“extremely low” what? Frequency or amplitude?
The concept you seem to be proposing is the same way in which noise cancelling headphones work. That would not be a simple option for loudspeakers. If the substrate is slab and covered with carpet, then spikes is an easy and relatively inexpensive solution to deal with both cabinet vibrations and high frequency smearing by virtue of it. Mass loading or using bracing the cabinet to external structures can also assist in this. It gets harder if the substrate is framing, especially elevated, even if it has 3~4 inch of concrete in the floor design. Now you’re dealing with the resonance of the structure itself. These issues tend to lend themselves loudspeaker isolation from the structure. Just sayin…
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Using Meridian active speakers, I also went from Herbie’s dBNeutralizer Fat Dots to Gaia II for a serious upgrade. No comparison.
You forget dollars spent when the music takes you away…
That said, I still enjoy Herbie’s very affordable products elsewhere, and expect to try Stack Audio AUVA under some components this week.
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Please let me know regarding your thoughts as you are testing all three essentially
Right away there is a subtle overall improvement in clarity with three AUVA EQ under my Singxer SU-6 DDC, instead of Tenderfeet, which serves as the platform for:
- a sheet of 3M EMI absorber
- one Herbie’s SuperSonic Stabilizer
- RPi4 Roon endpoint sitting in a Ian Canada power supply
Now playing This is the Day by Giovanni Guidi Trio where his piano now sounds less “glassy” in a more pleasant way…
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@RonP The noise canceling model is really interesting.
Although the details and design of the experiment would be fun, I think it’s a useless proposal. It was a reminder to myself of the importance of approaching problems unconventionally.
Those Super Sonic Stabilizers have a subtle effect in my system as well.
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You can’t do both, the systems fight each other.
- On a flexy wooden floor is one situation.
- On a cement floor is the second.
The third variable is what is your speaker doing? An inert tested speaker cabinet has no vibrations to transmit, by definition.
The concept is to isolate the floor from the speaker or the speaker from the floor. Two different approaches and each depends on the floor material and the speaker.
A speaker with high cabinet resonances can benefit from moving some of that energy into the floor with SPIKES. But IF the floor can be put into resonance (use that energy and not reflect it).
A very inert speaker can benefit from ISOLATORS to keep from adding energy from the floor (those subs over in the corner!) and into the speaker.
Doing both jobs isn’t going to be a benefit and even suggest you end up the same as doing neither, or close to it.
I have a very inert speaker cabinet on concrete floors. The floor is not resonating and neither is the speaker. Spikes or absorbers do nothing for the sound in this situation as an example. They do hold the speake in place, however (see below).
Look at your situation and decide WHAT kind of energy you need to mitigate, it can’t be both as the speaker or the floor will be far worse and pick the worst.
A speaker with high cabinet resonances is almost always better to spike even on a suspended joist floor, as an example. Sure, you’d like to islolate the floor’s resonances (those subs!) from the speaker but don’t do it. Move the speaker’s resonance issues into the floor with spikes and ISOLATE the subs (no spikes but isolators, not the same thing) from the floor. This gets each speaker’s problems mitigated to the highest degree.
Speakers on concrete are better off. It is hard to make concrete vibrate, and usually spikes hold the speaker still so it doesn’t want to walk across that hard surface. Subs can’t set concrete into motion, but the subs can dance across the floor so spikes again.
A super solid surface reflects any vibration back to the source so the speaker is what it is, and should voice itself pretty uncorrupted to the cabinet design. Some speakers use the cabinet to voice the sound, so don’t destroy that aspect if it is a feature. For those product isolators are best because you want the cabinet to be open voiced like it is supended in the air (some do suspend speakers with cables or wires). A tape accelerometer right next to a speaker on concrete won’t register a thing with the speaker playing, concrete has little ability to dissipate energy. A speaker isn’t enough to move concrete. Put enough energy into concrete (way more than a speaker) and concrete cracks up. Flexible materials survive. This is why a grass/mud hut stands after an earthquake and a concrete building collapses. The rebar in concrete is a fail safe to hold it all up cracks and all.
Best,
Galen
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The discussion should be changed from when spikes should be used and when not to use it to…… to why bother about spikes at all?
- Earth average seismic movements are approx 400 x the movement of the tweeter when creating sound.
This means that the tweeter is extremely smeared and hindered to do a high performance job when spiked
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A product like Entreq Vibbeaters can move the point of vibration and frequency movement out from the speakers, decreasing the need for spikes
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Earth seismic movements are mostly 6-7 Hz and traffic are commonly 7-9 Hz. You need to float off lower than sorbothane and products like Gaia, only a Townshend will do with its 2,5 Hz starting point of floating off
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a spike is a gigantic open door for floor borne vibration. It’s a filter for some frequencies and an open door for some other frequencies. Therefore a less preferred solution
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Spiking helps only speakers a bit. Townshend an also improve room interaction (improving acoustics) improve speaker placement, provides less vibration to equipment that therefore sounds better (improving ALL equipment, including power cleaning and cable lifters) and makes neighbors happier (do you like to listen in the earnings?) It the most inexpensive upgrade you can do. Getting better acoustics is no small feat
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A product need to both float off and doing so from low frequencies and also prevent post ringing, Townshend is the only products that I know of that does that.
So sell your spikes and and get footers that improve your room, your power cleaning, your amp, your dac and also your speakers (and doing so many times better than spikes)
Owners ridgid speakers like Wikson and Magico swears on their Townshends. Owners of fast AMT-speakers like Audiovectors swears on the benefit and huge upgrade their Townshends provide.
So, turn your midfi to high end or turn your high end to ultra high end… just buy Townshends
I put my reputation on their performance
It’s just science
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A very convincing presentation oceanrower. 
In fact so much so that I’d like to try them out sometime on my B&W 800s. The speakers originally came with 3 feet types. They came packed with roller-glide feet but included were adjustable spikes and rubber-tipped stub feet. I ended up using the spikes on a concrete slab floor but, after learning more from the video and other contributers here, I think a more optimal approach would be something like the Seismic Isolation Podiums (although I would’ve called them ‘Podia’ 
) The 800s are about 100kg and I’d probably need to get a custom size as their 450mm X 685mm base would not fit even the ‘Size 5’ model. 
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For many, it’s more of a function of money… $2,000.00~$4,000.00 vs. $25.00. Just sayin’…
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Thanks to all for the great info on this subject. It is a deeper discussion than i originally thought. Also perplexing as while most solutions seem based in logic and science, they take somewhat different paths to the end result.
Question - Does anyone isolate thier subs from the floor in order to reduce vibrations to thier mains?
I’m going to preface my comments by saying on elevated floor structures, as I said before, isolation is often preferred to spikes. But another thing to keep in mind, especially when you start talking about specific isolation devices like the Tounshend, notice in their video the background vibrations are just as present and pronounced on both seismographs. In fact, in some cases it’s more pronounced at the noise level. That’s not to say that the Tounshend is “bad” but just a reminder it’s the little things sales doesn’t bring attention to that is just as important as what they do point to… Just sayin’…
Best way to know is try a product and see if it works. Most companies selling footers offer a trial period. I tried Verfiaudio Black Hole footers which use a combination of spikes that screw into the speaker, that nestle into an isolation pod, which rest on carpet and pad over a concrete slab. Didn’t make much if any difference, but decided to try them on my gear, and was pleasantly surprised by the improvements in sound quality across the board.
I have my small REL sub. sitting on an Auralex “SubDude”.
It seems nice.
I isolate the subs to keep the floor from resonating.
You are correct. The sum asked for a new pair of Townshends is more than one mentally like to pay for the kind of materials, looks and kind of product etc. But in terms of the price/performance upgrade they bring to a good stereo makes a very strong bargain.
Look for lower priced Townshend products via Ebay UK. Sometimes they are sold as low as USD 500 for a pair on the used market (I have seen that kind of prices in Denmark/Sweden/Norway and Germany)
Manufacturers, like IsoAcoustics, who produce the GAIA Series of isolation actually utilize on carpeted floors a set of spikes on pedestal feet to place the isolation on. What they seek to do is provide as solid a base to place the isolation on by coupling the spikes to the floor under the carpet. It’s not unheard of in the industry… Just sayin’…
Sure, if you couple THROUGH carpet and a pad to the floor underneath with SPIKES, you in essence are now ON that floor underneath. If it is concrete you’re done. If it is a flexy wooden floor you need to act like the speakers are on the flooring because they are…so isolation discs need to be added to suspend the speaker away from the flexy floor as best possible. The spikes just give, like you said, a better reference to the floor over a complex mix of padding and carpet. SPIKES get to the best base and you go from there.
Best,
Galen
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