Tough Nut Cones Isolation for loudspeakers, brilliant solution over spikes


I wanted to share with everyone an experience I had with trying to decide how to decouple my Arendal 1723 THX Monitors and their stands from the floor. 

Most of us know now that the days of thinking metal spikes were the best idea are over. It generates immense pounds per square inch of pressure into one point and all that energy is then transferred to the floor.... the last thing we want to do with speakers. Many mid-fi to high-end loudspeakers now ship with isolation footers/feet instead of spikes.
I happened across a FANTASTIC video from Jay's Iyagi:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32DrKCqLWkk&t=788s 
Immediately upon watching that video, based on measurements from Jay, I contacted Derrick at Tough Nut Cones in Canada. So for $170 per stand/speaker I bought the Medium Cones. Derrick and his wife were amazing to talk to and deal with. 
So I now have them installed.... the sound is truly brilliant. And the cones are just "pointy" enough that they work on both solid floors and carpeted floors (as I have) and they look really wicked under the stands.

audiotruth

The video cited in the OP’s post pretty much follows the same script as the owner cites as their basis behind their R&D and production line.  It is also quite interesting the Tough Nut Vibration R&D test board shows up in Jay’s video.  Did Jay get paid for this independent video review, who knows?  Did he get promotional product from Tough Nut, possibly?  With that said, I am in agreement with others that the vibration test board is not actually measuring the sound in the room and how different isolation or other devices are impacting that sound in the room by reducing distortion, etc.  I am not saying that different products do not improve our systems and audio reproduction, I would like to know how much better a certain product compares to another product with measurements of the actual sound in the room.  I currently have the following speaker config:

  • ProAc Studio 148s
  • Soundocity outriggers using their top threaded spikes for easy removal when placing and height adjustment
  • SuperCellAudio 20mm steel floor protector discs that fit perfectly into the center of Rockville Isopads which are on berber carpet and pad over concrete slab

This setup did improve the bass tightness, plus the overall image and sound quality.  But how does my current setup test against other products (basic sorbothane, various DIY / custom speaker isolation setups like mine, IsoAcoustics, Townshend Audio, Tough Nut Audio, plus many others) by measuring the actual distortion in the room using something like Room EQ Wizard?  I think this last question would make a very interesting video topic.  Plus is there a point of diminishing return of improvements once an upgrade price is reached?

Oh, it looks like Tough Nut Audio will be increasing their prices in mid Feb 2026 due to material cost increases and tariffs, which is an unfortunate situation.

@audiotruth I can only comment about my situation.  On a second floor wood frame structure the only thing that worked for proper isolaton of my speakers were the Townshend podiums.  They cleaned up all the resonate bass frequiencies from the floor and inproved the soundstage, image and depth.  I tried spikes, no spikes on the carpeted floor and on a 2 inch thick limestone pad.  I also tried Herbie's gliders.  I think de-coupling isolation workes the best in,my situation and they are a must have component.

I've had the Tough Nut cones on my Solid Steel S6 stands as well, the speakers do wobble like a pendulum when slightly touched. I wonder how this affects the midbass/bass punch as well as imaging when the bass driver is punching away. I mean I will swap the cones out and back to the supplied spikes and pucks to find out, but in the meantime, what are peoples thoughts?