DIY speaker isolation base for a wood floor

I have always found this to be a fascinating subject. Partway agreeing with some of the ideas here, I tried something a bit different. First of all, the speakers that built have very heavy duty outriggers. I did this because the speakers that I built were just a bit narrow at 12" wide. I found Sorbothane 50 thick pads that were mounted to 1/4" bots. That made it easy to just screw them into the outriggers. Knowing that Sorbothane has issues on many surfaces, I happened to find furniture cups with a bunch of small plastic spikes (probably meant for carpet), that neatly fit over the bottom edge of the Sorbothane. End result is a maybe yes maybe no outcome. When I was still a bachelor, I thought about metal screws holding the speakers tight to the floor... and round we go. 

May I suggest Fastenal for springs (or any number of other industrial suppliers). They have literally hundreds of options and they are dirt cheap. Many diameters, lengths, wire size, and very inexpensive. That let’s you much better match your component to the spring as opposed to a few limited options.

delkal72 posts12-18-2019 10:14pmI always thought you wanted to couple your speakers to the floor (with spikes). Now it is best to decouple them?

There is no right answer delkal, as it depends on your floor and speakers. Those claiming one answer is always right .... and like a broken clock. They are exactly right every once in a while.


Concrete floors and a speaker cabinet not as stiff as one would like, then odds are better to couple to the floor for damping. A springy floor and you likely want to decouple it, but not necessarily. If the cone is going one way, then the cabinet wants to go the other way.

Georgehifi makes a point about sorbathane. It is one of the best energy absorbing substances and absorbing energy you don’t want to turn into sound is a good thing (this is what sand does as well) ... and what the op is trying to accomplish with neoprene. I would suggest sorbathane instead, though more expensive.  The 70D linked would be too dense as a set of 4 for almost any speaker. 50D which they appear to also sell or even 30 would be more appropriate.

The more you try to store energy the worse things get. It’s a vicious cycle. Sorborhane, as fate would have it, is one of the worse materials ever foisted on naive and gullible audiophiles, right up there with SONEX and lead. It seems like such a good material - not too hard, not too soft. That’s why spring based systems and extremely hard cones like NASA grade ceramics of Golden Sound cones rule the night. They don’t store energy.

Spring based systems don't store energy .... Ooooookay.

The more you try to store energy the worse things get. It’s a vicious cycle. That’s why spring based systems rule the night. They don’t store energy.


What makes Sorbothane the best energy-absorption material are its combination of shock absorption, vibration isolation, and vibration damping properties with its strong, long-term performance in nearly any environment or for any application.

If one was purely trying to isolate than springs make sense but that is based on the assumption that is the best path forward always. It is not.