Townshend seismic isolation products

[antonio66]

Obviously if speaker and stand together have sufficient mass then isolating the assembly from the floor will be preferable.

This works well for me with Cube 1s. The stands are heavy metal filled with sand and spiked. The floor is concrete with wooden overlay. Small mats protect the floor from the spikes which support a lot of weight.

This thread has got me thinking about the second system where the Cubettes are on a chest of draws which is far from ideal. They are supported by rubber washing machine supports. I have some wooden cones lying around and think I will give them a try. Rubber tubes would not have a good WAF.

They could easily concealed with some extra panels. WAF!!! are you a man or a mouse? "Gis a piece of cheese and I'll tell ya"

My experiments will have to wait till I return home next month.

[karatestu]

Isolation isn’t the same as damping, as I am sure we all know. The former is intended to prevent the transfer of energy between objects, the latter is a means of converting energy from one form, motion in this case, to another, usually heat. Whether you use an expensive Townshend platform or an inner tube the flexibility of the isolation medium, coupled with the inertia of the object to be isolated, should ensure that vibration on one side isn’t passed to the other. Increase the pressure in the inner tube and the flexibility is reduced allowing more vibration to be transferred. The same would be true if the mass of the object being isolated had a lower mass (less inertia).

The mass of a speaker is small when compared to a solid concrete floor but a suspended wood floor is a different matter. The relatively low mass of a wooden floor is easily excited either by moving a mass across the floor, e.g. walking across it, or by vibration from a speaker. Attenuating the vibration either way, floor to speaker or speaker to floor, appears to be beneficial but, the attenuator itself with the attached speaker will have a resonant frequency, as will the floor. As long as the resonant frequency is outside the audio frequency band, and the excitation energy is relatively low, effective isolation can be achieved.

Whether the speaker and stand should be isolated from the floor or just the speaker from the stand and the floor? That rather depends on whether the speaker alone has sufficient mass that the resonant frequency, when standing on the isolation system, is outside the audio spectrum. A light speaker on a nearly flat inner tube may hit resonance at a frequency within the audio spectrum a more massive speaker on a slightly higher pressure tube may not. Obviously if speaker and stand together have sufficient mass then isolating the assembly from the floor will be preferable.

However, I am not going to do the maths because there are too many variables and not enough information. This being a subjectivist forum my only response can be “suck it and see”.

Good points there Geoff. As the speaker gets lighter you must have less pressure to keep the resonant frequency low. If the speaker is too light then I can see that the addition of a stand will be useful.

[CN211276]

Obviously if speaker and stand together have sufficient mass then isolating the assembly from the floor will be preferable.

This works well for me with Cube 1s. The stands are heavy metal filled with sand and spiked. The floor is concrete with wooden overlay. Small mats protect the floor from the spikes which support a lot of weight.

This thread has got me thinking about the second system where the Cubettes are on a chest of draws which is far from ideal. They are supported by rubber washing machine supports. I have some wooden cones lying around and think I will give them a try. Rubber tubes would not have a good WAF.

Clive, I would bet that changing to cones instead of rubber feet would be a step backwards as far as keeping vibration out of the chest of draws. However you may like the effect of the furniture singing along.

I think in these things suck it and see is the best way forward.

[karatestu]

I have further things to try out and will post it in my speaker thread rather than clogging this one up. Although it has ceased to be much about Townshend but I'm not bothered.

[NSNO2021]

Before the Stu inspired maddnes took over my Cubix stood on heavy steel plate stands and underneath the stands were heavy duty Vibropods (removed for these tests). My room is on the first floor. It's a modern house so the floor is wooden rafters with chipboard floor boards. I have then fitted a 8mm laminate floor with 2.5m insulation between the laminate and the chipboard.
This morning I tried to use an inner tube but I couldn't get it stable enough to progress to testing.
My Cubix sit on very heavy powder coated 8mm plate steel stands that are 250 mm tall before you take account for the adjustable spikes which are set to tilt the cabinet's up by 6 degrees..
My next attempt saw me putting 4 layers of good quality bubble wrap underneath the stands. In theory bubble wrap and an inner tube should achieve similar results. This air cushion did change the sound but I gave up on it after 30 mins of varied listening because it messed up the timing and in doing so things got a bit smeared.
I am currently listening with some heavy duty packing foam under the stands, it's obviously firmer than the bubble wrap and I imagine an inner tube but softer than the Vibropods.
Given its relatively easy to discern the changes caused by what goes under the stand and speakers I will continue to mess around and report back if anything interesting comes from my experiments.

[CN211276]

Obviously if speaker and stand together have sufficient mass then isolating the assembly from the floor will be preferable.

This works well for me with Cube 1s. The stands are heavy metal filled with sand and spiked. The floor is concrete with wooden overlay. Small mats protect the floor from the spikes which support a lot of weight.

This thread has got me thinking about the second system where the Cubettes are on a chest of draws which is far from ideal. They are supported by rubber washing machine supports. I have some wooden cones lying around and think I will give them a try. Rubber tubes would not have a good WAF.

Clive, I would bet that changing to cones instead of rubber feet would be a step backwards as far as keeping vibration out of the chest of draws. However you may like the effect of the furniture singing along.

I think in these things suck it and see is the best way forward.

I think, when you couple with cones and spikes, you need to be able to 'sink' the energy into a higher mass - usually the floor. If I were putting speakers on a cabinet, my first guess would be to de-couple. If you want something that looks OK, these seem fairly sensible...

https://www.bax-shop.co.uk/monitor-isol ... sIQAvD_BwE

[CN211276]

They could easily concealed with some extra panels. WAF!!! are you a man or a mouse? "Gis a piece of cheese and I'll tell ya"

There are red lines where the main system is concerned but with the second system I compromise.

I will suck it and see with the cones and report back.

The Iso Pucks look interesting, but I am wondering what they offer over the washing machine feet which cost peanuts. Also, I was under the impression that three supports were preferable to four.

[CN211276]

They could easily concealed with some extra panels. WAF!!! are you a man or a mouse? "Gis a piece of cheese and I'll tell ya"

There are red lines where the main system is concerned but with the second system I compromise.

I will suck it and see with the cones and report back.

The Iso Pucks look interesting, but I am wondering what they offer over the washing machine feet which cost peanuts. Also, I was under the impression that three supports were preferable to four.

Yeah. I prefer 3 feet rather than 4.

[CN211276]

They could easily concealed with some extra panels. WAF!!! are you a man or a mouse? "Gis a piece of cheese and I'll tell ya"

There are red lines where the main system is concerned but with the second system I compromise.

I will suck it and see with the cones and report back.

The Iso Pucks look interesting, but I am wondering what they offer over the washing machine feet which cost peanuts. Also, I was under the impression that three supports were preferable to four.

Yeah. I prefer 3 feet rather than 4.

Me two.

[karatestu]

Before the Stu inspired maddnes took over my Cubix stood on heavy steel plate stands and underneath the stands were heavy duty Vibropods (removed for these tests). My room is on the first floor. It's a modern house so the floor is wooden rafters with chipboard floor boards. I have then fitted a 8mm laminate floor with 2.5m insulation between the laminate and the chipboard.
This morning I tried to use an inner tube but I couldn't get it stable enough to progress to testing.
My Cubix sit on very heavy powder coated 8mm plate steel stands that are 250 mm tall before you take account for the adjustable spikes which are set to tilt the cabinet's up by 6 degrees..
My next attempt saw me putting 4 layers of good quality bubble wrap underneath the stands. In theory bubble wrap and an inner tube should achieve similar results. This air cushion did change the sound but I gave up on it after 30 mins of varied listening because it messed up the timing and in doing so things got a bit smeared.
I am currently listening with some heavy duty packing foam under the stands, it's obviously firmer than the bubble wrap and I imagine an inner tube but softer than the Vibropods.
Given its relatively easy to discern the changes caused by what goes under the stand and speakers I will continue to mess around and report back if anything interesting comes from my experiments.

It's a shame you couldn't get the inner tubes to be stable enough. What diameter tubes did you use ? And I presume the footprint of your cubix speakers is about 30cm2 ?I expect with two 8" mid bass, the heavy stands and everything else then they weigh quite a bit.

My prototype speakers are 30cm2 footprint and I have used a platform which is 40cm2 and the tube when inflated to the pressure I need is about 39cm diameter.

There are ways to make it more stable You can add some little feet under the platform (if you are using a platform rather than just the base plate of the stands) which are not quite as long as the depth of the inner tube when correctly inflated with the speakers on top. Lets say they are 5mm short then if the speaker gets knocked it can only sway about a little bit. Under normal circumstances and music is playing the feet are not touching the floor and you can't see anything moving when music is playing.