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Vibrapods and Speakers

After reading a Soundstage article couple years ago by Greg
Weaver I have been experimenting using vibrapods to decouple
speaker from stand/floor. In the original article Greg was amazed at the improvement in sound of his Von Schweikert speakers when he replaced the cones between the bass cabinet
and mid/high cabinet with vibrapods. I am very impressed using vibrapods on monitor speakers between stand and speaker to decouple speaker. Very noticeable increase in bass extension, more 3D sounding, and richer more natural sound. I will not go back to rigid coupled speaker/stand.
I am now experimenting using large vibrapods for floor standing speakers between speaker/floor. At first you will reject this out of hand because we have been told over and over that speakers should be cone/spike mounted, but I am not so sure. Any other members tried this approach?
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sol322
426 posts
 
The type of floor in your room has to do with this because if it´s suspended it vibrates and the pods isolate this. But if your floor is concrete and you don't live in a heavy traffic area or close to vibration sources it is an advantage to spike. I was using the bladder type for decoupling but have found more detail spiking to my solid tile floor. This is I think similar to what Redkiwi has found. It always depends on your equipment and listening environment been a comlex system what we all deal with considering interactions with environment and gear there are no totally correct alternatives ....
As happens with over dampening a room too much dampening or absorption of vibrations might lead you to less desirable results.
milo
58 posts
 
Dekay, FYI, I do not about Reynaud but Sonus Faber speakers are made in a way that purposely does not eliminate all the cabinet resonances. They claim the sound is more musical for this reason.
jayboard
301 posts
 
My single experience was kind of like Redkiwi's. I use Linn Sekrits, which are monitors but not a normal kind of box. They have a dedicated steel stand that bolts onto the back of the speaker. I tried V'Pods under the stands (suspended hardwood floor) and was really impressed at first. Better, more extended bass. More detail against blacker background. But I took them out about 2-3 weeks later. I had begun to be annoyed by a subtle raggedness in the midrange, which especially got to me when listening to female vocalists. At first, I was puzzled and didn't even think of connecting the problem with the V'Pods, but when it finally struck me to try taking them out, the problem was solved, and I was a happier man, even though I lost the V'Pods' benefits.
j_k
234 posts
 
I have found negative results with vibrapods under my Avalon Accoustics producs. The cones they come with (Rigid) seem to work the best. I think the solid cones provide a more rigid support for the cabinet, hence reducing cabinet resonance. I touch the cabinet and put my ears close to hear what the speaker cabinets are radiating to validate my approach. As with the above posts, I think this is very dependent on environment. Bottom line -- they didn't work for me -- they do wonders under my cheap DVD player for HT.
rcprince
3,079 posts
 
Doug and Redkiwi, it think it was my speaker system that was referred to in the TAS article, if it was Anna Logg's article. I've been using Vibrapods, with some success, under the 180 pound woofer/subwoofer parts of my speaker system, and I've been pleased in that they have made the bass region of my system a little more articulate. Poor things are probably squished, although we did use a lot of them. The main reason I use them instead of spikes, other than to avoid wrecking a nice hardwood floor, is that my living/listening room is a suspended floor, over a 10 foot deep basement. I found spikes made my floor something of a sounding board; the vibrapods have been helpful in decoupling the speakers from the floor. Cheaper than putting additional supports and a beam under the speakers in the basement. If I had a concrete or other non-suspended floor, I would probably use cones of some sort.
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