First impressions of the Isoacoustic Gaia 1’s

@curious Jim: No. The Podium is fitted with 4 Pods. If you get the Podium, you obviously don’t need individual Pods.

So, the choice is to either remove a loudspeakers’ stock base (if any) and set the speaker on the Podium, or, if you are happy with the stock base/outrigger of your speaker, use 4 individual Pods in place of the (presumably) stock spikes.

Talk to John at Townshend, and follow his advice is my advice. He expressed to me his reservations about my idea of using 2 "C" Pods on the front of each of my Sound Anchor stands and 1 "D" Pod on the rear (in place of the 3 stock spikes), but I decided to give it a try. It may not be the best choice in most applications, but works in mine.

The Gaia raise the tweeter height so that’s going to be a noticeable change. I imagine the height increase also helps a bit to reduce the floor bounce reflection.

As a side-note, it is interesting that every Gaia discussion gets flooded with Townshend Audio plugs. 

Thanks @bdp24 for the reply. I understand now.

JD

 If I got the Townsend Platforms, would I remove my steel plate and sit it on their steel plate?

I wouldn't as the outriggers provide lateral stability for the Reference 5. The podiums only have a small amount of lateral movement, but I'd feel better knowing the speakers had their designed lateral support if someone (somehow) crashes into them. The podiums don't have any provision for bolting down speakers. 

I'm a big fan of the Townshend podiums, I tried the Gaia prior to getting the podiums but returned them (disclosure, I didn't have both at the same time for a  contemporaneous assessment).

@seanheis1 

On my KEF’s,  the Gaia’s raise the speakers maybe half an inch higher than the spikes.  With the dispersion of the tweeters, I’m not sure there’s going to be much change in the sound.

JD