Stillpoints and reference-level speakers

Thankyou TBG and Tom of star sound technologies,I understand and Believe what is said here now on the settle in period.

An update. The Stillpoints are very good indeed. I can we why they are so popular. They certainly work as advertised. I decided to sell them as I prefer the Apprentice stands. The Stillpoints do sound different folks. The Ultra SS footers still have a more rounded sound in the bass. The imaging can be spooky good at times with sounds appearing out of nowhere and hanging in a 3D space that is spooky cool. They cost $2000 for a set of eight so they better be good and they are.

The Star Sound Apprentice stands cost about half that with 8 of the 1.5 inch Audio Points per stand. The bass is now more apparent and the sound more relaxed as compared to sound with the stands under the speakers for a couple of hours. I must admit I had a hard time believing these things settle in, but they do indeed. The sound is now more natural and unforced.

Most areas of sonic performance are improved with the Apprentice stands as compared to the Stillpoints. Music has more life, energy and dynamic impact. Increased resolution and micro details are readily noticeable. Images are more razor sharp and resolved. Seems to be more decay and sparkle to the music and instruments.

The Stillpoints do this 3D imaging thing better. They are still softer sounding and rounder in the bass. Some will like this for sure.

It has been 48 hours now and I will report back at 72 hours.

Forgot to mention one of the most interesting changes in 48 hours with these Apprentice stands. The bass is much more powerful and forceful as compared to hour 2. More powerful and articulate than the Stillpoints. Again, the Stillpoints seem to give a softer, rounder bass.

The bass is so good with these Star Sound stands....but give it some time. It just shows up after some 36 hours or so and bam! Oh my....very nice indeed. Really it is just like that....boom there it is and the bass comes alive right before my ears. It happened just like that. Strange, but my experience.

My speakers weight 125 pounds each. They are on a carpet and the carpet is over concrete.

I have been experimenting over a number of years to get the best out of my B&W803D/Diamond loudspeakers which are hampered by a suspended wood-frame chipboard floor. The floor is both resonant and energy absorbing. For many years I used a loudspeaker platform made from 28mm laminated hardwood plywood which was bolted to the loudspeaker, and then spiked through the carpet into the floor chipboard.
The wider stance from the platform with inherent stability of the 3 spikes was superior to using the B&W spikes which didn't pierce the carpet, and hence was unstable. This platform tightened the sound - more focused and detailed sound-staging, and tighter bass. Best bang for buck tweak!

More recently tried StillPoints Ultra Fives bolted directly to the loudspeaker which sat on the carpet. This made it obviously very easy to tweak the position of the loudspeaker, but was dangerously unstable (the loudspeakers are tall, relatively narrow, and a bit top heavy). And the sound lost some of it's drive.

I then built a platform from 40mm Bamboo plywood where the StillPoint Ultra Fives bolted to the loudspeaker sat in cut-outs in the platform, and the platform was spiked to the underlying chipwood floor. This was physically stable and it resulted in significant improvement in inner detail over just the spiked platform with no downsides. Critically it made listening to music simply more compelling.

But I was still concerned about the resonant floor impacting the clarity of the bass/mid-bass. And the StillPoints + Platform made tweaking the loudspeaker position very difficult (because the StillPoints Ultra Fives could not be both bolted to the loudspeaker and the platform).
So I got a set of Townsend Seismic Isolation Bars and Pods to replace the spikes. Initially I tried these directly under the loudspeakers. But with a top heavy loudspeaker it resulted in scarily wobbly structure. There was a promising reduction in bass/mid-bass resonance, but sound-stage was a bit diffuse. I then bolted 3 Seismic Pods to the Bamboo platform using L steel brackets so that bottom of the platform was just off the carpet, so if loudspeaker was prodded it wouldn't topple over too far.
Well - this combination of the Townshend Seismic Pods with the StillPoints is excellent - dramatic increase in detail with lovely holographic sound-stage. More clarity through bass/mid-bass. Compared to spiking, the downside is a softening of the leading bass edge and slight reduction in deep bass impact. But on balance a great combination and a keeper.