Help educate me please. Wouldn’t the pistonic movement of the drivers make the whole speaker move back and forth on the podiums? And this in turn would alter the performance and sound of the speaker ?
Ron
First impressions of the Isoacoustic Gaia 1’s
On my KEF Reference 5’s.
While I normally hear little to no change with “Tweaks”, I installed them Saturday evening and found immediate spatial differences. Just about every album sounded more open. I told my wife, who helped me install the Gaia’s, that if I wasn’t wowed, I’d send them back.
The room has wall to wall carpet and pad on the floor and when I first received the Reference 5’s, they sounded flat. I put small hardwood flooring samples under them and it helped a little. I then put a small slab of granite under each of them and they became much nicer to listen to. I was quite surprised at the change.
The Gaia 1’s are sitting on the granite as well and so far, I’m very happy.
It’s only been a few days, but I’m pretty sure they are “hear” to stay.
Anyone else have similar experience’s with speaker. Isolation?
JD
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@ronboco Hey Ron, I've heard that argument from a local dealer against the idea of isolation/de-coupling and used in favor of coupling. The argument in favor of de-coupling is that the environment affects the speakers (or components) negatively, and that an isolation solution protects against those environmental affects. I know that high-end recording studios will using floating floors to isolate against environmental impacts. I believe Townsend's website has their philosophy on it--something about small tectonic shifts on the other side of the world measurably affecting your HiFi if I recall. Make of that what you will. With all the positive recommendations here from people who have isolated, I would recommend trying it if you haven't already. |
Thank you for the response. I did know about environmental impacts and it is the overwhelming majority to decouple. I’m not sure how one would go about testing if there is a negative effect from the whole speaker moving besides the listening test. I guess if there is a negative to decouple the positive must out weigh it. I do have Gaia footers in our home theatre family room because it is a suspended floor. I did notice the bass dropped off noticeably with the Gaia feet. Still sounds good though. We have a 2 channel system in the basement. Carpet over concrete. The speakers weigh 220 lbs. each so I’m not sure if any footers would make a big difference. |
That’s a good way to say it. So many advancements in engineering (and life) are still tradeoffs, but with an overall net gain. I’m not certain what the best solution might be for your basement with carpet over concrete. My home theater space has tile floors (for now), and my HiFi space has wood floors. In both cases, I felt decoupling the sub and speakers made a big improvement. While one way of describing the the effect of decoupling is that the bass "dropped off noticeably," I would also add that in my experience, the bass still pressurized the room the same and the sound became dramatically more transparent. When coupled, my walls and floor where activated, and the sound was very muddy as a result. While plenty of people in car audio and at concerts seem to want to "feel" the bass, I would argue that lots of resolution and imaging was lost in my case and that the sound became higher quality on net in my rooms. A concrete slab might be different though. |
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