Townshend Seismic Podiums

With ALL respect guys, until you have measured and learned with an accelerometer and saw EXACTLY what happens, and is happening, you are just GUESSING. You can easily see what mass loading does, as opposed to draining energy with spikes. You will also learn all of the hundreds of materials used to damp or eliminate vibrations, every single foot ever designed to be placed under equipment, imparts it's own frequency range vibrations. Ebony, lead, brass, carbon fiber, etc, etc. When you place those vibrations into the RTA, you can watch how the frequency moves and corresponds with different treatments to damp or eliminate. This is ALL they do! Impart their own effect on the associated equipment they are under.Now ... someone said you are not trying to eliminate vibrations ... bull crud. If you could eliminate all vibrations ( caused by everything, not just airborne), then you would hear ONLY the speaker itself.
But to do this, you need to neither fully dampen, nor fully drain, nor simply move the measurable vibration frequencies up or down. The perfect idea would be to make the frequency basically go to "zero", neither damping or draining ( decoupling or coupling ) , but to essentially float in a place with no vibrations. It is a matter of finding the product weight, and matching it to the spring rates which equal dead float center of everything. It should neither rock back and forth like a pendulum, nor be unmovable (coupled), but should settle only once or twice and stop dead. There is an exact formula for this for every exact weight. The Townsend platforms cover a targeted freq range for average weight, and do almost perfect. The ONLY way to get better would be to have the platform made to exactly the weight of your speakers to the ounce. This is why I go through a huge custom spring company that makes springs to your specs. This allows me to have perfect suspension for every component or stack of gear. Several hundred dollars for 8 springs, but better than THOUSANDS of dollars!Townsend platforms are science taken from the electromagnetic field of study. Many research labs have either magnetic flotation machines, or air propulsion isolation machines. These do essentially the exact same principle .... Floating the component where there is an acoustical zero of vibrations. It is been around forever, and nothing new. Max just figured it out first for audio.You can naysay all you want ... but they work exactly as advertised and are NOT more audio snake oil.  How would I know this? Having custom spring rates made for my own gear after seeing Max's, and finding out they work better than anything you can dream up outside of science. Which is all that matters here. Opinions need to educate.

NOTHING drains vibrations. Only moves them in the frequency band. NOTHING can drain them away to nothing. Measure with an acellerometer and you will see this is correct. Heavy wood and lead stands and footers just change the frequency some. This is ALL they do.
ONLY finding zero frequency effects can do this ... make vibrations nothing. Townsend platforms do this. I have measured this .... not guessing.

@millercarbon, you are dead on sir!

Thats all fine and dandy except springs do not provide an exit strategy for airborne vibrations or turbulent air nor do they collect and disperse internally generated resonance from transformers motors, active or passive devices..In fact if left alone this interference will accumulate further and become an unwelcome passenger of interfering energy traveling on top of the music. Keep looking.
Tom

@flaxxer - Not all things measurable are audible, and not all things audible are measurable. It's a good start, but not the be all and end all.

When I say "draining" vibrations, of course they don't disappear, they dissipate through multiple levels within a platform, one being foam, which absorbs some of it and vibrations then go from the platform to the floor (which is why wood is better than concrete or other hard surfaces).

The speaker needs to have maximal contact with the platform to be effective - no spikes, discs or whatever in between. Like I said, you can put pods or spikes under the platform for more isolation, but the key with speakers is eliminating internal vibrations, just like with amps and phono stages, CD players, etc.

The improvement in sound from the speaker with the platforms was immediately apparent. Better clarity and separation by eliminating the noise created by vibrations. Better separation of voices for example, more precise bass response, and more like live music.

An alternative to pods are roller blocks which have ball bearings inside housings that move in the xy plane giving things on top of them the floating effect like springs do, but with no resonance and no adjusting, so long as it is in the weight range for them to be effective. Because the top of therm are flat, they also do vibration transfer, and having them be on top of wood is optimal.