Speaker placement on carpet

Ilonatensil

Well-Known Member
Jan 8, 2020
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Hi everyone,

I would like to get some advice on speaker placement/isolation on carpet floors.

My floor construction is a 200mm concrete slab, on top of the slab is a 12mm carpet under layer form and than a premium soft carpet.

My question is should I put my speakers directly with there footers on the carpet or do I get a better performance by putting the speakers on a marble/stone slab for more stability.

Kind regards Ilona
 

jfrech

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Sep 3, 2012
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You might have to try both. I've found like my footers on carpet.
 

sbnx

Well-Known Member
Mar 28, 2017
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The bass will definitely sound different between spiked to the concrete slab vs floating on the carpet. You do need some way to level the speakers and adjust rake angle. You can't really do that without either spikes or some kind of adjustable footer. So If you want to make or buy some kind of plinth for the speaker to sit on (and be spiked to) then that would work. You could use a thick heavy piece of Maple or some such thing. If you choose granite then I would use a decoupled footer.
 

twitch

Well-Known Member
Jun 17, 2010
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I spike mine through the carpet / underlayment right to the concrete below
 

Gregadd

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Apr 20, 2010
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Last edited:

Phillyb

Well-Known Member
May 31, 2012
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Try it both ways. I use footers that came with my speakers that spikes can be screwed into, I do not like the speakers that way as much as the footers on the carpet, which decouples the speaker from the wooded floor below the carpet. Same when I had my quad speakers. They are no set rule, so you always keep open-minded.
 

rugyboogie

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May 30, 2010
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In my experience sitting on a base be it wood , concrete or granite that is only on the carpet and not spiked will muddy the sound and loose focus overall. I have had the best result having speakers spiked and in contact with the concrete. My room is carpet, duracushion underlay and 12" concrete slab which is heated with hydronic pipe.
 

Cellcbern

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Jul 30, 2015
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In my experience sitting on a base be it wood , concrete or granite that is only on the carpet and not spiked will muddy the sound and loose focus overall. I have had the best result having speakers spiked and in contact with the concrete. My room is carpet, duracushion underlay and 12" concrete slab which is heated with hydronic pipe.

Note that IsoAcoustics offers spiked discs for use of the Gaia footers on carpet:

isoacoustics-gaia-carpet-discs_13797_0.jpg
 
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Mcbrion

Well-Known Member
May 9, 2013
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Connecticut
I once reviewed Genesis 6.1 speakers - back in 2005. I had them on the spikes, but it was also on carpet with padding underneath.

The bass was very "woolly". I wrote Gary Koh about the sound quality. Here is a part of the review addressing that.

"Another consideration, this one to be addressed very carefully, is the surface on which one places the 6.1s. In my initial setup in the upstairs listening room, I sat the 6.1s on two area rugs with floor padding underneath. My first observation was boominess in the bass, and I spent weeks moving the speakers forward and back in an effort to eliminate this problem. Nonetheless, the 6.1s refused to fully cooperate anywhere below the lower midrange. The owner’s manual says nothing about this, and the 6.1s come with no recommendations for spikes, cones, or feet. Eventually, I removed the area rugs and set the speakers directly on the padding. The bass not only stopped booming immediately, but the whole mid-bass and low bass took on a definition and clarity that astounded me. Of course, a speaker whose specs indicate that it reaches to 16Hz should shake the room, but this was not, at first, my experience. Through a blitz of e-mails exchanged with Gary Leonard Koh, Genesis’ CEO, it came to light that the speakers, if placed on carpeting too thick or too thin, might demonstrate problems in the bass frequencies. Understatement."

This was the only speaker I have ever had that problem with, including several of the most expensive speakers of the late '80s and '90s (several of which I owned). The only real difference is that most of the "big guns" I owned were when I lived in an apartment on the West Coast (San Francisco), where the basement ceiling below my apartment was concrete ( I was on the first floor), and that house's foundations were clearly more solid than the East Coast house (the one I live in now and, grew up in, and that I moved back to around the turn of the millennium), a ranch built in 1965. (The West Coast house was an Edwardian, built around 1910, when, I suspect, building standards were higher - especially since it was built in San Francisco - 4 years after the "Great Quake"). Buildings were sturdier after that event, and even when the 1989 "Great Quake" occurred, and I lived in that house, I heard a joist or two crack, but otherwise, my apartment barely shook during the quake. I didn't even believe it was a 7.1 until later, although my then Goldmund/T3F tonearm picked up the vibrations before I felt them, and lifted the tonearm off the record - about 2 seconds before I felt it. (I remember looking at the turntable, thinking, "NOW what?!!") - and then the quake arrived, moving from the back of the house to the front. The turntable was in the room "ahead" of me, closer to the back of the house, accounting for it feeling the quake before I did!

So, floor foundation - as you already know - affects the sound. Location, location, location!
 
Last edited:

brad225

VIP/Donor
Nov 22, 2012
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My opinion is based on my speakers. Without having spikes to the floor below the carpet the speakers will rock in all directions. That will never provide a solid sound and image.
 

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