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Just confused

Hi I am fairly new to using high quality audio equipment.  I have assembled all of the gear I want for listening/enjoying the music.  Of course it’s only a matter of time before you ask yourself “What if?”.  I understand that room acoustics matter so I am off trying to implement acoustic panels - some good relatively consistent advice here.  What I struggle with is the subject of vibration control/isolation ... the advice from the community is not very consistent.  The floor in my listening room is slab cement with ceramic tiles on top.  I have Avant-garde Uno speakers (with spikes since that is they way they came), REL subs (rubber feet) and effectively an unbranded equipment rack (with spikes).  Are spikes what I should remain with for this kind of surface?  Does it make more sense to decouple the speakers and rack from the floor with some kind of isolation device?  Should I be replacing the current metal spikes with “cones” (or other device).  Should I use the same device for speaker and rack?  I just want to avoid shelling out a bundle of money for something that may turn out being a negative.  Thanks in advance for your patience with my naive questions.
chilli42
oldhvymec
5,101 posts
 
I'm a decouple guy, no matter what. Though that concrete floor is
a good place to help with vibration control. If your a LP guy, Vibration 
control yourself, into oblivion, great idea. I use to be very aware of Vinyl issues.  To many silver disk, streaming, and servers anymore. I have a slough of TT gear here though.. Still the best..

What if there was no vibration? You know, windows, walls, floors, all the boundaries. The more bass you make, the more you have to control. Decouple, and use an Ampa style listening room, open the back up. LOSE the noise, don't make it, or control it with treatment..

What if there was no vibration? It sure would fix a lot of problems, ay?

Regards


glupson
7,842 posts
 
Is there a way you can try some floor covering (rug, blankets, etc.) to check how and if the overall sound changes? It may be dependent on some details of your situation, but impact may be more pronounced than coupling/uncoupling/spikes/rubber. Which is not to say you could not play with all possible combinations, of course.
cakyol's avatar
cakyol
940 posts
 

Try and plug EVERY equipment that you have into the SAME power outlet. This will minimize ground loops (which cause humming, buzzing sounds) which will sometimes be EXTREMELY annoying & difficult to get rid of. Keep the power cables as short as possible to help this.  The idea is that ALL the earth connections on ALL your devices be at EXACTLY the same potential.  Even a skew of half a  milivolt will cause humming and buzzing sounds.

Ground loops are not usually a big problem unless you have turntables & associated phono preamplifiers (or any device with very low input signal levels), but it is always good practice.

If the total current requirement of all your devices exceed the capacity of your outlet (which is extremely unlikely unless you have 1000+ watt amplifiers), you can upgrade it to a 20 amp circuit later.

stereo5's avatar
stereo5
6,539 posts
 
I would add a nice rug and just enjoy the music. As you get much more accustomed to the sound and your hearing becomes more astute, you will then to be able to find flaws or not in your system. I wouldn’t blindly throw money at cones, spikes, better cabling and cleaner AC, etc. until you have lived with the system for a while. I would say a good six months unless something really stands out as very annoying. A rug will definitely help, otherwise the room could be too lively and bright.

Most of us here have our own ideas so you will get probably 20-30 different answers or more. The main thing is to have fun and enjoy the music
sandthemall
544 posts
 
Try a large enough rug to place under the speakers and far enough in front of them to address first reflections from the floor.

If a smaller rug is the only option...place this in front of the speakers to address first reflections from the floor. Buy some brass footers for your speaker spikes. These are little saucers with an indentation in the center to cradle the spike. I cut out some leather circles to place under the brass footers to prevent the odd buzz from an uneven wood floor.

The most important thing is just to try stuff on your own. Read a couple of good books on acoustics/speakers etc.. This helped me quite a bit.



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