Can we talk about floors?

[Purite Audio]

Keith its the bass sound from the speakers that make stuff vibrate .. My Giyas are dead still to the touch but my floor , walls and ceiling resonate ..

Then you need to add more mass to your walls , to bring the resonant frequency down.
Keith

 

[GaryProtein]

Keith its the bass sound from the speakers that make stuff vibrate .. My Giyas are dead still to the touch but my floor , walls and ceiling resonate ..

I had to add rubber and felt cushions on the back side of all the paintings and art work hung on the walls because the frames on the artwork vibrated against the wall when the resonant tones were played. My walls are very strong.

 

[Folsom]

I had to add rubber and felt cushions on the back side of all the paintings and art work hung on the walls because the frames on the artwork vibrated against the wall when the resonant tones were played. My walls are very strong.

Same here. I ran around with these after my recent move, finding lots of things to use them with. Strangely I have one piece of art that doesn't move at all, but it's pretty heavy.

 

[DaveC]

I had to add rubber and felt cushions on the back side of all the paintings and art work hung on the walls because the frames on the artwork vibrated against the wall when the resonant tones were played. My walls are very strong.

It's best to decouple the speaker to prevent these issues. While one may enjoy the "tactile fee" of the floor vibrating it muddies up the midrange pretty badly. But there is also plenty of coupling to the air (and hence sound!) so things will still vibrate and you get good tactile impact still, it just prevents the floor from vibrating, which ime is ALWAYS a good thing. Once you've experienced good decoupling you'll never go back to coupled speakers (spiked to the floor). Decoupling from the floor usually results in about 50-60% less bass vibration transmitted into your floor/walls and correspondingly less sympathetic vibration from window frames, paintings, etc...

Also, Stillpoints aren't just a simple cup and ball, there are 2 layers of bearings and a delrin collar inside that does dissipate vibration, still points (and other cup/ball devices) DECOUPLE. The ball does what people mistakenly think spikes do, offer a small surface area with low friction plus a cup that dissipates vibration. Spikes, otoh, dig into the surface they are sitting on, effectively creating an interface with unlimited "friction" and complete coupling. There are some instances when coupling is what you want, but not often.

As of yesterday, I have all the parts in to make low-profile speaker decoupling feet out of two layers of stainless steel/carbon fiber with ceramic ball bearings in between, which will be in their own polished pockets in the stainless steel. This will make for a constrained layer damper with ZERO friction (for all practical purposes) between the layers. This should work well for people who want to decouple but don't want to raise the speakers up too much, an issue with Stillpoints and IsoAcoustics solutions...

One of the issues with many decoupling solutions is energy storage, which causes distortion as the stored energy is released (audibly) out of time with the music. This is why it's possible to "overdamp" some audio components and how damping can suck the life out of a piece of equipment, it's all because of excessive energy storage. This is why people are going away from Sorbothane, as effective as it is energy storage is a downside... That's why my solution is using very hard materials and no viscoelastic materials, although there is likely to be one thin layer of high density viscoelastic material, felt or wood between the feet and floor/speaker in the solution I'm working on.

 

[Purite Audio]

It's best to decouple the speaker to prevent these issues. While one may enjoy the "tactile fee" of the floor vibrating it muddies up the midrange pretty badly. But there is also plenty of coupling to the air (and hence sound!) so things will still vibrate and you get good tactile impact still, it just prevents the floor from vibrating, which ime is ALWAYS a good thing. Once you've experienced good decoupling you'll never go back to coupled speakers (spiked to the floor). Decoupling from the floor usually results in about 50-60% less bass vibration transmitted into your floor/walls and correspondingly less sympathetic vibration from window frames, paintings, etc...

Also, Stillpoints aren't just a simple cup and ball, there are 2 layers of bearings and a delrin collar inside that does dissipate vibration, still points (and other cup/ball devices) DECOUPLE. The ball does what people mistakenly think spikes do, offer a small surface area with low friction plus a cup that dissipates vibration. Spikes, otoh, dig into the surface they are sitting on, effectively creating an interface with unlimited "friction" and complete coupling. There are some instances when coupling is what you want, but not often.

As of yesterday, I have all the parts in to make low-profile speaker decoupling feet out of two layers of stainless steel/carbon fiber with ceramic ball bearings in between, which will be in their own polished pockets in the stainless steel. This will make for a constrained layer damper with ZERO friction (for all practical purposes) between the layers. This should work well for people who want to decouple but don't want to raise the speakers up too much, an issue with Stillpoints and IsoAcoustics solutions...

One of the issues with many decoupling solutions is energy storage, which causes distortion as the stored energy is released (audibly) out of time with the music. This is why it's possible to "overdamp" some audio components and how damping can suck the life out of a piece of equipment, it's all because of excessive energy storage. This is why people are going away from Sorbothane, as effective as it is energy storage is a downside... That's why my solution is using very hard materials and no viscoelastic materials, although there is likely to be one thin layer of high density viscoelastic material, felt or wood between the feet and floor/speaker in the solution I'm working on.

Afraid not ,all cup and ball devices directly couple in the vertical plane, depending upon ball and race diameter there may be some lateral movement, but vertically it is the same as a spike.
Keith.
Your last paragraph is also just wrong, Sorbothane is an open cell rubber ,energy is not stored and 'audible' come on!

 

[PeterA]

As of yesterday, I have all the parts in to make low-profile speaker decoupling feet out of two layers of stainless steel/carbon fiber with ceramic ball bearings in between, which will be in their own polished pockets in the stainless steel. This will make for a constrained layer damper with ZERO friction (for all practical purposes) between the layers. This should work well for people who want to decouple but don't want to raise the speakers up too much, an issue with Stillpoints and IsoAcoustics solutions...

One of the issues with many decoupling solutions is energy storage, which causes distortion as the stored energy is released (audibly) out of time with the music. This is why it's possible to "overdamp" some audio components and how damping can suck the life out of a piece of equipment, it's all because of excessive energy storage. This is why people are going away from Sorbothane, as effective as it is energy storage is a downside... That's why my solution is using very hard materials and no viscoelastic materials, although there is likely to be one thin layer of high density viscoelastic material, felt or wood between the feet and floor/speaker in the solution I'm working on.

Dave, if there is zero friction between the layers, wouldn't the speakers slide all over the place when playing music? Don't the polished pockets in the stainless steel provide friction/resistance when the balls roll up against the side of the pocket, just like the ball/cup scenario allows for movement depending on the diameters of the ball and cup? I have always been under the impression that one does not want the speaker cabinet to move or wobble while the drivers are moving. How will your system prevent movement if there is "zero friction between the layers"?

 

[DaveC]

Afraid not ,all cup and ball devices directly couple in the vertical plane, depending upon ball and race diameter there may be some lateral movement, but vertically it is the same as a spike.
Keith.
Your last paragraph is also just wrong, Sorbothane is an open cell rubber ,energy is not stored and 'audible' come on!

Like normal, you are completely misguided and wrong about everything you're saying. This seems to be a trend...

Maybe you should actually look at the design of Stillpoints devices before making egregiously incorrect comments. Look at it! the red collar is made of delrin, I believe, and the wedge on top drives the ball bearings into the delrin collar. There is no coupling going on here, this is a DECOUPLING device!



In other ball and cup isolation devices the cup is made of viscoelastic material, look at Herbie's Audio Lab products... this is a DECOUPLING device!

And you obviously don't understand the concept of energy storage, just like you didn't understand mechanical impedance, or pretty much anything else. It's fine you don't understand, not everyone has the aptitude for engineering... but most people who don't have this kind of aptitude understand their own limitations, but you are clueless yet you think you know everything. You form strong opinions based on misunderstandings and incomplete information. It's a bit ridiculous to be honest.

 

[DaveC]

Dave, if there is zero friction between the layers, wouldn't the speakers slide all over the place when playing music? Don't the polished pockets in the stainless steel provide friction/resistance when the balls roll up against the side of the pocket, just like the ball/cup scenario allows for movement depending on the diameters of the ball and cup? I have always been under the impression that one does not want the speaker cabinet to move or wobble while the drivers are moving. How will your system prevent movement if there is "zero friction between the layers"?

Resistance due to gravity but NOT friction. There's a big difference! That really is the key concept at work here, and is has to do with the fact friction always has some amount of "stiction" that is very undesirable in this application. My design basically eliminates stiction, which is always more than friction when the surfaces are already in relative motion. It's the extra push you need to exert to start something sliding on a floor that's a larger force than required to simply maintain the sliding motion.

Also, the concept that the speaker must be firmly anchored in space is totally wrong. Otherwise IsoAcoustics stands wouldn't work at all, yet there is almost unanimous agreement that they work well from everyone who has tried them. These stands basically "float" the speaker. I've heard arguemnts from those fairly clueless that you lose bass, blah, blah, blah... It's true but completely insignificant. My 15" woofer cabinet weighs well over 100 lbs and the moving mass doesn't even weigh 1/4 lb. If you want to go through the math you'll find the speaker cabinet really doesn't need to be firmly anchored to anything at all, in fact it's far better that way if you actually try it.

 

[Purite Audio]

Like normal, you are completely misguided and wrong about everything you're saying. This seems to be a trend...

Maybe you should actually look at the design of Stillpoints devices before making egregiously incorrect comments. Look at it! the red collar is made of delrin, I believe, and the wedge on top drives the ball bearings into the delrin collar. There is no coupling going on here, this is a DECOUPLING device!



In other ball and cup isolation devices the cup is made of viscoelastic material, look at Herbie's Audio Lab products... this is a DECOUPLING device!

And you obviously don't understand the concept of energy storage, just like you didn't understand mechanical impedance, or pretty much anything else. It's fine you don't understand, not everyone has the aptitude for engineering... but most people who don't have this kind of aptitude understand their own limitations, but you are clueless yet you think you know everything. You form strong opinions based on misunderstandings and incomplete information. It's a bit ridiculous to be honest.

Well of course you are an 'engineer' or so you would have us believe, my only source of knowledge is spending time with the engineers from Speirs & Robertson who manufacturer isolation equipment for laboratories all over the world .
Explain to me how Delrin is going to absorb vibration?
Metal on metal on hard plastic where is the absorbtion perhaps if you actually thought rather than trotting out manufacturers sales material?
Keith.

 

[DaveC]

Well of course you are an 'engineer' or so you would have us believe, my only source of knowledge is spending time with the engineers from Speirs & Robertson who manufacturer isolation equipment for laboratories all over the world .
Explain to me how Delrin is going to absorb vibration?
Metal on metal on hard plastic where is the absorbtion perhaps if you actually thought rather than trotting out manufacturers sales material?
Keith.

Are you ******* kidding me? You want a copy of my diploma?

If you can't look at the diagram and figure out what's going I don't know what to say...

 

[Purite Audio]

Are you ******* kidding me? You want a copy of my diploma?

If you can't look at the diagram and figure out what's going I don't know what to say... You're an idiot, plain and simple.

A diploma for selling cable?
Metal on metal on hard plastic where is the absorbtion taking place?
Keith.

 

[amirm]

Time out. The heck is wrong with you all today? If it is not one fight, it is another. Please take time off, go listen to some music and only come here if your intent is to have fun.

My apologies to Diapason for having to close the thread for now.