Under my tower speakers -- Isoacoustics Gaia, other options?

Thank you.  Unfortunately, I have not found $1 solutions but the spring platforms for my Thiel speakers were pretty reasonable.  The price of 8 springs and two butcher blocks was not too costly.  I designed the springs for the load of my speakers and the spring rate to achieve a Fn= 3 Hz and ordered them from McMasterCarr..  I counter drilled the butcher blocks to a depth to leave just a small amount of travel when loaded and to support the springs so they remain vertical.  I also stuffed some foam inside the springs for damping and added rubber feet.  I used the same springs on my amp stands to isolate the amps from the floor.  My amps are beasts but not quite as heavy as the Thiels so the Fn (resonance point) is about 3.5 Hz.  I bought the Nobsound spring footers online.  These are clever little devices that are perfect for stereo components.  These footers hold up to 7 small springs which allows you to tune them for the weight of the component that you are isolating.  These are inexpensive but very effective.   

Now, like I said before, out of curiosity I bought the Gaia footers for my Thiel speakers to try them out.  While they did not perfectly isolate the speakers from the floor like my tuned spring platforms, they did improve the sound of the speakers.  Enough so that I kept them and put my spring platforms on my HT subwoofers.  Wow, did that make quite a difference.  Life begins when you isolate your subwoofers.  

So last summer I bought me a pair of Wilson Sasha DAW speakers.  They sound good.  They come with the Wilson spikes which I used.  Wilson now offers their version isolation spikes made from their X material.  I have no doubt that they are effective but they are an additional 10% cost of the Sasha DAW speakers.  Therefore, I bit the bullet and bought a set of Gaia Titans.  If you think buying the Gaias hurts- try getting a set of their Titans.  The Wilsons will give you all the bass you want.  I could feel it in the floor even after set up per the Wilson method.  I found the Gaia Titans improved clarity and imaging.  The floor doesn't vibrate like before with the spikes but the furniture, pictures and windows still shake and rattle. I had to put sticky tack on all of my pictures to keep them from rattling.  

I'll add that when you use the Nobsound spring footers on your components, they need to be tuned to maximize the isolation.  Do that by using only enough springs in each footer to have about a 0.100" gap when under load.  So the footers are still floating- don't let them be grounded under load but provide the lowest Fn possible. My preamps, for example are heaviest in the front where the transformers sit, so I have one more spring in those front footers vs the footers in the back.

Ok, so this is the post where I eat some of my words. I’ve been reading your posts, and others, and watching videos about the Townshend podium. I really like my speakers enough to try to bring out their best qualities. From what I am reading and seeing. -- e.g., here: https://youtu.be/IvTrtMmrfE4?t=1088 there’s a lot that could be gained by a profoundly isolated speaker. If it all does nothing, well, shipping is a small price to pay to really know that.

The other thing I am thinking is that I’m not really going to be ready to go to a "next" level speaker for a while, in part because I really think these speakers are quite a great value and match very very well even with my lower powered tubes and subs. My next speakers are going to be at least 2x or 3x my current pair, and I’m not ready to go there, yet.

With the Townshends, I can try do a real comparison with the spikes or even some Gaia.

The other thing a podium could do -- if it works well -- is know that I can move my speaker into my next (new) room (which has a wood floor on some cork over concrete) without worrying about how the speakers will sound in there. Or to a room upstairs (over suspended wood).

I’m almost over my reluctance to try the Townshends.

What I have noticed is that my old Thiel speakers which had the mineral front baffles were totally inert on that face but vibrations could be felt on the sides and back of the speaker cabinets. That tells me the speakers were transmitting vibrations from the cabinet bottom through the spikes to the floor and some amount of vibration reflecting back into the cabinets. So the Gaias which both dampen and isolate seem to me to improve the sound of the speakers by both isolating the speakers from the floor and damping reflections that would otherwise go back into the cabinets. The Wilson speakers are remarkably inert on every surface. Totally dead no matter the loudness they are playing. And yet they still transmit vibrations to the floor through their spikes as well. Perhaps the energy must go out of the cabinets somewhere. I find the Gaia Titans remarkably effective on my Wilson speakers. I would like to hear them with the new Wilson isolation spikes but my curiosity has limits. I have no doubt the Wilson isolation spikes would be an improvement. Their material development knowledge is remarkable when considering they can build an entirely inert speaker cabinet.

I think any speaker will benefit by isolation from the floor but the tonal qualities of the speaker might be altered, as I found with my Thiels and so some amount of dampening (damping) might be needed to go along with the isolation. That’s likely something to be solved on a case by case basis. Some of us engineer types are able to come up with some good homemade solutions, but I have to give credit to the entrepreneurs who develop a product for the market that has to work 90% of the time on a wide range of applications- sometimes great and sometimes not. Some people like hang gliding. Some of us like the security of an enclosed cabin.

Ok, my last sentence is not a comment about open baffle speakers; but it could be...