[TheChairGuy]

The more I've spent time, and erratic energy and money, chasing some elusive goal of perfection in this hobby....I realize rather simple and basic things have improved my system the most.

Given that I have less than a concert hall venue to play my music in, I need not invest outsized amounts of money in amplification or large speakers for pleasure - it's both largely wasted in this venue and is likely detrimental because of the 12 x 15' room that everything is housed in.

I've had a several speakers visit me the past few years in here, and for one reason or another sonically, I like my Linaeum Tower speakers most.  They are just airy, open and enjoyable....they need very little amplification to run them (no capacitor, only an iron core inductor on the woofer and a small value capacitor/gentle 6 db rolloff on the glorious Linaeum tweeter).  Yes, I've heard more demonstrative speakers out there...but it just fits me and my room so well, I just enjoy them every day.

They've been modded with new wiring, 8 lbs of Plast-i-Clay all over the inside walls, 12 lbs of steel shot weighting the bottoms (inside), Acousta-fil on the insides, and the original (cheapie) 6.5" Peerless woofers were replaced with Danny Ritchie/GR Research M165's with good effect 

I recently invested the princely sum of $125.00 (with shipping) for speaker 'stands' to improve matters...and, my, have they ever!

$28.00 for 8 of these toes: http://cgi.ebay.com/Set-of-8-Sound-isolation-audio-cones-floor-spikes_W0QQitemZ170162874576QQihZ007QQcategoryZ14993QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

$78.95 for a 15 x 20 x 3.5" butcher block cutting board (which vendor kindly halved for me into two 10 x 15" stands): http://cgi.ebay.com/MICHIGAN-MAPLE-BLOCK-CUTTING-BOARD-BUTCHER-BLOCK-A_W0QQitemZ110188997105QQihZ001QQcategoryZ46282QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem

The result is really stupendous....much higher levels of clarity thru the whole operating range, bass tautness, midrange 'presence' and treble 'incisiveness' have all raised their level of game now.  It's not as tho I have a new set of speakers...merely ones that are better than even previously thought. The detail level is really extraordinary now...I'm really enjoying them more than ever 

I hope this is of some value to one or more of you in search of the Holy Grail of audio by throwing out a lot of money on sideways upgrades (take your pick of throwaways - I've done it too I assure you  )....tightening down your speakers and isolating them is a fabulous upgrade and it doesn't have to cost a kings ransom to do it well 

John 

[TheChairGuy]

I got the idea for these from Mapleshade Records.....but $700 a pair for stands  I was unwilling to part with.  But, kudos for a good idea are in order for Mapleshade 

http://www.mapleshaderecords.com/audioproducts/gallostands.php

[mca]

Wow, that's a good looking chunk of maple for the price 

[TheChairGuy]

Wow, that's a good looking chunk of maple for the price 

Hey mca....it's 3.5" thick...they're only lightly oiled at the factory, not a very fancy 4 coat lacquer job like Mapleshade's (after all, these are cutting blocks - you don't want lacquer in contact with food), but they look very nice and work quite a bit nicer.

I have a full (uncut) 15 x 20" piece under my turntable and have been similarly impressed with the results 
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=42423.0

Seems to me that primarily mechanical devices (turntables and speakers) need rigid mounting to the below structures...while I've found squishy/compliant mounts to work better with purely electrical devices (amps, preamps, tuners).  I'm not sure with CD players....which have healthy does of mechanical properties in that it has a transport mechanism.

I'm not absolutely certain of all of the above, that's just what I've found in my experiments over the years.  Big, thick hunks of wood are just great dampening agents, overall, underneath either firm (solid points or blocks of various kinds) or squishy / compliant (isonodes,sorbothane and the like) mounts   

[lonewolfny42]

Hello John...

Good looking tweak....

But I was wondering ....could the increase in the speakers height(what about 5")...now be the reason for your increased performance....more on par with your ear ? Thanks........

                                   Chris

[Tweaker]

Seems to me that primarily mechanical devices (turntables and speakers) need rigid mounting to the below structures...while I've found squishy/compliant mounts to work better with purely electrical devices (amps, preamps, tuners).  I'm not sure with CD players....which have healthy does of mechanical properties in that it has a transport mechanism.

Just goes to show what an interesting hobby this is. I've found the opposite to be true (as far as purely electrical devices). I have a junk drawer full of various squishy/compliant thingies as I've found they bugger up  the sound of every thing I've tried them with. What works for my ears has been brass cones under everything. This is also from years of experimenting with different types of isolation devices. I suppose it's all about whatever kind of "sound" we're trying to achieve. We all have different tastes and while I think my stereo is umm, well... WORLD REFERENCE NOW!!! , someone else might come along and listen to it and think it's broken.
 

[Bill Baker]

Seems to me that primarily mechanical devices (turntables and speakers) need rigid mounting to the below structures...while I've found squishy/compliant mounts to work better with purely electrical devices (amps, preamps, tuners).  I'm not sure with CD players....which have healthy does of mechanical properties in that it has a transport mechanism.

 
As a music lover for many years and a custom builder for over 10 years, I have played with many 'devices'.  I cannot stand the stock plastic feet that come on many of todays electronics and I always tend to trash them as soon as the pice comes out of the box.

 I will have to say that coupling speakers has always provided the best results. I did not have a way to test this on my Usher D2's which were 650 lbs. each but then again, I don't think it would have mattered

 For amps I still like coupling with good quality cones to a Maple platform but have not really liked the results under preamps. I prefer decoupling in this area. My current preference is Black Holes setting atop our Curly Maple platforms. This is my method of madness for preamps, DAC's and phono stages.

 CD players are a different story. I tend to go back to coupling here but the results change with different players.

 Anyway, thats how our reference systems are set up.

[Double Ugly]

I have a junk drawer full of various squishy/compliant thingies as I've found they bugger up  the sound of every thing I've tried them with. What works for my ears has been brass cones under everything. This is also from years of experimenting with different types of isolation devices.   

Same here.  I began experimenting with the "squishy thingies" first, but regardless of how or where it was used, it never sounded right to me.

The Ayre Myrtle wood blocks were better than the soft stuff, but the sound wasn't necessarily better than when I used nothing at all.  It was just different.

Conversely, brass cones (specifically those from Star Sound) offered improvement across the board.  I've had Audio Points and Sistrum stands beneath everything in my system for years, and I have no intention of removing them until something shows up that's clearly better. 

[TheChairGuy]

Hello John...

Good looking tweak....

But I was wondering ....could the increase in the speakers height(what about 5")...now be the reason for your increased performance....more on par with your ear ? Thanks........

                                   Chris

Well, could be, WolfyChris......but I've sat lower by several inches before to see it my enjoyment is any greater....and I didn't sense any notable difference at at all.  I think most of the benefit is that the speakers are rigidly coupled now (as Bill/Response Audio pointed to)....so that micro movements caused by the woofer cone (and primarily bass frequencies) cause less 'rocking' of the speaker in use.

Kinda' like a subsonic filter...for your speakers. Which, once I put the thick platform under my TT, I now longer needed the subsonic filter for phono use.....in a related instance    John

[lonewolfny42]

Thanks John....

[NewBuyer]

...But I was wondering ....could the increase in the speakers height(what about 5")...now be the reason for your increased performance....more on par with your ear ?...

Well, could be, WolfyChris......but I've sat lower by several inches before to see it my enjoyment is any greater....

Except that now your speakers are now effectively in a different position in the room - which isn't the case when just sitting lower? 

[BrianM]

Yes, I've heard more demonstrative speakers out there...but it just fits me and my room so well, I just enjoy them every day.

This struck me as a most felicitous way of putting it. 

The Holy Grail of speaker enjoyment is when you're no longer agonizing over whether X, Y or Z could stand to gain/lose 1% of this or that.  Something tells me the more you spend on a speaker system, or the more you trade 'em, the more you might be ready to agonize.  I've been as vulnerable as anybody to this phenomenon, but seem to be on a nice plateau these days -- maybe like TheChairGuy.

There are lots of "new directions" in loudspeakers, and each is in love with its pet theory about this or that.  I recently waded through this long involved thing about how a great traditional tweeter may sound more realistic and airy, but our research will assure you this isn't the case, it's just your ear getting fooled by this and that higher-order whatsit.  (Ya, so?)  But straight-up transducers in the traditional mold have been getting the job done for decades now, and they can still do music right.  So here's to simple, clean listening, in ordinary rooms.

[mfsoa]

TCG,

Why do you feel that your speakers are more rigidly coupled to the floor when on the platforms than when off?

Simply the added mass of the maple?

If I want to couple something to something else, why do I want to put something else between them?

I don't doubt what you are hearing, but can we really ascribe it to the speakers being "more rigidly coupled" to the floor than before?

-Mike

[satfrat]

The more I've spent time, and erratic energy and money, chasing some elusive goal of perfection in this hobby....I realize rather simple and basic things have improved my system the most.

Given that I have less than a concert hall venue to play my music in, I need not invest outsized amounts of money in amplification or large speakers for pleasure - it's both largely wasted in this venue and is likely detrimental because of the 12 x 15' room that everything is housed in.

I've had a several speakers visit me the past few years in here, and for one reason or another sonically, I like my Linaeum Tower speakers most.  They are just airy, open and enjoyable....they need very little amplification to run them (no capacitor, only an iron core inductor on the woofer and a small value capacitor/gentle 6 db rolloff on the glorious Linaeum tweeter).  Yes, I've heard more demonstrative speakers out there...but it just fits me and my room so well, I just enjoy them every day.

They've been modded with new wiring, 8 lbs of Plast-i-Clay all over the inside walls, 12 lbs of steel shot weighting the bottoms (inside), Acousta-fil on the insides, and the original (cheapie) 6.5" Peerless woofers were replaced with Danny Ritchie/GR Research M165's with good effect 

I recently invested the princely sum of $125.00 (with shipping) for speaker 'stands' to improve matters...and, my, have they ever!

$28.00 for 8 of these toes: http://cgi.ebay.com/Set-of-8-Sound-isolation-audio-cones-floor-spikes_W0QQitemZ170162874576QQihZ007QQcategoryZ14993QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

$78.95 for a 15 x 20 x 3.5" butcher block cutting board (which vendor kindly halved for me into two 10 x 15" stands): http://cgi.ebay.com/MICHIGAN-MAPLE-BLOCK-CUTTING-BOARD-BUTCHER-BLOCK-A_W0QQitemZ110188997105QQihZ001QQcategoryZ46282QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem

The result is really stupendous....much higher levels of clarity thru the whole operating range, bass tautness, midrange 'presence' and treble 'incisiveness' have all raised their level of game now.  It's not as tho I have a new set of speakers...merely ones that are better than even previously thought. The detail level is really extraordinary now...I'm really enjoying them more than ever 

I hope this is of some value to one or more of you in search of the Holy Grail of audio by throwing out a lot of money on sideways upgrades (take your pick of throwaways - I've done it too I assure you  )....tightening down your speakers and isolating them is a fabulous upgrade and it doesn't have to cost a kings ransom to do it well 

John 

You don't mention the height of your loudspeakers John but it seems that you've risen them to a point where the tweeters are more in line with your ears while in your listening chair,,, just guessin' here.   That in itself will open up your focus & soundfield depth. Between that and the fact that these wood stands are drop dead gorgeous, well i can see why you're feeling like a kid in a candy store.  

Not nearly as good looking as your wood stands but I need to agree with Double Ugly on Sistrum Stands as far as getting the most out of a coned stand. Still,,,, I do love the look of wood.  

Congrates John!  


Robin

[lcrim]

John:
I've been away from the site for a week while recuperating from gallstone induced pancreatitus in the hospital.  It cheered me at first to see you espousing simple, basic solutions to audio.  Then I realized you must be having us all on, I've never known you to do anything simple and basic.

[Double Ugly]

I recently waded through this long involved thing about how a great traditional tweeter may sound more realistic and airy, but our research will assure you this isn't the case, it's just your ear getting fooled by this and that higher-order whatsit.  (Ya, so?) 

Hmmm... maybe "so?" because the difference between "sound(ing) more realistic" and being able to convince folks in the other room that you have a band is that "higher-order whatsit", assuming "whatsit" = distortion.

My favorite speaker manufacturer uses "traditional" (or conventional) drivers, but his never-ending quest to eliminate distortion has reaped huge rewards in my and others' opinion.  I know distortion can sound good - great even, depending on the system.  I own a pair of very good speakers from another manufacturer where that's the case, and I enjoy listening to them.  Nevertheless, for many of us, there's no going back after having been exposed to low distortion done right.

'Course, there's more to designing a great speaker than minimizing distortion, but it's not a bad place to start.

That said, whatever floats your boat is always the right answer IMHO, and as will forever be the case, YMMV. 

[BrianM]

DU, I'm for low distortion, too.  Low enough to be unnoticeable -- but no lower!  Or something.  The above wasn't meant to be a paean to fuzzy, feel-good sound or tizzy fakey HF "sparkle."  But for me there could be a certain amount of on-paper distortion at really high frequencies which would not necessarily say much about how the inner ear translates & resolves those sounds as "realistic."  For one thing we're no longer speaking of the music at those frequencies; we're talking about atmosphere, decay and such.  Those are really subjective experiences -- I'm perfectly open to the idea that you could falsely reproduce a venue and thereby make the recording sound more "realistic" than the actual venue...so it's possible to become totally unmoored in this kind of discussion.  You say "low distortion done right" and there's the rub.  What about slightly higher distortion done right?  (Again, speaking only of these uppermost harmonics. And we have to remind ourselves we're talking in the context of *fairly* low distortion to begin with.)  For all I know my inner ear could be slightly "distorting" the very highest overtones for me at a live event, anyway.  Distortion as I understand it is measured against the original recording, not against what your inner ear can resolve.  Do we know exactly how ultra-high frequencies are resolved in the inner ear?  I don't, I'm not a physicist.  Do they sound the same to everyone?  Have you been in a room smaller than 500 sq. ft. with a violin recently?  That's HF mayhem.  Lots of possibly unknowable real-world considerations on top of "low distortion."  But you're right, it ain't a bad place to start.

Your favorite speaker maker...hmmm, who could that be...   Well, I defer, never having heard one.  It's certainly interesting that he has an approach to HF reproduction that appears to elude many others who swear by the realism of their own pet tweeters...

Sorry to get off topic -- back to ChairGuy's chopping block couplers.

[TheChairGuy]

Yeah, these Linaeums are really oddly named 'Tower' speakers...they are only about 26" at the center of the cone and about 32" tall at the top of the Linaeum tweeter module.  They are nominally floorstanders, but hardly towers I think...nonetheless they sound really much larger due to the expansive Linaeum tweeter.

I like these speakers more now than when I got the as the multi-directional soundfield of the tweeter works better with jazz and classical....and I don't listen to as much pop or rock anymore (old man of 44 now  )

Between the toes and thick maple I think they are overall raised about 6" in total.

That might indeed help matters in itself...but I think it's mostly because the speakers don't move at all when I push them lightly...they are firmly rooted into the 3.5" thick maple with pointy toes better than they would or did in the 1/3" thick oak flooring in the room.

That's my take anyways on it....don't really care, I love how it sounds now.  I just bought a Gallo TR-1 subwoofer and will try my hand at integrating a subwoofer in the room later this week(the first stab was quite the failure...but this is a smaller, acoustic suspension, sub).  Here's to much hope 

Good gosh lcrim - welcome back - I was wondering if you were traveling as it's been quiet over in the Vinyl Circle without you.  Feel good, bud 

John

[DaveC113]

I think it would be really interesting if you tried these out on these for comparison (but still on top of the maple blocks):

http://www.auralex.com/sound_isolation_mopad/sound_isolation_mopad.asp

I wonder if the results of coupling/decoupling depend on the floor...

[Double Ugly]

Sorry to get off topic -- back to ChairGuy's chopping block couplers.

Quite right.  You'll have a PM soon.