Vibration - What are the Main Sources?

@pauly - speakers generate internal vibrations from their drivers moving and push vibrations to the floor vibrating everything.

I’m waiting for you to tell me we use our ears to hear and our eyes to see next. 

That is why you want to isolate them and take the vibrations out of the cabinets.

Nobody “takes” vibrations out of cabinets. Cabinets are designed to resist resonances, and by coupling them to a large mass (read, the floor) their propensity to resonate is further reduced.

Most good speakers either come with spikes or platforms or something to decouple them from the floor. 

Spikes couple speakers to the floor. Take off the spikes and the cabinet will exhibit increased resonance. Coupling to the floor reduces speaker cabinet resonance.

Same is true for amps, phono stages, CD players, DACs, you name it

I’ve never seen a phono stage, CD player or DAC that comes with spikes and meant to go on the floor. All the ones I owned were meant to go onto a properly isolated audio stand.

These components require the opposite of what speakers require. They do not produce sufficient vibration to need coupling to the floor, and benefit from isolation to prevent floor borne resonances getting to them. 

Is it possible people do not know the first thing about electricity? It is generated by moving a wire through a magnetic field. It's a fact. You could look it up.  

Move a wire through a magnetic field and you get a current moving through the wire. Vibrations are, and you could look this one up as well, moving.  

So vibrations most definitely do affect electrons. 

Coupling / Decoupling does not have to be an either/or proposition. I put my components on cones to couple them to a heavy base (marble or solid wood) and then decouple that base from the floor or stand with springs. I believe this is the principle of Townshend podiums, as they use a heavy steel base between the speakers and springs...

@georgehoffmann60 - so long as the springs are correctly loaded for broad frequency isolation. It works for you, that works for me :)

@georgehoffmann60

Agree 100% on the coupling/decoupling "challenge". Suspect I would pick a material other than marble, but everyone is looking for a different sonic expression from their system

All that anyone has to do, is experiment a bit and try some things.

And of course, trust your own ears. If there is no discernible difference, then there isn’t one for you. And one can scrap the concept, modify it or go in a different direction all together.

What a great combination of differing skills we get to apply. Math, science, abstract thought experiments, creativity, fabrication of stuff etc.

At at the end of it all, we have an opportunity to listen to the music we so love with an even greater sense of please from the sonic attributes.