First impressions of the Isoacoustic Gaia 1’s


On my KEF Reference 5’s.

While I normally hear little to no change with “Tweaks”, I installed them Saturday evening and found immediate spatial differences. Just about every album sounded more open. I told my wife, who helped me install the Gaia’s,  that if I wasn’t wowed, I’d send them back.

The room has wall to wall carpet and pad on the floor and when  I first received the Reference 5’s, they sounded flat. I put small hardwood flooring samples under them and it helped a little.  I then put a small slab of granite under each of them and they became much nicer to listen to. I was quite surprised at the change. 
The Gaia 1’s are sitting on the granite as well and so far, I’m very happy. 

It’s only been a few days, but I’m pretty sure they are “hear” to stay.

Anyone else have similar experience’s with speaker. Isolation?

JD

128x128curiousjim

I have them under tannoy Ardens.... As you amazed by difference. Bass seems much deeper and loudspeaker seems to respond better... Less smudging of transients... Also even loud there is not even a tremble underfoot... Neighbours happier

I also have Kef Reference 5, and adding the Gaia made every better. No brainer. I have wood floors in an ok, not great room, for acoustics. I then started adding Orea pods under each my components, with positive impact every time but nothing like the Gaia on the Kef. The only other "tweak' that made such an improvement were bass traps behind the speakers in the corners, making everything clearer.  

Yes, speaker isolation is definitely real. The puzzle in my mind is why manufacturers of good speakers don’t pay more attention to the speaker-floor interface, given the substantial sums of money that go into their products.

I’ve tried the Gaia pucks, and Nobsound springs, but I’ve found that disks of sorbothane work just as well, don’t raise the speaker as much (which, as someone noted above, is very important), don’t cause as much disconcerting wobble, look better (they're less conspicuous), and are FAR cheaper. The trick is to find the right density of sorbothane for the weight you need to support, but if you guess wrong, you can usually repurpose the disks you bought for another component until you get it right.

There are several reliable sellers of sorbothane in various sizes, shapes and densities on eBay.

This is my experience too. I picked up some used B&W’s and sat them directly on the wood floor because the seller didn’t has the stock spikes. I went with Herbie’s Stud Gliders because $150 was more my speed and because these won’t be my forever speakers. The subwoofer saw a similar, dramatic improvement. This tweak is more than just a tweak.

In my limited experience, the only other tweaks that made this big of a difference were a reclocker between the streamer and DAC and a fiber optic run to isolate the HiFi from the dirty side of the network.

@mrskeptic 

While the kit comes with three different size studs and nuts, they did not fit my KEF speakers for two different reasons. I called Isoacoustics and told them what I had and they told me I needed( 8m 1.0 long studs) and UPS dropped them on my doorstep five days later. 

All the best.

JD