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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
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jgiacalo
446 posts
 
Your #3 solution is similar to what I did with my Vienna Acoustics Mozarts on a heavily carpeted suspended wood floor with very good results although with some differences.

I placed a 1/2" piece of medium density fiberboard (MDF) - cut 3" wider in each horizontal dimension than the footprint of the speaker - on top of the carpet. Then I placed four Vibrapods on top of the MDF and a slab of 1" granite on top of the Vibrapods. On top of this sandwhich I placed the spiked speakers. They are very stable and there appears to be no interaction whatsoever between the speakers and and floor since the speakers now sound tighter and clearer than with either spikes or vibrapods alone. The Vibrapods cost $6 apiece and MDF is avaliable at Home Depot for aboout $7 for a 4'x8' sheet and they will cut it to size for you for about .50/cut. Scrap granite can be had Inexpensively - I paid $15/each.
golden_ears
224 posts
 
Forget tiles or glass, etc. They are flimsy and breakable, with a relatively high resonant frequency. Get some corian (the stuff they make kitchen counters with). It's a resin product, very heavy and non-resonant. You can find it cheap at flea markets or through a plumber or contractor who cuts holes in it to fit kitchen sinks, etc.
You can have it cut to size, to fit the footprint of your speakers. Drill holes in the corian slabs and install spikes into them. Then put your spiked speakers on to the corian.
Great isolation, better sound.
bryhifi's avatar
bryhifi
374 posts
 
If the Berber carpet is not tack-stripped to the floor, ie; area rug, I did a quick and cheap solution for my room with hardwood maple flooring. My Thiel 3.6's are 110 lbs with 3 spikes that penatrate just about anything.

For what it's worth, may not be an (AA)Audiophile Approved method but it worked in my situation which is almost identical to yours!

For a mere $10 at Lowes or Home Depot you can purchase a 4x8 sheet of 1/4" luan and have them cut it in half for you. With the 4x4 sheets I adhered low cost felt from a fabric store to the floor side and the placed the 4x4 sections under the speaker areas of the rug. Being that 1/4" is actually less than a 1/4" when it comes to wood it is not even visible from anywhere in the room. The Maple flooring is now safe from spikes and scratches from the felt backing. I've rocked and set my Thiels very hard to penatrate the carpet and it would take a 400 lb. Gorilla to push the spikes through the luan sheets.
swampwalker's avatar
swampwalker
5,138 posts
 
Bry- A great idea! Anyone have any idea why T&G blind-nailed (over subfloor) flooring would be called suspended? Suspended from what?
motdathird OP
77 posts
 
Yeah, well I likely initiated your confusion by somewhat carelessly referring to my situation as suspended, walker of the swamp. Not actually suspended in the real sense of the definition.

Thanks to all that have responded. I think I will try Bryhifi's solution first. If that works, I'll be done for cheap, as I like things!
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