2. speakers
  3. 1056129267

Floorstanders over Suspended Hardwood-Help Please

I have a pair of Silverline Sonatas that weigh in at about 120 pounds each. When I lived in my previous home, I used a set of four points under each speaker over a thick carpet and an equally think pad. I recently moved and these speakers will now be in a room with suspended hardwood floors. There is a berber carpet over a portion of the room and under where the speakers will be placed. With their weight, the Silverlines will drive the points right through the berber and couple with the hardwood. Bad.

I need to find a solution and have thought of three possibilities:
1) Find a very thick pad to place under the berber and use the points like before.
2) Use discs under the points directly atop the berber. Stable?
3) Get some 1-2” slabs of marble, using iso-pads between the marble and the carpet and points/discs between the speakers and the marble.

I have tried using slabs under other floorstanders over carpet and always found them to be less than rock solid in the vertical plane.

Do any of these approaches seem best, or are there others to consider. Please keep in mind that I do NOT want to spend several hundred dollars on platforms such as Sistrum, etc.
motdathird
hdm
1,062 posts
 
Not that anyone will agree with me, but I am using floorstanders over berber over a suspended hardwood floor and would recommend the following.

Buy 2 sheets of laminated or "security glass" 3-4" larger than the footprint of your speakers and use vibrapods between the glass (directly on top of carpet) and the speakers. I would recommend using a slightly higher weighted pod at the two front corners (use 4 pods or 5-I use 4-3 is simply not stable enough) to compensate for the "front heavy" nature of the speakers with drivers at the front.

I find this set-up to be much more relaxed and musical than spikes and this makes for some interesting reading:

http://www.vibrapod.com/Reviews/tas.htm

I concur with the reviewers findings.
audiobugged
528 posts
 
Hdm, that's actually a GOO ONE!

Yet how about acrylic, instead of having tempered glass so close to the floor/vacumn/children?

Then why not just sandwich the acrylic with blue-dots & only use the vibrapods directly between the speakers & the top?

Also use some sort of felt/polyester furniture self-adhesive protective pad between the bottom of base & carpet/hardwood?
audiobugged
528 posts
 
Motdathird, Sounds like after 10+ rounds where back to your inital idea?
socrates
247 posts
 
I've tried the Vibrapods under my 125lb full range speakers (Von Schweikerts, as in the article), and it worked great on carpet while using a wood footing, but the pods didn't jive on hardwood floors, sounded awful actually. I'm currently using the original speaker spikes with nickles underneath each spike, and though that sounds much better then the Vibrapods or sitting flush on the floor, it's still not ideal, still looking for a solution myself....
motdathird OP
77 posts
 
My flooring is actually 3/4" not 1/2" oak (my typo) and is t-and-g blind nailed over 3/4 ply. I'm still sure that points will leave an impression, but it is impervious to keys! :-)

Believe that I will give the final Stehno suggestion a try and maybe consider some variation of the Hdm/Socrates approach if that doesn't pass the wifely test.
More to discover