Is Spiking Necesarry?

Some counterpoints to Robert’s last post. First, no one is marginalizing or bashing spikes. Second, no one is recommending placing anything, speakers or otherwise, directly on carpet or rubber type materials. Robert’s long and winding post was effectively a Strawman argument. Finall, the argument is not really coupling vs decoupling as Robert suggests. The real challenge for audiophiles is how to integrate, to combine coupling with decoupling. You know, like I've been suggesting here on these threads for many years. One must allow vibration to escape the component or speakers and dis-allow seismic vibrations from coming up into them. 

Cheers

Addendum to my last: When Robert castigated "rubber type materials" one wonders if he’s referring not only to rubber itself but to things that bounce like springs and things that are not hard and rigid, things like Herbies Tenderfeet and constrained layer dampers that employ "rubbery" viscoelastic material as well things like bicycle inner tubes, air springs in general, bungee cords and squash balls. Because if that’s what he’s driving at then that puts a whole new light on things and demonstrates he really doesn’t gronk the whole vibration isolation thing and mechanical low pass filters in particular or even constrained layer damping and is in dire need of a seismologist.

To follow-up on the above posts... In my case I use the spikes that come with the Vandersteen Treo CT's.  Each spike sits in a Titanium disk with a dimple to accept the spike.  The titanium disk sits in db neutralizer material which in turn rests in a small glider.

 For my two 2wq subs., I use audiopoints that then rest in Herbie's giant db neutralizer gliders.  These are larger versions of what I use with the Treos.  In the case of the main speakers, the result of coupling to the decouplers has worked wonders with clarity and openness of sound.  

The subs. are an interesting case in that the drivers are down firing so when seating the audiopoints into the gliders the subs were lifted up from the carpet beneath.  This resulted in cleaner deep bass.  The perception was of less bass, so I was able to compensate by slightly turning up the output of the subs.

The other very desirable benefit is that decoupling the deep bass relieved the rest of the house from the "boom, boom, boom.  On certain recordings, our Westie thought it was thunder and would bark and run around, aggravated.  This works well as my dedicated listening room is located in the basement.

Hifiman5:

My Treo CTs are on an old Oriental rug over a hardwood floor.

Sorry I didn't see you inquiry until just now.

@gdhal  After being brought back to this thread today, I was wondering how things worked out with your GE References regarding placement  and your overall assessment of their sound quality.