Stillpoints and reference-level speakers

08-06-14: Tbg
Agear, I guess I've heard about your room from Star Sound. Apparently there will be others soon and I think I will get to hear them. Thus far I have never liked room treatments, although at first I can hear their impact. At some point, I hear their wrong sound and enjoy removing them.

I look forward to reading your description of the techniques and their impact.

I share those sentiments and thus the absence of "treatments" in my room. All the operative elements in my "energy room" are internal. IMO, standard paradigms of room treatment tend to be parasitic of ambient energy and thus lack the plausibility of a good auditory illusion. SS shared this sentiment and thus the reason we danced the dance with this crazy prototype of a room. It all started as idle daydreaming and chatter between Robert and myself over three years ago. I had audiophile friends telling me it was a crazy and expensive experiment. Indeed, but my intuition was correct and it worked.

08-06-14: Tbg
Incidentally, in my experience, four Ultra on everything are much better than three. And this is not subtle.

+ 1. I was blown away by the improvement using 4 Ultra 5's under my Vitus!

08-06-14: Pkoegz
Melbguy1
I find that the footers function better tightly attached to the body of the speaker. The weight of the speaker then settles the ultra 5's to the floor making for an extremely stable, level set up. The adapters, as far as I can tell, are not for any type of adjustment. Christiaan Punter seems to use the bases under amps and such. Stillpoint suggest you will get the same result used in either direction, which makes sense to me. I prefer the threaded. I have the ultra 5's under my turntable and threaded to it. If I were you I would also order the adapters, then try both and decide for yourself. On an unrelated matter I too own the Vitus SIA-025 and love it.

Thanks for your advice Pkoegz regarding connecting the Ultra 5's under Magico speakers. That makes sense because you apply the same principle under an amp for example. In regard to Stillpoints claim the Ultra 5's sound the same sloped side up or down, I don't agree with that. And there is enough forum & review feedback to suggest so. You don't really need to thread the U5's to front end components or amps since they don't generate the same energy as speakers, and aren't at risk of being bumped like speakers. And screwing them into the component limits where you can place the feet. In the case of my SIA-025 Hans Ole Vitus experimented with Ultra 5's under his own SIA-025 and got the best results placing the feet under the screw locations for the psu (which generates the most vibration). Makes sense & works a treat! Try it and post an update :) ps: great amp!

Melbguy1
No more Stillpoints for me I am done at twelve. I have an sra craz rack for my electronics to sit on. Getting ready to retire. I am as close to done as you can get. Just repeating what I read on the Stillpoints web site. I will have to take your word on the subject. Enjoy p.kogan

Pkoegz, SRA rack, wow! Do you find any benefit of using StillPoints on the SRA? If so, I would suggest the Ultra Minis which are exception and cheap. You need to be careful with them, however, as you can shatter the ceramic balls, I'm told.

I am retired now and find that I'm unwilling to miss out on developments at this point in my life. Since my retirement five years ago, my realism has greatly improved making me wish I had it fifty years ago.