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Some Vindication: PSB and IsoAcoustics integrating Isolation into Speakers

Flint

Prodigal Son
Superstar
From the press release:

An alternative to traditional mass and floor spike techniques used to control the connection between speakers and the floor/stand (or other supporting surface) they sit on, IsoAcoustic’s patented isolators connect both to the base of the speaker and to the supporting surface so that the energy is effectively managed by the internal isolators. The isolators work to reduce the transfer of resonant energy from the speaker to the floor/stand, preventing it from reflecting back up to the speaker and detrimentally affecting the sound.

I have been saying this since my first day on the old S&V Forum and have taken quite a bit of flack over it - though our current group of members seems to accept this notion. But, I still get dismissed in audio stores and in local audio group meetups when I try to introduce this concept to those groups. The detrimental myth that spikes are always the best for speakers has so permeated the psyche of the community that any contrary views or facts are often met with mistrust and mockery. It's a shame as people could get better performance if they would practice isolation over spiked coupling.

While this has been common practice in the professional world (recording studios, mastering rooms, reference labs, etc.) for decades, the home audio market has been misinformed for years and there is little support for isolation - except when bookshelf speakers are placed on desks or shelves and usually foam or rubber is used to protect the surface and reduce rattling rather than as a tool to improve the sound.
 
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You talkin shit about Spikes???
 
No no no... not Spike the cartoon dog!

And NO! Not the spikes on the leather fetish garb:

leather-ultimate-spike-corset-2.jpg
 
Do you still leave the quarter on with these, or do you remove it from the speaker?
 
Do you still leave the quarter on with these, or do you remove it from the speaker?

I've heard about that, but no one has ever explained it to me. Or, maybe they have tried explaining it and all I heard was "blah blah wompa dumdity doo" because I knew it was utter bullshit before they opened their mouth.
 
I've heard about that, but no one has ever explained it to me. Or, maybe they have tried explaining it and all I heard was "blah blah wompa dumdity doo" because I knew it was utter bullshit before they opened their mouth.
I've heard about it as well, but have and would not place a quarter on my speakers. Besides, in my house, the kids would steal it daily.
 
Where did my damn Aldi quarter go??? Anybody seen my Aldi quarter?

For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, a local food chain Aldi (which is actually pretty damn big) locks their carts and you have to put a quarter in to unlock one. After you have shopped and unloaded your groceries from the cart you return the cart and put the lock back in and VOILA you get your quarter back.
 
Where did my damn Aldi quarter go??? Anybody seen my Aldi quarter?

For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, a local food chain Aldi (which is actually pretty damn big) locks their carts and you have to put a quarter in to unlock one. After you have shopped and unloaded your groceries from the cart you return the cart and put the lock back in and VOILA you get your quarter back.
My wife likes shopping there some, but I hate going into Aldi's. The package goods just seem weird, and we've gotten some bad milk as well there. They do have warehouse hub just a few miles from us, and I know they employ quite a few people.
 
My wife likes shopping there some, but I hate going into Aldi's. The package goods just seem weird, and we've gotten some bad milk as well there. They do have warehouse hub just a few miles from us, and I know they employ quite a few people.

Believe it or not, their sushi is excellent and especially for the price. They also have really good coffee creamers and around the holidays the peppermint bark creamer is amazing.

Yes, yall can take my man card if you want, but I like creamer in my coffee, drank it black for years, and the peppermint bark is my fave.

And now back to your regularly scheduled program!!!

Sorry for the derailment @Flint
 
Thanks for the post Flint, I never did buy into the Spikes are best theory. Just never made sense from my understanding of basic physics. I I never thought about it being commonplace in pro audio. I bought some sorbothane hemisphere's last year but have not installed them yet.
 
Back to the point (pun intended)...

I no longer have the printouts, but I borrowed an MLSSA acoustics and audio analyzer back in the 1990s and with some friends measured things like THD, Decay, Cabinet Vibration, and such for a single driver fullrange loudspeaker. We compared the performance of that speaker with its enclosure setup in different ways including: flat on carpeted floor, flat on concrete floor, supported by metal spikes, supported by foam rubber, supported by rubber feet, supported by compressed fiberglass, supported by tennis balls, dangling in a harness secured directly to a ceiling beam, and dangling in the same harness using a spring which was about 25% stretched.

In the listening tests, we all preferred the isolated setups, like with foam or tennis balls. The measurements made it abundantly clear why - the mechanical energy the speaker generated which traveled into the wood cabinet was cause enough for alarm (clearly we knew more cabinet bracing and damping would be an improvement). But, when that energy was allowed to transfer into the high compliance materials (tennis ball, foam, fiberglass, spring, etc.), it would decay or fade away completely. Whereas, when mounted on metal spikes or sitting directly on the hard concrete, those vibrations would reflect right back into the cabinet's wood and it would take a relatively long time to decay, and in the more extreme cases it would reflect back into the cone and distort the cone's output.

The absolute worst culprit was the spiked setup. All that energy was reflected at what we understood to be 100% efficiency, meaning the hanging setup was better performing than the spiked setup. These energy storage problems shows detrimental characteristics in all the measurements we made, including in the frequency response, cabinet vibrations, distortion, decay, step response, and so on. It was insane how obvious it was.

As such, since the mid 1990s have been setting up my speakers to be as isolated from all hard surfaces as possible. I even isolate drivers from one another when I can in all of my high end designs.
 
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