Spikes on tower speakers

@joshua43214   I never said spike speakers to suspended wooden floors.  Indeed I said don't spike speakers to suspended wooden floors.  For the reason you state.

But if, as I do, you spike speakers to a concrete slab laid on a screed in the ground the vibrations in the speakers caused by the music signal will be damped by the mass of the Earth which is 5.972 × 10^24 kg.  If we take the speaker as having mass of 100kg, then the small movement in the speaker will cause a movement of the Earth that is 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times smaller.  I think we can take that as no movement.

The statement near the end of your post is therefore correct, save that you can replace 'often' with 'always'.

@clearthinker ​​​​@mijostyn are misled.
 @jtcf and @vinylvalet  have the correct understanding.  If the speakers are connected to the floor, then the vibrations are passed out of the speakers through the spike, and then turn into the floor, then back into the spike and back into the speaker. That is real distortion.
Townshend products, cones, pucks, et al, break the floor, connection from the speakers. These products cost a s* load of money and receive the kudos they do, because they work. I don’t see anybody advertising spikes,  by themselves, as a great solution. No one is selling spikes for $2k. If they worked, speaker manufactures would charge for them.  Using spikes on a cutting board would be better than setting them on the floor. 
I have no dog in this fight. No relationship to any of these manufacturers. I use spikes on a wood support which is spiked to as well. Double spiking if you would, but my speakers are not connected to the floor directly with spikes.

Bent

@michaellent    Please read my previous post.  If the floor is concrete laid on the ground the mass of the Earth will absorb all forces from the speaker via the spikes.  The forces can only bounce back to the speaker if the Earth is moved by those forces.  But as I say the Earth will not be moved because of the huge mass discrepancy between it and the speaker.  It will simply absorb the forces.

Flat dwellers in big modern blocks with concrete frames standing on piles driven into the Earth and concrete floors fixed to the concrete frames will obtain similar benefit.

Putting the speakers on flexible supports that allow the speakers to move will cause far more distortion.  Max has made a lot of money by convincing people otherwise.  Although those with suspended wooden floors are his legitimate customers and there are plenty of them.

My sound studio IS in the basement on a concrete slab. I noticed MASSIVE improvement after separating the speaker from the slab the way I described doing it.  Magic?

Bent

@michaellent , you change the amplitude response of the speaker when you raise it off the floor and you prefer that response. Just as many people are going to think it worse! There are much better ways to deal with amplitude without disconnecting the speaker from the floor. As long as the floor is significantly more massive than the speaker's drivers it is much better to spike the speaker to the floor. This is easy to demonstrate with test signals and a measurement microphone.