I have commercial carpet over a cement basement floor. The floor is not even, not even close to even. My tower speakers have integral plinths beneath open-bottomed cabinets, and are designed to sit flat on a flat floor. When I first set them up, they wobbled a lot. The manufacturer provided pads and shims, but even with these, they were not really stable. I had Sound Anchors custom build heavy cradle bases with three-point adjustable spikes (the sharp kind), ~$325/pr shipped. Once leveled, the speakers improved significantly in transient reproduction, image stability and overall clarity. A friend who designs isolation devices feels strongly that spikes, which couple, but do not isolate, are preferable for speakers, which ought to be coupled to the floor in most cases. Electronics, OTOH, he prefers isolated with vibration absorbing devices. But hey, there is more than one way to skin a cat.
Speaker Spikes - do the shake test
Everyone by now knows that speaker spikes improve the sound. The theory is that the tweeter excursion is so short, that any speaker cabinet front to back movement creates Doppler / intermodulation distortion. That movement can exceeed, by many times, the excursion of the tweeter. So, the effect is most pronounced up top and then towards the bottom most frequencies. Or so they say.
I have some C4 series II speakers that come with four “spikes” in the plinths. But, the people in Denmark seem to think we all have hardwood floors. The so-called spikes are dull “lugs" that really are meant to sit into four small aluminum floor bot dots, for any better term for them. Many have speakers on carpet, and the so-called spikes sitting on those four round aluminum discs still are pretty wobbly on carpet.
Last week, I pulled all eight of the spikes (not nearly sharp enough, with a 30 degree rounded tip, to be called a spike) and had the guys in the machine shop at work lath them to 60-degree POINTS!
OK, re-installed and speakers leveled (four point level is a pain). WOW, now they are stable as a rock when you push and tug on them. What was NOT expected, was that the BASS response is significantly better. Not that bass is easy to do, but the contribution to the C4’s bass that spikes that are now planted into the concrete floor and under the carpet is amazing. The bass can now place a black dot on a white background as needed. Everything isn’t a shade of gray in the bass. I always felt that the C4’s weakness was bass definition, but the weakness is that Dynaudio doesn’t supply two sets of spikes, those for hard surfaces and those for carpet. That’s too bad, as the supplied spikes don’t cut it on carpet. My spikes are now good enough to pierce down below the carpet and rest on the concrete. But, real spikes should be like half-inch ten-penny nails that don’t chew-up the carper as much as my 60-degree spikes. But, I can’t find this spikes for the C4’s.
If you are like me and haven’t given your speakers the shake test, go do it! If they wobble around any at all see what you can do to fix it. The rewards are well worth as close to free upgrade as I’ve ever done. Don’t think for a second that it seems, “good enough”. If they move around, it isn’t.
I have some C4 series II speakers that come with four “spikes” in the plinths. But, the people in Denmark seem to think we all have hardwood floors. The so-called spikes are dull “lugs" that really are meant to sit into four small aluminum floor bot dots, for any better term for them. Many have speakers on carpet, and the so-called spikes sitting on those four round aluminum discs still are pretty wobbly on carpet.
Last week, I pulled all eight of the spikes (not nearly sharp enough, with a 30 degree rounded tip, to be called a spike) and had the guys in the machine shop at work lath them to 60-degree POINTS!
OK, re-installed and speakers leveled (four point level is a pain). WOW, now they are stable as a rock when you push and tug on them. What was NOT expected, was that the BASS response is significantly better. Not that bass is easy to do, but the contribution to the C4’s bass that spikes that are now planted into the concrete floor and under the carpet is amazing. The bass can now place a black dot on a white background as needed. Everything isn’t a shade of gray in the bass. I always felt that the C4’s weakness was bass definition, but the weakness is that Dynaudio doesn’t supply two sets of spikes, those for hard surfaces and those for carpet. That’s too bad, as the supplied spikes don’t cut it on carpet. My spikes are now good enough to pierce down below the carpet and rest on the concrete. But, real spikes should be like half-inch ten-penny nails that don’t chew-up the carper as much as my 60-degree spikes. But, I can’t find this spikes for the C4’s.
If you are like me and haven’t given your speakers the shake test, go do it! If they wobble around any at all see what you can do to fix it. The rewards are well worth as close to free upgrade as I’ve ever done. Don’t think for a second that it seems, “good enough”. If they move around, it isn’t.
59 responses Add your response
I used to think that speakers on spikes were the way to roll,but not so much, at least not with my current speakers-Acoustat X. The acoustats used to have very nice thicker than average spikes.but getting the Acoustats set up just so requires a lot of movement and fooling with toe in ie. What I notced sans spikes was a more even flow to the music and more cohesion to the sound.If I may ,I'd like to think that the cabinet is more secure when coupled to the floor and more stable than when it's pearched up on spikes. Since I own the nice Grand Prix audio rack I had spares of the sorbothan dampers and placed them under the speaker instead of spikes. This was better,very stable image, very tight and deep bass and more of a sense of the sound coming from somewhere other than the speakers themselves, which sounds foolish,but only if you aren't familiar with the big wall of sound some stats can provide. And that wall of sound isn't a blur of energy. There's more definition and staging with the speakers placed on the sorbothane than when on the spikes. I think ,since sorbothane discs aren't all that expensive, and some other spikey footers can be costly,that more folks should forget about the audio hype that has grown around spikes. Saying this is ironic, because I was once at the fore front of the spike movement. Not saying spikes aren't necessary, just saying they aren't a universal end by themselves. |
It is certainly possible that a very responsive cabinet could move LESS with dampening feet. And, this would explain the better resolution you hear. The less your speakers move front to back, the better they should sound. A super solid cabinet that doesn't move unto itself (vibrate) more than likely will like spikes. Those that vibrate some may do better with something to quell the shakes in the cabinet MORE than the front to back motion of the speaker itself using spikes. The end goal is the same, get the driver to sit motionless around the voice coils and let the diaphragms do all the moving. No one will care how you get that done after they listen to the difference. |
Wolf_garcia, if you're not on concrete an isolater my indeed be better than spikes. Why grab onto / into a surface that is vibrating worse than you? So yes, you have to use common sense, this isn't magic or expensive. My sub spikes cost $32.00 delivered. Isolaters are more complex and would be more, but not crazy. |
Good one. I need to choose my own Speaker Spikes. |