[solentgreen]

Hi Steve,

I recently bought a set of your Cone/Spike Decoupling Gliders to use with my Von Schweikert VR4jr speakers, primarily because I wanted to reduce the slight bass boominess I get from my speakers in my room, which I was unable to eliminate by speaker positioning.  What amazed me was that in addition to the improvement in bass, the improvements to the rest of the frequency spectrum, in terms of soundstage, clarity & airiness was of a magnitude 2 or 3 times more than the bass.  Needless to say, I am delighted with your Cone/Spike Decoupling Gliders.

What I would like to enquire is the point made in your website where you stated that these Cone/Spike Decoupling Gliders would work best if the speaker spikes are solidly & firmly coupled to the speaker cabinets.  Would you say that this is a key requirement for the arrangement to work well?  The reason I ask is that while the spikes on my speakers are locked in place by the locknuts, the threaded inserts into which the spikes are screwed into are not solidly anchored in the speaker bases; probably due to wear & tear.  Would you say it is a worthwhile exercise to try to solidify the mounting of the inserts in the speaker bases?

Thanks for any advise you can give.


Benjamin.   

[Herbie]

I'm glad the Gliders are working well for you, Benjamin. If everything is functional and sounding good, I wouldn't be immediately concerned with the inserts. You'll want to go easy with the speakers if you move them, so as not to make the inserts looser.

I don't know whether in this instance solidifying the inserts is a "key requirement" for satisfactory results. It would probably be worthwhile though, as a matter of general maintenance and potential sonic improvement.
 
If you have the kind of inserts that screw in with a hex key, repair isn't difficult. Just uncrew the insert and line the hole generously with Loctite Professional Heavy Duty Epoxy (available at Lowe's), run some epoxy around the threads of the insert and then screw the insert back in for the epoxy to set. (Have a spare bolt handy that's the same thread as the spikes so you can test to make sure the inner threads of the insert haven't gotten a blob of epoxy on them before the epoxy sets. If so, just run the spare bolt in and out to clear out the threads.)
 
If you have another method of solidifying the mounting of the inserts, that's fine too.
 
Best regards,

Steve
Herbie's Audio Lab

[solentgreen]

Hi Steve,

Many thanks for your advise, which sounds perfectly logical.  I will probably get round to solidifying my VR4jr cone inserts; as you said, its good house-keeping type maintenance.  Like you, I was thinking of using epoxy, so its good I'm on the right track.

Its interesting that back in the days when spikes were discovered, the key then was to anchor all your components/speakers to ground as rigidly as possible with spikes etc.; but your products have changed all that & shown that a correctly applied damped approach pays dividends.  I guess that's what makes our hobby so interesting.

Thanks again. 

[solentgreen]

Hi Steve,

Thought I would let you know further to my query re improved isolation on behalf of a friend who uses a pair of Musical Fidelity 750k monoblock Supercharger power amps which are supported by 3 spikes on the floor.   You advised using Cone/Spike Grounding Bases but as he preferred the advantage of easy sliding mobility, he decided to use Cone/Spike decoupling Gliders.  Well, the results were excellent with the improvement much greater than what you would get from say a upgrade of power cables.  He was certainly very impressed at the level of performance gains vs costs of these Gliders.  Many thanks again for all your help.


Benjamin.