Best Isolation Device for Speakers?

I have to admit being a bit confused about this subject. I recently replaced the spikes on my Alon Circe's with a set of Walker Valid points and Resonance discs. The discs are sitting on a 3/4 inch piece of MDF which rests on carpet above a wood floor (basement below). The improvement has been substantial, which I attribute to the speaker not vibrating with the floor. In particular, the imaging is more precise and the bass is tighter. Musical details are clearer.

But I've been told different things about whether I should use a maple block below the speaker or a softer wood like redwood or pine. The theory for the latter is that the softer wood would remove more vibrations from the speaker.
Any ideas?

Randy

My listening room is in a late 19th century house with suspended wood floors. The loudspeakers are sited upon 2" thick maple platforms which in turn sit on top of Aurios 1.2s. For a little over $500 it turned out to be a very worthwhile tweak.

Regarding coupling vs. decoupling, I don't see how if I solidly couple any object to another object how "energy" is only drained in one direction. Specifically, if I couple my speakers to the floor and the floor vibrates, then won't some of that vibration get transmitted into the speaker?

It seems to me that coupling might be best for certain applications, and isolating for others. I, too, have a suspended wood floor. In theory, it makes sense to couple the speakers to the floor in order to stabilize the speakers and prevent smearing and distortion of the waves. But since the floor is now vibrating via the speakers, perhaps the rest of the electronics should be isolated. I would think that the floor vibrations would be much more detrimental than the vibrations inherent from the power supply and electronic circuits.

Has anyone tried this approach? I would think that a device like Aurios would create unwanted lateral movement of a speaker backwards with each forward push of the diaphragm. This might lead to a loss of coherence and a detriment to speaker accuracy. And yet, many people writing glowingly of the Aurios.

Can someone help enlighten me?

Rtn1, I honestly don't know why the Aurios work so well under my speakers, I just know that they work. As I said earlier, my house is an old wooden structure with suspended wooden floors. The house vibrates from internal sources (HVAC and stereo) and external sources (I live a half mile from an interstate highway). In addition to the speakers I've placed my entire equipment rack on a maple platform placed on top of Aurios Pros. It's not a huge or dramatic upgrade, but it's definitely worth the money and effort. The Aurios produce a general cleaning up of the sound with a better presentation of low level information.

Rtn1, I also have suspended floor. I have tried both coupling and isolation. For my room, isolation is essential. When vibration from the speakers gets into the floor, a lot of terrible sounding grunge obscures the music. My existing rig sounds very nice, and the difference (compared to bare speakers sitting on floor) is astounding - the largest single improvement I have made to my system.

I started with points, then cones. I was astounded at the improvement these made (over no devices). I could still feel some vibration on the floor.

In effort to isolate further I tried sorbothane pads. Floor vibrated less, sound stage was deeper (than cones or points) background was a bit quieter. Down side is music was smeared somewhat and lacked "PRAT" and excitement.

Convinced that I needed a more linear device than sorbothane, I tried sash springs. Smearing was gone, but not soft enough to decouple - floor still vibrated.

Better that all of these as isolation device (which I have been using for about a year now) are bicycle inner tubes, partially inflated. These float the speaker off the floor, in a manner similar to turntable suspension.

My speakers are fairly heavy (about 100lb) and dead, so coupling is somewhat less important for me. If you need to couple (ground) your speakers *and* isolate them from the soft floor (two oposite concepts) you could try this: Use a heavy, stiff slab or platform (maple, granite, concrete, etc). Ground the speaker to the platform with cones (under speakers), then isolate the platform with innertubes or springs (under the platforms). Down side of innnertubes is you need to re-inflate them every few months, and some design consideration may be required to keep them from being "tippy."

Have fun experimenting, and tell us what worked for you...

Cheers,
Charlie