Best location for isolation cones.

Get rid of the foam pieces and read this Stereophile article for some tips.

Just for kicks and if you can find this specific back issue, take a gander at Jonathan Scull's "Fine Tunes" in the February 2001 edition of Stereophile. This is an article that J10 compiled out of various posts that i made on AA several years ago about "cones" and how they work. The wording might not be the best, but you should get the basic idea.

Once you've done that, you're going to need to experiment with speaker placement. That is, if you want to make any type of major progress with this system. Once you can get the speakers dialed in, you'll then be able to hear more of what your system is capable of and what each "tweak" adds or subtracts from the system. Having said that, cones may not be the optimum type of footer for all components / support structure interphases.

As to your rack, are your shelves stationary i.e. part of the support structure or are they individually removable without compromising the stability of the rack itself? Experimenting with various types of wood and / or other shelving materials can pay off with big dividends from my experience.

Other than that, congratulations. It appears that you've been working hard and are now reaping some of the rewards of your past efforts. I know that you had talked about doing a lot of work on your house in the past and that it was eating up a lot of your cash. I hope that your system is coming together as you had hoped and you get plenty of enjoyment out of your 'Stang : ) Sean
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Hey folks, thanks for all the input!
Well, i had the spikes set so that the speakers were slightly tilted backwards, i went ahead and tightened em all the way down and this definatly restored some of my imaging.
The girly was over last night so that restricted how much i could mess around with it, gott play with her first. LOL
Anyways, when i get home tonight im probably just gonna pull those cones off the speakers and save them for another use.

..glad to hear you had some real-world pleasure from cones and points last night.....

Placing a cone under the speaker raises the height of all drivers, which affects voicing. IMHO, the result has zilcho to do with isolation, and everything to do with geometry. If you have precision engineered speakers, such as Green Mountain, Meadowlark, Theil or Vandersteen, recommend you not change the height of the drivers. Get a listening chair that levels your ear with the tweeter. Raising the subwoofer a smidgen is a whole 'nother story.

Jburidan: Keeping one's ears level with the tweeter is an old wive's tale. Some designs work best with your ears above, some below, some sitting even with the tweeter. This has to do with the cabinet design ( acoustic center of the drivers ) and many other factors. Even if listening with your ears even with the tweeter provided the most neutral tonal balance, who's to say that everyone would prefer this type of "neutrality" anyhow??? Obviously, personal preference plays a large part in what people buy, how they set it up and what they like to listen to. Sean
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