BTW...
I tried some Iso Acoustic Iso-Pucks under one of my Thiel 2.7s tonight.
Some here probably know Iso Acoustics products are all the rage these days in terms of speaker stands/isolation and their Gaia series speaker footers seem beloved.
I'd been meaning to try out the Gaia footers, but ended up first with 4 of the slightly smaller iso-pucks which I'd picked up mostly to test for use in isolating my new turntable.
Using an iPad accelerometer sensor app, I did much of the same tests for the iso pucks as I did for a bunch of other materials, and frankly couldn't find much measurable isolation. Still, I thought I'd try them under one of my 2.7 speakers. I'd heard a store demo of the Gaia footers on one speaker, where they switched back and forth between the one with the footer and one without, and thought maybe I'd heard an agreeable change.
But on my Thiels tonight, it turned out I wasn't so happy with the results.
First, the L speaker (that I put the iso pucks under) did become a bit more lush and mellow, less hash to the sound. That in of itself is nice.
Though that could also be due simply to the 1 1/2" rise in height from the footers, changing the speaker interaction in the room, putting my ears just a bit more below the tweeters for a more midrange sound. Hard to tell.
Beyond that, the midbass on down actually lost tightness and snap, became a bit resonant sounding and slightly more muddy. The feeling of aliveness was reduced. I listened for quite a while going back and forth between the speakers - an obvious difference - and also listening to both in stereo (only one having the iso pucks). But as soon as I took out the iso pucks the sound became more taught and clean again in the lower mids/bass, and the upper frequency range returned, the whole sound took on that drive, snappiness and aliveness that I love.
So that's a bit disappointing. I'd love a tweak like that to work for me.
But it's also in line with when I've tried some other footers on my speakers in the past, even spikes. I tend to get the same changes and end up preferring the speakers flat on my floor, no spikes. The design of the speakers just seems dialed in for that height relationship with the floor, in terms of floor bounce or whatever.
I'm not sure now if I'm still going to try the Gaia footers. I may some time spring for the Townsend Seismic Isolation Bars. The reason is that I've been very impressed with the measured isolation performance of the four Townsend isolation pods I've received for isolating my turntable. And the isolation bars employ those pods. The bars, unlike most footers/spike/isolation systems don't raise the speaker height. So it would seem more ideal for my purposes.
I may try the 4 Townsend pods I have under one of my Thiels, to see how they work vs the iso pucks. Though they will raise the Thiels probably even a bit higher than the iso pucks.
