Speaker isolation - spikes on puck, springs, sorbothane


I’ve recently become aware of the idea of using platforms like townshend, or Gaia, or a suitable Sorbothane product. My Wilson Sophia are 160lbs each and currently sit on a suspended second floor in my living room of my wood frame house. I’ve also discovered a plethora of isolating cable springs used in aviation and industrial applications. My speakers are on the wilson conical diodes and brass discs. 
there are number of ways to do this, the cable style seem they’d be the best at absorbing the widest frequencies vs a straight spring. 
 

any thoughts observations, cautions?

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I own Townshends for some speakers, but I am an Isoacoustics dealer and have used them largely under speakers and components for the last 7-8 years even before I started dealing them this year.

Townshends are really great, in my experience, for rear firing or sealed speakers. Not so much for speakers with side firing woofers and certainly not for bottom-firing or bottom-ported speakers. Otherwise, on a suspended floor, they typically will outperform Gaia I for your Wilson, but they will also take up more space and be quite unsightly.

The Gaia I will come quite close in performance for a much lower cost. In any case, on a suspended floor, you’ll want to decouple your speakers and not add basic resonance or dampening. 

Thank you. I like the idea of the Gaia. The Townshend is also aesthetic, perhaps with a lower speaker rise. The Wire Rope style is intriguing (isolator.com/wire-rope-isolators/sm-series/). Give it a lookup. I found them at 40 lbs per isolator, which would work fine on the Sophia.

You are likely to get as many suggestions as posts.

My suggestion is to give these a try.  They will give you an introduction to decoupling/isolating, and it may be the only $28 you need to spend.  Think about weight distribution, total weight, and a mild tilt back as you could either try 4@2” under each speaker, [email protected]”, or 2.5” in the front (the drivers are bolted to the front baffle so there is probably more weight distributed to the front), and 2” in the back, which is what I use for my 175 lb speaker/stand combo.