New wood floors & speaker spikes

[bdiament]

...I think this is why's Barry's concern was vertical energy being transmitted from the floor to the speaker, which is why I was looking at the fundamental frequency of the floor itself (wood versus concrete). Remember that the modulation of the sine wave in the floor slab creates vertical energy...

 

Hi Jabs1542,

 

To be clear, my concern is not vertical energy but energy in the *horizontal* (and rotational) plane(s), ground borne vibrations being primarily horizontal in nature (vide "P waves").

 

I'm not concerned at all about energy from the speaker, only energy entering the speaker from the ground. (The reason, as I stated earlier, is that if the speaker energizes the floor sufficiently to be of audible concern, I'd be more worried about the floor that can be so easily flexed collapsing than the audio.)

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

The Soundkeeper | Audio, Music, Recording, Playback

Barry Diament Audio

[Jabs1542]

Sorry, when you said floor up to speaker I couldn't imagine any horizontal displacement (or energy) the floor would be passing to the speakers unless there was some seismic activity. I do see the decoupling of lateral energy due to your isolation technique and (though I haven't seen it) I understand the additional decoupling of vertical energy on your components with the air bladders.

 

I would imagine if you had some sensitive accelerometers capturing all 3 axis on the floor of your studio you would find that if there were any readings those in the vertical (z axis) would be higher and that the resulting vector would be close to straight up. This would be an interesting measurement... I wonder if I can come up with something.

 

Coming clean on all of this. Measuring and understanding this would be a bit self serving, my listening room is a simply supported wooden floor (I beams on 14" centers) on the third level of the house. My turn table sits on a Ginko Cloud isolation deck just so I can walk in the room while playing an album. If I'm sitting and listening to music I can feel my mid size dog when he runs to the window behind me. This begs the question, how much of that deep bass I can feel is getting transmitted into the floor? and then how much of that energy is getting sent back to my gear? So I'm thinking the biggest energy transfer is floor excitation (modal excitation) that creates vertical motion.

[edo]

Don't suppose you have tried putting your brass weights under your speaker spikes?

(speakers sitting on the brass weights)

Would be interesting to hear your thoughts if you have..

Why, yes I did:

I really wanted this to work because it looked a lot nicer and was more stable but it just sounds better isolated than spiked to the floor. There is more separation of instruments and punchier bass. Spiking it to the floor kind of smooths all the sound together and muddies it all up. Oh well, that leaves more brass for me to drain my electronics into more isolated maple platforms.

[bdiament]

Sorry, when you said floor up to speaker I couldn't imagine any horizontal displacement (or energy) the floor would be passing to the speakers unless there was some seismic activity...

 

Hi Jabs1542,

 

Exactly, seismic vibrations.

The ground conducts vibrations from all sorts of actions, some natural in origin, some the result of human endeavor.

 

As I wrote long ago in my article on the subject:

I'm still having a bit of trouble accepting that the ocean tide or the wind or a truck changing gears 1/4 mile away has such a profound effect on the performance of my audio and video gear. What I have no trouble with is the results of isolating my gear from these effects. The performance gains in every parameter I can think of are clear, consistent and repeatable.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

The Soundkeeper | Audio, Music, Recording, Playback

Barry Diament Audio

[Encore]

Hi Jabs1542,

 

Exactly, seismic vibrations.

The ground conducts vibrations from all sorts of actions, some natural in origin, some the result of human endeavor.

 

As I wrote long ago in my article on the subject:

I'm still having a bit of trouble accepting that the ocean tide or the wind or a truck changing gears 1/4 mile away has such a profound effect on the performance of my audio and video gear. What I have no trouble with is the results of isolating my gear from these effects. The performance gains in every parameter I can think of are clear, consistent and repeatable.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

The Soundkeeper | Audio, Music, Recording, Playback

Barry Diament Audio

 

I guess I’m also having trouble accepting that ocean tide or wind can have such an impact ;-) Do we know for certain that the benefits of the hip joints/bicycle tube system is the isolation at sub-audio band frequencies? Could it be that because of the low resonance frequency and the high Q that once we reach the audio frequencies, this system simply gives so much better isolation than any other isolation device?

 

Again, I’m not doubting the sonic benefits of the hip joints.

[Encore]

Jens - Remember that the drivers on the speaker are firing in a horizontal direction and Barry's solution essentially decouples the speakers from the floor in the horizontal direction. If the bowl were a flat plate and the bearings were utopia frictionless then there would be zero transmitted energy in the horizontal direction.

 

Yes, you're right, I overlooked that. That will create a vertical force component also. I think that at very low frequencies of speaker oscillation, say 1 Hz, this will not lead to any deformation of the floor, and thus no mechanical wave will be transferred from the floor/hip joint contact point. With higher frequencies, though, I suspect that some vibration may be transferred to the floor. Which would make the system a high pass filter when viewed from speaker to floor.

[Jabs1542]

I guess I’m also having trouble accepting that ocean tide or wind can have such an impact ;-) Do we know for certain that the benefits of the hip joints/bicycle tube system is the isolation at sub-audio band frequencies? Could it be that because of the low resonance frequency and the high Q that once we reach the audio frequencies, this system simply gives so much better isolation than any other isolation device?

 

Again, I’m not doubting the sonic benefits of the hip joints.

 

Actually Barry has a legitimate concern here (I had no idea he was really concerned with seismic loading - I had missed that somewhere). Any energy that got produced some distance way yet made it to his place, where he could feel it, is almost all lateral movement. Note that vertical movement in soil, like a sine wave, requires a fairly thick clay stratum. Usually beach areas have little clay (he mentioned ocean tide) and the resulting force vector that gets transferred has a very small / insignificant vertical component.

[Jud]

Hi Jabs1542,

 

Exactly, seismic vibrations.

The ground conducts vibrations from all sorts of actions, some natural in origin, some the result of human endeavor.

 

As I wrote long ago in my article on the subject:

I'm still having a bit of trouble accepting that the ocean tide or the wind or a truck changing gears 1/4 mile away has such a profound effect on the performance of my audio and video gear. What I have no trouble with is the results of isolating my gear from these effects. The performance gains in every parameter I can think of are clear, consistent and repeatable.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

The Soundkeeper | Audio, Music, Recording, Playback

Barry Diament Audio

 

I think if you've followed discussions on "fracking" you will not be surprised at the distances that disturbances travel through the ground and underground formations. In places like Europe and the eastern part of the US it is a wonder we don't notice things like vibrations from traffic more.

 

There was a classical radio station in Chicago that built a broadcast studio consisting of an underground concrete room suspended within another concrete room, specifically to try to ameliorate both ground borne vibration and airborne noise.

[beanbag]

Not seeing how ground vibrations getting into a speaker are a problem. They are both very small in amplitude and infrequent.

 

My guess is that the real effect this isolation has is to let the drivers vibrate the cabinet of the speaker, especially at low frequencies. It might damp out some cabinet resonances. I would expect low freq behavior to be slightly changed, and not much change at high freq.

 

I don't think the hip joints have very low damping. (I don't use this product, but I'd guess that if you pushed on the speaker, it wouldn't oscillate more than a few cycles. ) (If you wanted really low damping, you'd use something like a hanging platform.) Also keep in mind that less damping = better high frequency isolation, but along with a big resonance peak.

[bdiament]

Yes, you're right, I overlooked that. That will create a vertical force component also. I think that at very low frequencies of speaker oscillation, say 1 Hz, this will not lead to any deformation of the floor, and thus no mechanical wave will be transferred from the floor/hip joint contact point. With higher frequencies, though, I suspect that some vibration may be transferred to the floor. Which would make the system a high pass filter when viewed from speaker to floor.

 

Hi Jens,

 

It is a low-pass filter, in both directions.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

The Soundkeeper | Audio, Music, Recording, Playback

Barry Diament Audio

[miguelito]

I think if you've followed discussions on "fracking" you will not be surprised at the distances that disturbances travel through the ground and underground formations. In places like Europe and the eastern part of the US it is a wonder we don't notice things like vibrations from traffic more.

 

There was a classical radio station in Chicago that built a broadcast studio consisting of an underground concrete room suspended within another concrete room, specifically to try to ameliorate both ground borne vibration and airborne noise.

I once visited a recording studio in Chicago. It was in a tall floor in a building on Wabash. The subway run underneath (possibly 300ft below us). Still you could feel the low frequency (~10Hz) vibration of the subway propagating up the building. It was all the more noticeable in the recording booth, which was eerily quiet.

[miguelito]

Also, I have been refraining, but I have to make this remark... From a scientific standpoint all of these discussions make sense, it is interesting to understand harmonics of the different structures, construction materials, etc, but frankly there's little control most people will have over this. Of much, much higher importance are:

1- Room acoustics (especially bass standing waves and related to this the material on the walls)

2- Sitting position in the room

3- First reflections

4- Careful speaker placement

 

Assuming some basic proper speaker grounding or suspension, all of the above will have far more of an impact than pretty much anything else.

[Deaf Cat]

Why, yes I did:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15422[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]15423[/ATTACH]I really wanted this to work because it looked a lot nicer and was more stable but it just sounds better isolated than spiked to the floor. There is more separation of instruments and punchier bass. Spiking it to the floor kind of smooths all the sound together and muddies it all up. Oh well, that leaves more brass for me to drain my electronics into more isolated maple platforms.

 

Hmmm interesting, when I had laminate floor I had my spikes on brass to protect the floor, and it sounded good, ( a little happy top end as a hard floor, hard walls etc.) now I am back with carpet and wall paper (less room reflections :-) and so have spiked through to the floor boards, maybe I will have to try some isolation, like yours! just to experiment :-)

Thanks for sharing the pics

 

Cheers

dc

[Jabs1542]

Also, I have been refraining, but I have to make this remark... From a scientific standpoint all of these discussions make sense, it is interesting to understand harmonics of the different structures, construction materials, etc, but frankly there's little control most people will have over this. Of much, much higher importance are:

1- Room acoustics (especially bass standing waves and related to this the material on the walls)

2- Sitting position in the room

3- First reflections

4- Careful speaker placement

 

Assuming some basic proper speaker grounding or suspension, all of the above will have far more of an impact than pretty much anything else.

 

I would agree with this, our discussions about earth movements are down to the point of diminishing returns. Barry may be an exception because he has probably mastered all 4 points above and actually has an external source that causes concern - not that many of the contributors to these forums haven't mastered all 4 points as well. Jud also brings up a good point of growing local sonic pollution.

 

However, any newbies reading this needs to understand the 4 points you make as being paramount first. I think Barry's Hip Joint isolation platforms started all of this and isolation in general would probably be on everyone's list if the list were continued down the chain (say 7 or 8 points rather than 4).

[Paul R]

I would agree with this, our discussions about earth movements are down to the point of diminishing returns. Barry may be an exception because he has probably mastered all 4 points above and actually has an external source that causes concern - not that many of the contributors to these forums haven't mastered all 4 points as well. Jud also brings up a good point of growing local sonic pollution.

 

However, any newbies reading this needs to understand the 4 points you make as being paramount first. I think Barry's Hip Joint isolation platforms started all of this and isolation in general would probably be on everyone's list if the list were continued down the chain (say 7 or 8 points rather than 4).

 

Well, maybe. But a set of Hip Joints under the speakers works wonders- even with a concrete slab. The only suspicious culprit I can thing of is seismic vibration. They make a huge difference.

[LBob]

I've found these...

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15312[/ATTACH]

...to be the best things sonically.

 

Ideally the 1981 version as shown though at a push 2006 will do sonically. Always ensure the same generation is used under each spike of a speaker though.

 

I'll sell you these at a bargain price of £5 per disc for random age ... a matched set of 4 for £15 or enough for 2 speakers for a bargain price of £25. Payment via paypal (all fees and worldwide postage included) :-)

 

Eloise

 

Do you find sonic differences between heads and tails?