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Can I Live With A Hardwood Floor?

Hi All,
I could certainly use some advice on this matter. I have Quad 2905 ESL's in my attic and my attic has hardwood floors. I recently moved into this residence never having experienced hardwood floors previously. My speakers are on cones and isolated with Herbie's titanium gliders. I've been able to position the speakers so that they are given enough room to operate effectively but those hardwood floors are brutal at times. My thought leads me to the only obvious solution, 12 feet by 12 feet carpeting. Are there more cost effective ways of approaching this?
Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks as always!
128x128goofyfoot
tablejockey
3,893 posts
 
folkfreak-yes, I did misread lwins post. It wasn't that fuse I was thinking about.
Ooops!

A quick read of your link clarifies.Thanks
goofyfoot's avatar
goofyfoot OP
1,370 posts
 
Speaking of fuses, I added a Synergistic Research Black to my Ayre QB 9 DSD. Then I added an Akiko XLR Tuning Stick. I'm very impressed with the Akiko products. They've also come out with Tuning Chips and I'm thinking that the Speaker Tuning Chips placed near the cable inputs at the base of the Quad's will help considerably however a large rug or rugs may still be needed. I'm thinking that the Synergistic Research HFT's won't work for me given placement issues.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Innocent question: are the Akiko Chips quantum mechanical in nature, you know, like the WA Quantum Chips of the recent past?

randy-11
1,913 posts
 
I have maggies and no rug behind them - any bipolar speaker should have a fair amount of diffusion behind it for best sound.

My "Persian" rug is not as large as I might like but has been in the family for 3 generations.  If it extends beyond a line drawn between you and each speaker (a triangle) that should be fine.

For high freq.a, which are the issue here, you can just use ray tracing to analyze the room.  More info is in the master Handbook of Acoustics, which every audiophile should read a couple of times...
folkfreak's avatar
folkfreak
1,349 posts
 
@goofyfoot to your original question you should have no problem with hardwood floors as long as you treat them with rugs as others have suggested. Make sure to use a natural wool rug, probably not too thick. Synthetic rugs sound terrible - I thought I could save a few bucks but they really don’t work

Personally I pefer not having the rug under the speakers, it makes it easier to use whatever spikes or other isolation device you prefer (I use the Tonwnshend podiums). My current setup has two 4x6 rugs that fill the space between speaker and listening seat and extend a few feet beyond the edge of each speaker. 
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