Is Spiking Necesarry?

Re Herbie's gliders.

I now have them under my big Thiel 3.7 speakers.

My speaker have sat without spikes on a shag carpet over a solid wood floor, and the bass response (and general sound) has been so even and seemingly perfect I've never bothered with spikes.  (I remember trying spikes after a while of listening but they didn't do anything for the sound, and raised them higher than I wanted).

For various reasons I sometimes have to move my speakers around - even if to achieve different spatial or tonal balance effects as I desire.
I tried using some castor wheels under them - the shortest I could find - but it seemed to alter the sound to a bit too much upper bass richness (possibly, simply by raising the tweeter/woofer position higher, though it may also have changed some floor bounce characteristics).

Finally I discovered the Herbie's gliders and ordered the Giant Threaded Stud Glider.  They just screw in the place of spikes and only raise the speaker something like 1/2 inch, which when the speaker is sinking into carpet a bit anyway, barely makes a difference.   As to sonic benefits I thought *maybe* I heard some clearing up in the midrange...but I'm not remotely confident about that because it is far too arduous to take unscrew and screw in the gliders to compare.  What I can say is that they make moving the speakers a breeze, whether over carpet or wood floor (sometimes I have to move them between rooms).

@prof 

That is good to read, thank you. I am considering the Herbie's.

Playing devils advocate for a moment, to your point "they make moving the speakers a breeze", I can imagine a potential down side of that. Specifically, when playing "loud", the vibration of the speaker itself could cause it to move, albeit very slightly. This is one point about using spikes. Namely, through carpet and onto hard wood they secure the speaker in place.

@gdhal

You’re right that the speakers dancing around the room to the music would be an issue if it happened. Happily I can report that it doesn’t. The gliders really do sink into the carpet pile. My speakers are 11 pounds per lighter than prof’s Thiel 3.7’s.  It takes purposeful lateral force to move the speakers.

Spikes have a small problem , energy going down can  come back as well, Herbie's solves that and other thing as well.

I wager half the folks going to the 5K$ route from the 2k$ one, would't bother if they went Herbie's . And you can always use them to effect on a 50K speaker for that matter .

The energy that goes down can’t come back up because it gets dissipated in the floor, a much larger mass. However, seismic type vibration can still go up. Fortunately, the spikes have such a small contact surface area it’s a much better situation than some things. The problem for ANY coupling device is that very low seismic type frequencies can still affect the component since the entire house is shaking, thus the component - by necessity -shakes right along with it - in all six directions of motion. Hel-loo!!