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Equipment isolation and vibration damping.


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Perhaps we need to start the "other thread" to commit to the orders, decide how we would pre pay, etc. I'm not in a huge hurry (but others may be) so we may want to give this a little more time for folks to jump in?

 

Go ahead if it makes things easier to track.

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Yes I do. They're under everything in the system. Under all the power supplies too.

That said, I find the effects here more subtle than under the other items--disc transport, converters, line stage, power amps, speakers, and subs.

 

Outside of the speakers and subs, everything--including the power distribution and power supplies--is also isolated in the vertical plane with air bearings.

 

Very good. When I'm done building my AC filter box, I am going to test this as well.

 

Have you also tried to isolate all your cables?

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Very good. When I'm done building my AC filter box, I am going to test this as well.

 

Have you also tried to isolate all your cables?

 

Hi YashN,

 

I did experiment in this regard and did not find any differences I would consider appreciable (to my ears).

Note that my cables are very carefully routed and aside from the speaker cables, none are making contact with anything other than the (isolated) components they are connecting.

 

I know folks have mentioned benefits simply by lifting speaker cables off the floor--not necessarily connected with isolation, just minimizing contact. I've tried this and my ears did not hear any differences. My speaker cables are "flat" ribbons placed on their sides, so only the narrow "end" contacts the floor. Not sure what impact this may or may not have, but lifting them entirely off the floor made no differences that I could discern. Please note I am most definitely *not* saying "There is no difference." (I'm always more than wary of folks who make universal declarations, as if they have access to the experience of others.) Perhaps there is some change that others would hear. I can only report my own experience of course.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

http://www.soundkeeperrecordings.wordpress.com

Barry Diament Audio

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Barry,

 

Thanks for sharing your knowledge so generously on here. I have been doing a little work over here with your ideas and will have something to report by the end of next week.

 

Following the advice of a local audiophile who has been using this principle for his source equipment - I will be using a glass sandwich design as the top plate instead of Al plates. I am getting 6mm glass glued to 4mm glass to start with. Choice of thickness is based on what is easily available here. The next iteration is to use a 3M "film" between the glass plates. This according to my friend provides for a very dead surface on which to place the equipment. The roller balls are going to be his design in the first test. I will be getting the hip joint designs machined next week.

 

Look forward to seeing the results from others on here.

 

Regards.

 

 

 

 

p.s. For those interested in more manageable tubes for the vertical isolation - we have a sport here in India called Tennikoit played much like Frisbee. Instead of a frisbee we use a 6" - 7" rubber tube called a tennikoit. Might just work with a strategic prick of a pin to deflate. Simple scotch tape can be used to reseal the puncture after getting the required tube compliance.

 

Google "tennikoit rings" for listings on Amazon India or Ebay India.

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Barry,

 

Thanks for sharing your knowledge so generously on here. I have been doing a little work over here with your ideas and will have something to report by the end of next week.

 

Following the advice of a local audiophile who has been using this principle for his source equipment - I will be using a glass sandwich design as the top plate instead of Al plates. I am getting 6mm glass glued to 4mm glass to start with. Choice of thickness is based on what is easily available here. The next iteration is to use a 3M "film" between the glass plates. This according to my friend provides for a very dead surface on which to place the equipment. The roller balls are going to be his design in the first test. I will be getting the hip joint designs machined next week.

 

Look forward to seeing the results from others on here.

 

Regards.

 

 

 

 

p.s. For those interested in more manageable tubes for the vertical isolation - we have a sport here in India called Tennikoit played much like Frisbee. Instead of a frisbee we use a 6" - 7" rubber tube called a tennikoit. Might just work with a strategic prick of a pin to deflate. Simple scotch tape can be used to reseal the puncture after getting the required tube compliance.

 

Google "tennikoit rings" for listings on Amazon India or Ebay India.

 

 

Hi Nikhil,

 

I'm glad if my posts are helpful to fellow music and audio enthusiasts.

 

One thing to keep in mind with glass is that it flexes. When used with a heavy component, like an amplifier or loudspeaker, *some* of what should go fully into rolling the ball will go into reshaping the glass.

 

By all means, do try out any ideas that come to mind. I'm simply pointing out something to listen for when you compare the glass with other, harder materials. Once you hear what the isolation does, you can listen for degree. Also, I'd suggest listening for tonality changes. Proper isolation should not involve any change in tonality. If things sound brighter, harder, or more "forward" I would say something is not right.

My own choice was to use dead marble tiles, smooth side down against the roller balls. I have these under 1" plywood platforms to support my speakers and subs, and directly under the lighter electronic components.

 

With air bearings, my experience has been that it is easier to level (balance) a component when the circle described by the air bearing is larger. Some folks use smaller air bearings, sometimes in multiples and then overinflate one or more in order to achieve balance -- but doing this eradicates the isolation, or at the very least results in bloated bass.

 

When I designed my Enjoyyourshelf racks, I considered large components and the large circle any air bearings needed to describe in order to make leveling easier. With the larger shelves and platforms, it is also easier to place components with asymmetrical weight distribution away from dead center in order to make balancing even easier. For example, my amps are heavier on the left side than they are on the right. So, I place them a bit to the right of center on the rack shelf, thus keeping their center *of weight* better balanced atop the air bearing beneath.

 

I'm using 20" x 20" x 1" platforms on shelves large enough to accommodate them. The air bearings are 18" x 1.75" inner tubes. The racks can be seen in the background of the photo below.

 

studio.jpg

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

http://www.soundkeeperrecordings.wordpress.com

Barry Diament Audio

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Barry,

 

Thanks for the information. On the glass - I plan to use the 6mm+4mm glass sandwich for my DAC. IF I do try something for speakers I might go for toughened glass 12mm thick each (12mm + 12mm sandwich) which would be about an inch.

 

I'm betting on the sandwich + film design to counter any flex.

 

Regards.

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Hi sdolezalek,

 

With regard to driver motion from a speaker or sub on roller bearings, my experience has been that with a properly designed roller bearing (resonance in the very low single digits), the bearing does not "see" the speaker or sub. In other words, the expected Newtonian reaction to the driver motion does not happen -- or if it does, it is of such small magnitude as to be audibly insignificant. There is no cancellation of driver motion and no Doppler effect -- not of any significance as far as I can tell. What there *is* is an apparent complete freeing of the speaker (or sub or whatever the component) to perform its best, with the isolated device exhibiting clear, immediate, and obvious improvements in every area of audio (or video) that I know how to describe.

 

Thanks Barry. Yes, I remember seeing this somewhere in your writings and it was a concept that was both very interesting and made some sense. As I would interpret it, a roller bearing would have a frequency range at which its elasticity is maximal and there would be other ranges at which it would function with rigidity, with the idea being that the vibrations we are trying to keep out of the equipment are all at the subsonic (less than 10Hz) level. That, in turn raises two new questions:

 

1. Do we have any frequency plots or similar information for different roller bearings as to what frequencies they actually isolate?

 

2. Everyone seems very focused on creating a very smooth and hard surface for both the bearing and the cup, but what about the contact with the equipment -- does that also need to permit free movement of the ball bearing to be effective?

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Hi Barry, funny we had thus same discussion a yr or two ago. And, I never did find any machinist to make the cups affordable. And those 18" tubes were too big for my stand to fit. So, begrudgingly, I gave it all up.

 

But my system has been so elevated by 1. Moving equip to side wall, 2. Reripped all my PCM music to 32bit floating 192, managed by a Synology 5bay RAID, and lastly an iFi Micro DSD for Dsd/ISO files.

 

Now I'm saturating to feel I should address vibrations again. So I'm thinking of making a couple larger stands to accom the 18" tube, and just try a premade roller ball/cup setup.

 

Anyway, still loving my LIO 8 for PCM and am happy to simply see the topic is still alive and being addressed actively.

 

Take care Barry,

Chris

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2. Everyone seems very focused on creating a very smooth and hard surface for both the bearing and the cup, but what about the contact with the equipment -- does that also need to permit free movement of the ball bearing to be effective?

 

Absolutely.

 

If your equipment doesn't have a smooth bottom surface, then you would need an intermediate layer which isn't susceptible to ringing, and additionally, you will want your equipment to be coupled with that layer.

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So, having the situation where my speakers are textured and not smooth, I plan to use a 3/8" piece of marble as the hard surface. What would be the best way to couple the marble to the bottom of the speaker? Very thin double sided tape? I would prefer it to be temporary of course, and don't want to mar or damage the speaker surface. Any thoughts?

 

Absolutely.

 

If your equipment doesn't have a smooth bottom surface, then you would need an intermediate layer which isn't susceptible to ringing, and additionally, you will want your equipment to be coupled with that layer.

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Thanks Barry. Yes, I remember seeing this somewhere in your writings and it was a concept that was both very interesting and made some sense. As I would interpret it, a roller bearing would have a frequency range at which its elasticity is maximal and there would be other ranges at which it would function with rigidity, with the idea being that the vibrations we are trying to keep out of the equipment are all at the subsonic (less than 10Hz) level. That, in turn raises two new questions:

 

1. Do we have any frequency plots or similar information for different roller bearings as to what frequencies they actually isolate?

 

2. Everyone seems very focused on creating a very smooth and hard surface for both the bearing and the cup, but what about the contact with the equipment -- does that also need to permit free movement of the ball bearing to be effective?

 

Hi sdolezalek,

 

I am not aware of any graphs on different roller bearings. What I've learned in my own reading is that isolation tends to take effect at ~1.4x the resonance of the "spring" so in order to isolate from seismic frequencies, we want the resonance to be as low as possible -- at most, in the low single digits.

 

Further, the steepness of the rolloff above resonance (i.e., the degree of isolation) is inversely proportional to the amount of damping on said resonance. In other words, the steepest rolloff (the most isolation) occurs with the least amount of damping on the "spring."

 

So the ball needs to oscillate as slowly as possible (lowest resonance frequency) and continue rolling for as long as possible (least amount of damping).

 

The ball also needs to roll as easily as possible. This is why it is important to have very hard, very smooth surfaces in contact with the ball. As you surmised, this would include the surface on top of the ball too. Much of the gear I've isolated is not smooth enough on the bottom. Some even has ventilation holes on the bottom of the device. And my speakers do not even have much of a bottom surface but have more of an H-shaped footprint. In these cases, I've found good success using a very hard, very smooth surface between the roller balls and what they support. For most of my gear, this involved finding properly sized, very hard, very smooth, and very dead (non-ringing) marble tiles. I use them with the smooth side down, atop the roller balls. The gear either sits atop the tile on its own feet or, in the case of my speakers and subs, I place a plywood "platform" atop the tile and rest the speaker or sub on the platform.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

http://www.soundkeeperrecordings.wordpress.com

Barry Diament Audio

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Hi Barry, funny we had thus same discussion a yr or two ago. And, I never did find any machinist to make the cups affordable. And those 18" tubes were too big for my stand to fit. So, begrudgingly, I gave it all up.

 

But my system has been so elevated by 1. Moving equip to side wall, 2. Reripped all my PCM music to 32bit floating 192, managed by a Synology 5bay RAID, and lastly an iFi Micro DSD for Dsd/ISO files.

 

Now I'm saturating to feel I should address vibrations again. So I'm thinking of making a couple larger stands to accom the 18" tube, and just try a premade roller ball/cup setup.

 

Anyway, still loving my LIO 8 for PCM and am happy to simply see the topic is still alive and being addressed actively.

 

Take care Barry,

Chris

 

Hi Chris,

 

Good to hear from you! I'm glad you're still loving your LIO-8. I feel the same way about my ULN-8 (which is really the same device).

 

I'm glad to see the topic alive too. When I first found the benefits I wrote an article about them and wondered why this wasn't being shouted from the audio rooftops. Perhaps as folks' systems get better, they are more revealing of the benefits of proper isolation.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

http://www.soundkeeperrecordings.wordpress.com

Barry Diament Audio

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So, having the situation where my speakers are textured and not smooth, I plan to use a 3/8" piece of marble as the hard surface. What would be the best way to couple the marble to the bottom of the speaker? Very thin double sided tape? I would prefer it to be temporary of course, and don't want to mar or damage the speaker surface. Any thoughts?

 

Hi 1markr,

 

I found nice 1/2" tiles to use under my speakers and subs. I use a 1" maple ply platform between the tile and the speaker (maple because I like the appearance - the substance is plywood).

 

What I have found to work very well is the following:

 

1. Once you have the speakers optimally positioned and toed-in, temporarily put some tape on the floor to outline their footprint. Then move the speakers aside for a while.

 

2. Place a trio of roller bearings in the largest equilateral triangle pattern that will fit in each footprint. (I like to leave an inch from the edge for safety.)

 

3. Place the marble tile, smooth side down, atop the roller bearing balls. (Ideally, the tile will match, or be very close to, the size of the speaker's footprint.)

 

4. Place the plywood platform (also, ideally sized to match the speaker's footprint) atop the marble tile.

 

5. Carefully place the speaker atop the plywood. (The platform will "jiggle" if it is working properly.) No adhesive needed. No risk to the speaker's finish.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

http://www.soundkeeperrecordings.wordpress.com

Barry Diament Audio

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Thx Barry!

 

Hi 1markr,

 

I found nice 1/2" tiles to use under my speakers and subs. I use a 1" maple ply platform between the tile and the speaker (maple because I like the appearance - the substance is plywood).

 

What I have found to work very well is the following:

 

1. Once you have the speakers optimally positioned and toed-in, temporarily put some tape on the floor to outline their footprint. Then move the speakers aside for a while.

 

2. Place a trio of roller bearings in the largest equilateral triangle pattern that will fit in each footprint. (I like to leave an inch from the edge for safety.)

 

3. Place the marble tile, smooth side down, atop the roller bearing balls. (Ideally, the tile will match, or be very close to, the size of the speaker's footprint.)

 

4. Place the plywood platform (also, ideally sized to match the speaker's footprint) atop the marble tile.

 

5. Carefully place the speaker atop the plywood. (The platform will "jiggle" if it is working properly.) No adhesive needed. No risk to the speaker's finish.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

www.soundkeeperrecordings.wordpress.com

Barry Diament Audio

Metrum Onyx DAC, Matrix X-SPDIF2 DDC, Snake River Boomslang Digital cable, Verastarr Nemesis USB cable;

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Omega Super Alnico HO Monitors (Cherry finish) / Martin Logan Depth i Subwoofer

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2. Everyone seems very focused on creating a very smooth and hard surface for both the bearing and the cup, but what about the contact with the equipment -- does that also need to permit free movement of the ball bearing to be effective?

 

I have a variation on Barry's method of isolating his speakers. My electrostatics have a 17" x 33" mdf base plate. It has a vinyl coating, but is still too rough, so I got some 4" square smooth glazed tiles. They were only about a $1 each at Home Depot (clearance ?).

 

My setup was a little different since the little tiles wouldn't span the iso devices, so I used a heavy duty, but thin, double stick tape to adhere the rough side of the tiles to the bottom corners of the speaker base plates. Adjusted the location of the bowl blocks/balls on the floor, and tilted the speaker over them. I had to do some adjustment after this, as my carpet makes alignment and visualization difficult, but a 1"x1" stick to lever up the speaker, and a pencil 'feeler', got the job done.

 

I use 4 devices for stability and weight distribution (each speaker is 95 lbs). Once set up you should be able to apply a small lateral force to the sides of the speaker and feel it slide easily over the balls. Obliviously you need to be carefull not to touch the speakers too hard, or they will roll right off the balls, causing lots of aggravation, if not damage. I've been thinking about inexpensive ways to add a protective lip to the tiles (or other device top plate) to constrain the motion to a safe range, but no joy yet.

 

I've found that when using two bowls, one on the bottom, and one on top ("double stack"), the device is very easy to setup and is safely stable. A number of the commercial roller iso. devices use this system. But as Barry has explained a number of times in this thread, that increases the damping significantly and reduces the isolation performance.

 

So, same old story of tradeoffs - performance/cost/practicality. But that's what engineers are for :)

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I've been following this and the other thread on vibration and doing some searching on my own. I came across this site:

Ingress Engineered Products

 

I just ordered a set ($90 with shipping). I'll let you guys know when it arrives. Currently I use 12" innertubes (just because the size fits nicely with the other things--I might go larger later), topped by 3/4" plywood. On top of this I've placed a IKEA bamboo butcher block (aptitlig--17x14x1 1/4"--$14.99). On top of this, I use three valab isolators (sold on ebay--el cheapos but they make my components sound better). These are under my mac mini and under my nad 51 dac.

I'll experiment with replacing the valabs when the ingress isolators come in.

 

I'm surprised though that I haven't come across the aptitlig usage in the CA threads They're mentioned on other sites. The butcher blocks work really well and they're rather inexpensive.

neals

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I've been emailing Mike at Ingress Engineered Products and discussed modifying his current design to have a 1" wide, shallow bowl. Assuming we can get enough people together for a group buy, he could do either $75 for a set of 6 in 6061 or $150 for a set of 6 in 7075 at 10 sets or $130/set at 20 sets. Interest? I'm interested in the 7075 and would go for 6 sets, I have a friend that would go for a bunch also.

 

Barry, if you have something better, let us know now!

AnotherSpin?

 

Please fill me in on why you think 7075 will be better for your requirements? Do they know if either of them have been T5 or T6 heat treated? Check the specific stiffness and mechanical Q (inverse of damping factor) values for those materials. That may help you select.

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Just so everyone knows: the thread titled: "Vibration isolating rollerballs" is the group buy thread for the design that Barry Diament graciously offered to us in Post#30 -- I was hoping he would productize his "version 2" not only for a better sound but also because I would pay extra for signed blocks with low serial numbers (actually seriously :) -- in any case if people want to get in on the group buy there are instructions in the thread -- basically send an email to Ingress and say this is what you want.

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Simply because Barry Diament says 7075 sounds better than 6061 -- that's good enough for me

 

That's not bad reasoning, his recordings show he has good ears. ?

 

The thought is to identify the property that results in the better sound and then find a material that does that better. Aluminum has a pretty high specific stiffness and low damping. I think you want just the opposite. Also, Al in general yields at very low pressure. A ball resting on a nearly flat surface will exert some pretty heavy pressure on that surface.

 

I liked YashN's idea of fluid damping. There are greases heavy enough that you could float an audio component on a plate with it. Remember that bearings work because of the hydrodynamic forces that keep the rollers floating on a film of lube, because they are moving. There is little to no vibration transmission in a hi-end properly designed bearing because of this.

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That's not bad reasoning, his recordings show he has good ears. 

 

The thought is to identify the property that results in the better sound and then find a material that does that better. Aluminum has a pretty high specific stiffness and low damping. I think you want just the opposite. Also, Al in general yields at very low pressure. A ball resting on a nearly flat surface will exert some pretty heavy pressure on that surface.

 

I liked YashN's idea of fluid damping. There are greases heavy enough that you could float an audio component on a plate with it. Remember that bearings work because of the hydrodynamic forces that keep the rollers floating on a film of lube, because they are moving. There is little to no vibration transmission in a hi-end properly designed bearing because of this.

 

I have no doubt that there is more work to be done in this area. Particularly in the vertical damping area.

 

I also have some cheap white porcelain bowls & plates on order -- perhaps these will surprise us. We could look at advanced materials such as Silicon Nitride and I might have a way go get someone to make a set of blocks for me as a special favor but that said, those would not be commercially available at a reasonable price.

 

In any case aluminum has been used for years now and people seem to like it, and its available now. I'm looking at too many variables in other areas and just want to get something in place which is tried and true as a baseline.

 

Maybe you could design a nice magnetic isolation system for us :) ... problem is it would likely be cost prohibitive.

Custom room treatments for headphone users.

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Just so everyone knows: the thread titled: "Vibration isolating rollerballs" is the group buy thread for the design that Barry Diament graciously offered to us in Post#30 -- I was hoping he would productize his "version 2" not only for a better sound but also because I would pay extra for signed blocks with low serial numbers (actually seriously :) -- in any case if people want to get in on the group buy there are instructions in the thread -- basically send an email to Ingress and say this is what you want.

 

Thanks! I've put down for three sets (figured I'd find a way to use all of them). I've sent the e-mail to Mike...

 

John

Positive emotions enhance our musical experiences.

 

Synology DS213+ NAS -> Auralic Vega w/Linear Power Supply -> Auralic Vega DAC (Symposium Jr rollerball isolation) -> XLR -> Auralic Taurus Pre -> XLR -> Pass Labs XA-30.5 power amplifier (on 4" maple and 4 Stillpoints) -> Hawthorne Audio Reference K2 Speakers in MTM configuration (Symposium Jr HD rollerball isolation) and Hawthorne Audio Bass Augmentation Baffles (Symposium Jr rollerball isolation) -> Bi-amped w/ two Rythmic OB plate amps) -> Extensive Room Treatments (x2 SRL Acoustics Prime 37 diffusion plus key absorption and extensive bass trapping) and Pi Audio Uberbuss' for the front end and amplification

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Barry,

 

I'd like your thoughts on using something like Herbie's Gliders under the rack legs and then the roller ball and tire under each item separately?

 

My thought was that Herbie's stuff is pretty linear in the audio range but doesn't go as low as low single digits. However, if one could dampen a little first, there is less overall vibration to address overall. This would also mean the roller ball and tire would really have a smaller range to have to filter before it was already a low "noise" (vibration) floor.

 

Kind of the same logic as power conditioning...have local isolation in the equipment but start by lowering the overall noise floor so it doesn't have to work so hard.

 

This is what I'm doing and I like it but I have trouble A/B testing such things....

 

John

Positive emotions enhance our musical experiences.

 

Synology DS213+ NAS -> Auralic Vega w/Linear Power Supply -> Auralic Vega DAC (Symposium Jr rollerball isolation) -> XLR -> Auralic Taurus Pre -> XLR -> Pass Labs XA-30.5 power amplifier (on 4" maple and 4 Stillpoints) -> Hawthorne Audio Reference K2 Speakers in MTM configuration (Symposium Jr HD rollerball isolation) and Hawthorne Audio Bass Augmentation Baffles (Symposium Jr rollerball isolation) -> Bi-amped w/ two Rythmic OB plate amps) -> Extensive Room Treatments (x2 SRL Acoustics Prime 37 diffusion plus key absorption and extensive bass trapping) and Pi Audio Uberbuss' for the front end and amplification

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My setup was a little different since the little tiles wouldn't span the iso devices, so I used a heavy duty, but thin, double stick tape to adhere the rough side of the tiles to the bottom corners of the speaker base plates.

I think I have similar setting, BUT, after trying to secure tiles with very thin layer of polychlor vinyl glue I found out I do not like the change in sound. So I removed glue, and heavy speakers sit on tiles without anything in between.
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