’ve completed my Townshend Speaker Bars experience.

I shipped them back to Townshend.

First, please understand the following is just my experience/preference, not a diss of the Townshend products. I still use the wonderful Townshend pods under my turntable.

As I mentioned before (in this or other threads) my interest in the Townshend bars was sparked first by how well the seismic isolation pods worked under my turntable platform. They measurably reduced vibration transfer to the turntable, especially from floor born impacts, in a way no other isolation device came close to achieving. So I knew they "really did something."


I also found the on-line Townshend demos of the speaker isolation devices very intriguing.


To quickly check spring decoupling for my speakers I bought a version of the nobsound spring footers. The difference in sound with the springs under my speakers really amazed me. They displayed many of the attributes attributed to the Townshend products: speakers disappeared more, more and finer detail, more relaxed sounding etc.

However, there was a step back in one of the main areas I’m most sensitive about: density and impact of the sound. This is an attribute I have worked to get in to my system. With the spring footers, the sound just got a bit too light and featherweight sounding, less dense, less impact and connection. It became a bit more "electrostatic like" in the experience. Also the tonal balance got a little too brilliant and light, less rich.

How much of this was due to the isolation and how much due to the raising of the speakers was hard to be sure of.

Ultimately I preferred the sound of my speakers sitting on the carpeted wood floor. The slight loss of finesse was made up for by restoring the punch and density tonal balance and to me realism of the sound.

Given the Townshend speaker bars (which I had reason to prefer over the podiums) were more highly engineered to the goal, and also wouldn’t alter the speaker height by much, my hopes were for similar gains, with fewer drawbacks.

Townshend were excellent to deal with, btw, as a customer.

The results in my system: I was surprised that I didn’t hear as much of a difference as I was expecting. I mean, the sound was definitely different...it just wasn’t obviously better.

The speakers disappeared *slightly* more (not as much as with the nobsound springs!), and the sound slightly relaxed (too much IMO). And a good thing, the sound didn’t thin out nearly as much as with the cheaper spring products. Plus, a good amount of impact was maintained.

But...the "good" just wasn’t enough to outweigh the "bad" for me. I found the tonal balance altered to darker and more lush, which actually sounded a bit less natural and real to me. I liked the more airy, open, vivid tonal balance with the speakers on the floor. Also, there was some loss in density and impact. Put together, I just connected more to the sound with the speakers sitting on the floor.

I tried all sorts of variations over time: Wondering if a sort of split-the-difference may work, I tried a single set of speaker bars under either the front or rear of the speaker. I did combinations with the nobsound spring footers. I did combinations with isacoustic products. Various adjustments to speaker rake, height etc. Anything I could think of.

Every time, the speakers sounded better to me just sitting on the floor.

So, unfortunately, back they went to Townshend (30 day trial period).

I’d liked the bars to have improved my system’s sound. But I’m also fine with getting that tweak out of my system. In the end, since I use more than one speaker in and out of my system, not having to mess with speaker bars/platforms is a good thing too.

I’d still recommend anyone intrigued by the Townshend speaker isolation products to give them a try. Clearly many have had great results.