Speaker Spikes questions

[mushroomgod]

At the moment I have my 685s on pretty old, pretty cheap speaker stands which I plan to upgrade at some pount (any recomendations?)

My question is this..currently the stands have spikes that travel though the carper/underlay and sit on the concrete base below. I have some little pucks/disks that came with the stands so that the spikes could sit in them, I currently do not use these. in my situation is it recomended to use them, is spikes on concrete a good idea?

Also... another question.. With my speakers came some foam bungs (i dunno what they are called) I know that by fitting them to my speaker it adjusts the sound, but can anyone give me a technical reason why this is, and what to expect if I ever do fit them.

I know in both of th above I could simply try it and see, but Im not to sure what im listening for, and you guys are way more knowledgeable than me 😉

 

[aliEnRIK]

I have a concrete floor and my speakers sound FAR better on the plinths ive made for them (So the spikes are spiked into some wood)

I dont think the 'discs' would make any difference of note but certainly making your own solid plinth would (I have a flag blutacked to the floor. A block of wood blu tacked to the flag and the speaker on top)

Its all about making the speaker as rigid as possible

 

[Anonymous]

The pucks / disks are used mainly to protect the floor underneath. If thats not important to you the put the spikes direct on the floor.

 

[mushroomgod]

aliEnRIK:
I have a concrete floor and my speakers sound FAR better on the plinths ive made for them (So the spikes are spiked into some wood)

I dont think the 'discs' would make any difference of note but certainly making your own solid plinth would (I have a flag blutacked to the floor. A block of wood blu tacked to the flag and the speaker on top)

Its all about making the speaker as rigid as possible

Thats intresting....So, if I was to find/cut a nice peace of wood, say 3mm thick or so, bluetac it to the concreate floor under the carpet, cover it with the carpet and them place my speakers on that, that will help make them pretty rigid I would think?

My current speaker stands dont quite sit on the concreate floor to well, theres a bit of rock in them, and while they are made of metal they are not to heavy (I cant fill them)... Saying that though, they do sound pretty good, but it would be nice if they sounded better 🙂

 

[chebby]

aliEnRIK:
I have a concrete floor and my speakers sound FAR better on the plinths ive made for them (So the spikes are spiked into some wood)

I dont think the 'discs' would make any difference of note but certainly making your own solid plinth would (I have a flag blutacked to the floor. A block of wood blu tacked to the flag and the speaker on top)

Its all about making the speaker as rigid as possible

Hi. I have my floorstanders spiked straight through onto a concrete floor too and I cannot understand how this could be made more rigid by introducing a couple of extra 'layers' - as you have described - with flagstone, blu-tack, wood etc.

It sounds counter-intuitive that such a 'sandwich' between a solid concrete floor and the speaker can be be more rigid than just the floor itself as a platform. I would understand using the flagstone if one had a suspended wood floor/floorboards.

Can you outline the 'physics' or structural thinking behind your approach to help me understand? Thanks.

In civil engineering (modern towers especially in earthquake zones and places prone to typhoons) and even with washing machine/ spin dryers there is justification for placing a heavy weight at the top of the 'structure' for added stability and to 'tune out' unwanted oscillations but it is not done for rigidity.

Perhaps we should try blu-tacking flagstones to the tops of our loudspeakers

 

[floyd droid]

At last,thankyou chebby. I have read through numerous threads over the past god knows how long, totaly bemused by this ' go lemmings go' approach to stuffing half a granite quarry under loudspeakers. I touched on this in thread a while ago but it went up in the ether. Yup mine are spiked through carpet onto a solid concrete floor. The hessian backing of the carpet grips around the spikes just nicely. No wobble Rock solid Going nowhere, job done. For bare wood / laminate floors, why not just ditch the spikes and use glides or lumps of sorbothane ( its sticky too ) job done. Rant over.

 

[mushroomgod]

It seems to me (and clearly Im only guessing!!) that currently, even though the spikes are cutting though carpet to sit on the conceate below that there not really stuck on place, there a degree of movment - this could be because the stands are old and cheap, it could be because my floor underneath the carpet is not flat, or maybe quite rough. But they dont really feel solid against the floor.

Which is why ( to me atleast) letting it sit on a peace of wood, thats bonded to the concreate (bluetac or similar) makes a little sence. Ofcourse, maybe simply buying better speaker stands might help too 🙂

 

[Andrew Everard]

I wouldn't bother with wood beneath the carpet: you'll do best with the spikes through the carpet onto the concrete floor. Adjust the spike lengths to take out any rocking - that's why the spikes have lock-nuts on them - and then, with the speakers off the stands, put both hands on the top-plate of the stand and push down as hard as you can, putting the maximum body weight on the stand to bed it in place.

Replace the speakers, job's a good 'un.

 

[Anonymous]

I read on a forum that granite offcuts placed directly on the floor are supposed to be good ... can be obtained from shops that fit/sell kitchen units ... apparantly you can buy the offcuts that have been cut from tops that are made for the kitchen sink ... approx 30mm thick and apparantly very cheap

not sure if it changes/alters the sound produced but do know some sellers on ebay are selling similar for £120+

 

[Anonymous]

I have slabs under mine BUT I have suspended wooden floors. If you have concrete you shouldnt need anything. The concrete is solid enough.

 

[aliEnRIK]

chebby:aliEnRIK:
I have a concrete floor and my speakers sound FAR better on the plinths ive made for them (So the spikes are spiked into some wood)

I dont think the 'discs' would make any difference of note but certainly making your own solid plinth would (I have a flag blutacked to the floor. A block of wood blu tacked to the flag and the speaker on top)

Its all about making the speaker as rigid as possible

Can you outline the 'physics' or structural thinking behind your approach to help me understand? Thanks.

yep ~ steel spikes 'spiked' into wood make for a more rigid column then stood 'on' a concrete floor (Push as you might, theres no way in hell your going to 'spike' concrete sucessfully)

So im going to ask you a question now ~ are you saying im lying?

 

[floyd droid]

This would be how i'd go about it if i had a suspended floor,fwiw.

Mdf or hdf if you can get hold of some, cut to required rectangle. The clue is the 'd' in mdf. Screw in thread inserts (cheap as chips from screwfix or whatever). Can of gloss black plasticote spray paint. And a couple of accoustic damping panels from Deflex or any other supplier. Drill your holes,screw in the inserts,spray em up,in with the spikes,on the deck,spirit level,accoustic panel in position,on with speaker (no spikes). Cheap as chips plinths with built in vibe absorbsion,done.

Edit, carpeted suspended floor.

 

[Andrew Everard]

aliEnRIK:So im going to ask you a question now ~ are you saying im lying?

Hey, calm down now.

Fact remains that the block of wood is still going to be 'floating' on the floor, and not as good a mechanical ground as spikes in direct contact with the concrete.

 

[aliEnRIK]

mushroomgod:aliEnRIK:
I have a concrete floor and my speakers sound FAR better on the plinths ive made for them (So the spikes are spiked into some wood)

I dont think the 'discs' would make any difference of note but certainly making your own solid plinth would (I have a flag blutacked to the floor. A block of wood blu tacked to the flag and the speaker on top)

Its all about making the speaker as rigid as possible

Thats intresting....So, if I was to find/cut a nice peace of wood, say 3mm thick or so, bluetac it to the concreate floor under the carpet, cover it with the carpet and them place my speakers on that, that will help make them pretty rigid I would think?

My current speaker stands dont quite sit on the concreate floor to well, theres a bit of rock in them, and while they are made of metal they are not to heavy (I cant fill them)... Saying that though, they do sound pretty good, but it would be nice if they sounded better 🙂

Most concrete floors are not that thick and are prone to 'some' vibration. I can only speak from my own experiences, but yes ~ it will probably be better and certainly no worse (Assuming the woods ok)

Clearly from the responses above it looks like everyone disagrees with me, but then im going to hazard a guess NONE of them have actually tried it (Seems to be a recurring theme this)

One other thing ~ it takes time for the speakers (stands) to 'bed into' the wood (Meaning it will probably sound a little worse for a while)

 

[chebby]

aliEnRIK:
yep ~ steel spikes 'spiked' into wood make for a more rigid column then stood 'on' a concrete floor (Push as you might, theres no way in hell your going to 'spike' concrete sucessfully)

So im going to ask you a question now ~ are you saying im lying?

With a little patience the spikes can be adjusted such that there is no rocking at all (on concrete). Takes a couple of minutes per speaker and that is it job done.

Back when I had suspended wood floors, it was a pain doing this because - as stable as you got them at the beginning - that 'bedding in' that you mentioned would result in them rocking and requiring adjustment again within months.

Wood changes it's dimensions throughout the year - depending upon temperature and humidity - by as much as 5 percent (in terms of it's volume not length or width) and not always uniformly. Wood also varies in density/hardness even within a small area of the same wood. Concrete does not behave this way. At least ours doesn't.

In the end (on our old wooden floors), I started locating the spike tips onto philips head wood screws and adjusting those instead. It was quicker and neater. I also took care to make sure the speakers were located on top of joists for a bit of extra rigidity and took care to make sure equipment racks were on top of different joists to minimise any vibrational feedback. (The turntable went on a wall mounted platform.) Yes I did try the flags - between speakers and wooden floor - for a while because it was effective in stopping bass 'bleeding' through to the property beneath us with one particular pair of floorstanders I had once. With stand-mounts it was not necessary. That 'isolation' was already provided.

I am sad you had to ask if I was calling you a liar. I just wanted to know how a sandwich of flagstone, wood and blu-tack on a concrete floor could structurally be more rigid as a platform than just the concrete floor alone.

 

[aliEnRIK]

Its structurally more rigid because the floor actually 'vibrates' (Especially when there is thunderous bass present) in my house. We even have solid concrete floors at work with multi million pound machines on them. We cut out areas where the machines are to go and fill in approx 3 meters of solid concrete held together with steel rods and they STILL vibrate under a heavy enough 'cut'. Anyways, back at my house ~ The blutack and wood removes some of the vibration and the reason its on a flag at all is because it was simply moved from another house with a wooden floor and I couldnt be bothered to sort it out for this new one. Its true that a standmount speaker wont have much vibration running through the stand to the floor but theres certainly no harm in giving it a go (I simply had some spare wood knocking about and made some plinths in about an hour). The end result in my experiment was certainly a more composed, detailed and weighty sound than sat directly onto the concrete. I cant say for sure that this would equate to something better sounding in all possible permutations of houses and speakers but its certainly worth a try surely? At the end of the day I stand by what I say ~ make the speaker as 'rigid' as possible (Simply stood on a concrete floor does 'allow' vibration back and forth unlike being spiked into wood where it cant move in any direction at all)

Sorry about the 'liar' comment but the way you started to describe how structual engineers worked made it seem like you thought I was talking garbage (Plus a speaker sat on a floor is hardly the same as brick and stone structures)

 

[Craig M.]

i read on another forum (gasp) from someone who really does seem to know his onions that your average bass driver, in your average standmount exerts less then 10g of forward and backward motion. i would have thought that if the spikes were levelled correctly then it really wouldn't matter, as compared to the weight of the speaker and stand 10g is nothing. and none of that is aimed at rik, so no-one needs to be offensive.

 

[aliEnRIK]

Craig M.:i read on another forum (gasp) from someone who really does seem to know his onions that your average bass driver, in your average standmount exerts less then 10g of forward and backward motion. i would have thought that if the spikes were levelled correctly then it really wouldn't matter, as compared to the weight of the speaker and stand 10g is nothing. and none of that is aimed at rik, so no-one needs to be offensive.

If that were entirely true then I wouldnt be able to feel the floor when bass is thundering out my speakers surely?

EDIT

And if it were true then the weight of the speaker alone would make it solid and therefore speaker stands etc wouldnt be needed to keep the speaker from moving (Something of which was tested by WHF in the latest issue)

 

[Anonymous]

My little pea of a brain seems to think that if the wood / slab idea stops the concrete floor from from vibrating then in order to do so it has to move / vibrate to absorb the energy. So... if it moves how can it be called rigid. An explaination would be helpful in understanding whats going on.

EDIT

Wondering if there is a confusion between mechanical vibration and resonance.........