Using platforms / shelves under floorstanders?
http://www.michaelgreenaudio.net/platforms I've been designing Tunable Platforms for some 40 years now. It's a major part of not only giving you flexibility when voicing your sound but also makes for a necessary interface between the speaker/room/floor in most cases. I haven't run into many speakers or many rooms that perform better without Platforms. michael |
The type of coupling for any kind of speaker to the floor is a matter of system tuning. In other words, there is no one right way to do it; one must experiment to see what works best. A lot of times spiking a speaker to the floor is not the best approach, even though the manufacturer supplies spikes for that purpose. On suspended wooden floors, effective coupling of the speaker to the floor might mean that the floor itself becomes a big sounding board which muddles up the sound, particularly the bass. I would try different approaches. Keep in mind that if you change types of spikes, etc., you will need to make necessary adjustments to get the speaker height and rake (how much it is angled backwards) adjusted. With my floor standing speakers, the use of a big energy absorbing platform, with the speaker sitting flat on the platform (entire bottom in contact with the platform -- no spikes) worked the best. The platform I used is a big Symposium Svelte Shelf. This consists of two aluminum outer panels sandwiching a foam core (vibration is converted to heat from friction in the foam core). This approach effectively dampened the speaker cabinet itself and prevented energy from feeding into the floor. But, in other setups, this might make a system sound too dry. Experimentation is the key to any tuning of a system. |
It depends what your floor is made of. If it's concrete then maple platforms might bring some improvement to the sound. I have the Mapleshade platforms, on concrete floor, and they do very well. But using them without spikes wouldn't make so much sense, I imagine, because you'd lose the coupling to the floor. One way to prevent damaging woodfloors because of spikes is to place Yamamoto PB-10 footers under the spikes. They're imported by Venus Hi-Fi, and you'll find a review of them on 6-moon. |
I used Brightstar BigRock platforms under my Contour 5.4's for quite a while, and they worked ok, but I found they work much better under my source components, where they actually do some good. I am using the supplied spikes, and they are a pain in the butt when moving speakers around. I just remove the spikes when I am going to move them. I really haven't noticed that big a difference with or without the spikes, but these are only about an inch long when out as far as they can be. Try them without the spikes, and see if there is a difference. You may find it is negligable. Dan |
