Speaker controversy. Isolation or not?

[ttocs]

Jul 6, 2021 5:27:41 GMT -5 Boomzilla said:

I have an uneven concrete slab floor with vinyl plank glued directly to the slab. The house had carpet originally, and apparently the builder thought that since a carpet pad was being used, there was no need to really level the concrete. My wife proved sensitive to the dust & mold in the carpet, so I replaced it. This helped the wife; the acoustics, not so much...

"Spike cups" do NOT work for me because of the unevenness of the floor. When I move a speaker (which I do frequently), the cups come out from under the spikes and then the spikes scratch the vinyl planks. I keep screw-in plastic feet in multiple threads and diameters so that the first thing I do when I get a speaker for test is to remove the stock spikes and replace them with the (nylon? Teflon?) feet. That way, I can move the speakers to find the ideal place for them. I then have a bubble level that I use to level each speaker once I've found its best location. The leveling process is tedious, but necessary. Without leveling, the speakers tend to point slightly downward. I normally have to add about ¼" of lift to the front feet to get the fore/aft axis level. Then I have to work with side to side leveling to ensure that the speaker isn't resting on three feet or rocking. It's a pain, but I think I can hear the difference.

If I had it to do over again, I'd use carpet in the listening room only & leave the rest of the house with hard floors. But since I'm moving within two years, it isn't worth changing this house back to carpet in the listening room. However, if I find a cheap, thick 12 x 15 foot rug...

When I'm in a moving mood I use the two-sided glossy mailers as the "teflon" glides under the pucks, which have a thin rubber bottom. What's interesting about this is that it takes an initial "bump" to get the motion going but it's easy after that, meaning, that the speaker isn't gliding while just sitting there, it's got a little bit of stiction.

[DYohn]

Jul 5, 2021 22:40:55 GMT -5 leonski said:

NO, you must rely on principles of contruction if starting with a clean sheet.

you will never put a speaker on a slab of rubber....over a floor / slab

A raised floor presents other problems, but a couple things to keep in mind would be rigidiity and mass......

finding solutions from people who have already solved this and reducing such solutions to principles......No dart throwing allowed.....

Placing loudspeakers is nothing like construction and absolutely depends on the application. And it's not the room construction that matters the most, it's what else is IN the room. And yes, mounting a loudspeaker on a slab of rubber might be perfectly acceptable if required in a given situation. Or bolting to a ceiling or floor joist. Or floating, hanging, flush mounting, whatever. There are no hard rules, it's not like construction. It's acoustics and all that matters is the resultant sound field in the room - and what the user finds pleasing.

It all depends on the use case. 100%.

[leonski]

Placement yes....but even THAN cerain principles apply. A couple 'do's and don'ts' to get a new person started. Too many setups with stuff 'where it fits' rather

than where it sounds best. the BEST setups here on the forums look like a LOT of thought has gone into them while some people are trying to fit a system into a multi-use space.

But for construciton? Clean sheet designs can take advantage of certain features built IN......measurements, materials, and detail.

I'd start with a few 'always' and 'never' conditions. OF COURSE, the room is most important. And it starts with construction.

For the privileged FEW? Maybe hire a consultant? But that's a 1%er solution....not for the rest of us. A qualifiied consultant would be $$$ and melt your credit card.

Just like the vast majority of people here, I was given a room which I had to deal with.

And DY? I'll bet you could come up with a list of things NEVER to do during setup. It's not voodoo or magic. And follow up with a couple things TO DO.

I'm just suggesting that PLANNING is very important. And again, for those who can? Proper construciton helps a lot with audible results.

For ME? the 'application' is always good sound.

[ttocs]

I decided to order Isoacoustics Gaia II feet for my main speakers. They arrive tomorrow but I'll need to wait for the Long thread adapters for my speakers.

Today I got to thinking about some Isoacoustics Iso Pucks I bought in 2019 to try with a subwoofer that I no longer have. Anyway, they've been tucked away in a drawer all this time and today I decided to try them for my Motif Center Speaker that's been wall mounted for a long time. I never before considered using the Pucks for the center speaker, so I tried this tonight.

Since getting used to REW a couple years ago I found that the Motif has an unusual frequency curve that I don't like and couldn't explain, but Dirac is able to tame it. Turns out, it's the wall causing a resonance, not the speaker.

Up until about six years ago I had the Motif on top of a AV cabinet on its stand. But it sounded boxy, so I mounted it on the wall and it sounded better. So I never questioned its placement again, until today.

I always recommend to not become complacent with speaker placement. If you have the time and are looking for some benefit, play with the placement, especially if other things have changed as is the case for me. So, I took the Motif off the wall and plopped it on top of my current table that's below the tv (I gave away my previous AV cabinet a couple years ago and bought this minimalist table for a few of the components, the amps and processor are on the floor in the open space below the table). Low and behold, it sounds better. So I measured with REW and sure enough the frequency curve looks better too! No more4-5dB bump from 100-300Hz. This is without Dirac, which is always able to lower this bump.

So then I began playing with the Iso Pucks, which are for speakers weighing more than the Motif, but tried them anyway. The Motif weighs 22.5 lbs, and each Puck is rated for 20 lbs max each, so the speaker doesn't weigh enough for "proper" usage of the Pucks considering three need to be used to support the speaker. I'm also comparing against some cork hot-pads from the kitchen, a few of which stacked will equal the height of the Pucks so the speaker can be in the same location, at the same height for an A/B comparison. I played a well recorded song by Bobby McFerrin, Friends. There's a point in the song where there's about 20 seconds with "S" sounds that can sound good or bad depending on setup.

With the speaker directly on the table I hear some resonance, so that's out.
With the cork under the speaker the sound is pretty good, better than wall mounted.
On 3 Pucks, two at the outside rear corners and one under the front lip in the center, the sound is more articulate, much clearer, more than I would've believed possible! The "S" sounds (not sibilance) were smooth and un-harsh. Frankly, I've never enjoyed using the Motif for music before, but as I write this I'm listening to only the Motif playing music and it's very good. Who knew? I swapped back and forth between the cork and Iso Pucks about 8 times, and it's obvious which way sounds better.

These isolation pucks work really well! It's interesting that, over the years, each time I moved the center speaker or altered its setup in some way, proved there was room for improvement that I wasn't aware was possible. I've had this speaker for ten years now and keep enjoying improved performance from mostly free tweaks. I think the 4 Iso Pucks cost $120 when I purchased them in 2019.

So in this case, isolation is good.

[marcl]

Mar 19, 2022 0:32:08 GMT -5 ttocs said:

I decided to order Isoacoustics Gaia II feet for my main speakers. They arrive tomorrow but I'll need to wait for the Long thread adapters for my speakers.

Today I got to thinking about some Isoacoustics Iso Pucks I bought in 2019 to try with a subwoofer that I no longer have. Anyway, they've been tucked away in a drawer all this time and today I decided to try them for my Motif Center Speaker that's been wall mounted for a long time. I never before considered using the Pucks for the center speaker, so I tried this tonight.

Since getting used to REW a couple years ago I found that the Motif has an unusual frequency curve that I don't like and couldn't explain, but Dirac is able to tame it. Turns out, it's the wall causing a resonance, not the speaker.

Up until about six years ago I had the Motif on top of a AV cabinet on its stand. But it sounded boxy, so I mounted it on the wall and it sounded better. So I never questioned its placement again, until today.

I always recommend to not become complacent with speaker placement. If you have the time and are looking for some benefit, play with the placement, especially if other things have changed as is the case for me. So, I took the Motif off the wall and plopped it on top of my current table that's below the tv (I gave away my previous AV cabinet a couple years ago and bought this minimalist table for a few of the components, the amps and processor are on the floor in the open space below the table). Low and behold, it sounds better. So I measured with REW and sure enough the frequency curve looks better too! No more4-5dB bump from 100-300Hz. This is without Dirac, which is always able to lower this bump.

So then I began playing with the Iso Pucks, which are for speakers weighing more than the Motif, but tried them anyway. The Motif weighs 22.5 lbs, and each Puck is rated for 20 lbs max each, so the speaker doesn't weigh enough for "proper" usage of the Pucks considering three need to be used to support the speaker. I'm also comparing against some cork hot-pads from the kitchen, a few of which stacked will equal the height of the Pucks so the speaker can be in the same location, at the same height for an A/B comparison. I played a well recorded song by Bobby McFerrin, Friends. There's a point in the song where there's about 20 seconds with "S" sounds that can sound good or bad depending on setup.

With the speaker directly on the table I hear some resonance, so that's out.
With the cork under the speaker the sound is pretty good, better than wall mounted.
On 3 Pucks, two at the outside rear corners and one under the front lip in the center, the sound is more articulate, much clearer, more than I would've believed possible! The "S" sounds (not sibilance) were smooth and un-harsh. Frankly, I've never enjoyed using the Motif for music before, but as I write this I'm listening to only the Motif playing music and it's very good. Who knew? I swapped back and forth between the cork and Iso Pucks about 8 times, and it's obvious which way sounds better.

These isolation pucks work really well! It's interesting that, over the years, each time I moved the center speaker or altered its setup in some way, proved there was room for improvement that I wasn't aware was possible. I've had this speaker for ten years now and keep enjoying improved performance from mostly free tweaks. I think the 4 Iso Pucks cost $120 when I purchased them in 2019.

So in this case, isolation is good.

Is the Motif a dipole in the midrange?

I've thought with the Magnepan center speakers that nobody seems to talk about how they also need to be 5 1/2ft from the front wall just like the main speakers, for all the same reasons.  I guess that's because nobody (but me) would ever do that.  But if it's a dipole then reflections from the front wall matter just as much as with the mains.  

So the difference with the speaker on the table and not wall-mounted is measurable and makes sense,  The benefit of the isolation is interesting, and especially important that you can hear the difference going back and forth.  Is the difference with the isolation measurable?

[zoomer67]

 I feel that it really depends on the room/floor system. Experimentation may be necessary to find out for oneself--might work,might not. My old house had very solid wood floors that allowed spiked speakers to really shine; my current house has really springy/bouncy wood floors that made decoupling footers a necessity. It has made a major improvement in the sound even though the room's arrangement is not optimal (no sealed doorways to other rooms,etc) .

[ttocs]

Mar 19, 2022 7:39:49 GMT -5 marcl said:

Is the Motif a dipole in the midrange?

I've thought with the Magnepan center speakers that nobody seems to talk about how they also need to be 5 1/2ft from the front wall just like the main speakers, for all the same reasons.  I guess that's because nobody (but me) would ever do that.  But if it's a dipole then reflections from the front wall matter just as much as with the mains.  

So the difference with the speaker on the table and not wall-mounted is measurable and makes sense,  The benefit of the isolation is interesting, and especially important that you can hear the difference going back and forth.  Is the difference with the isolation measurable?

The Motif does have a dipole midrange, but, it's got a specially contoured absorptive/dispersive element a few inches behind it. What might get reflected out is at steep angles not aimed back at the MLP. It is designed for wall mounting, or on tabletop, and there's a switch for On Wall or Off Wall that EQ's the lower mid frequencies for each.

I haven't done much measuring of the center speaker over the couple years or so I've been using REW, so trying to find measurement sessions with the Center involved isn't a quick process, especially when wanting to find sessions that have higher than 300Hz sweeps as most of my interest has been in the lower ranges. But I'll post a sweep for the Motif when I find one.

There is a measurable difference with/without isolation, but it's pretty minor when measuring dB's. I don't know how to measure clarity, but it's an obvious difference. I went back and forth a bunch of times, with/without, because I kept thinking I was not positioning the speaker exactly correct, so it took a few times to mark with tape where the speaker needed to be so its position was easily repeatable and safe. The speaker is not a box, it's a multi-contoured shape so it's not easy to work with when trying to get the angle just right when changing what is supporting it from underneath. Once I was happy with the changing from Pucks to Cork I became confident in what I was hearing.

[marcl]

Mar 19, 2022 8:54:44 GMT -5 ttocs said:

Mar 19, 2022 7:39:49 GMT -5 marcl said:

Is the Motif a dipole in the midrange?

I've thought with the Magnepan center speakers that nobody seems to talk about how they also need to be 5 1/2ft from the front wall just like the main speakers, for all the same reasons.  I guess that's because nobody (but me) would ever do that.  But if it's a dipole then reflections from the front wall matter just as much as with the mains.  

So the difference with the speaker on the table and not wall-mounted is measurable and makes sense,  The benefit of the isolation is interesting, and especially important that you can hear the difference going back and forth.  Is the difference with the isolation measurable?

The Motif does have a dipole midrange, but, it's got a specially contoured absorptive/dispersive element a few inches behind it. What might get reflected out is at steep angles not aimed back at the MLP. It is designed for wall mounting, or on tabletop, and there's a switch for On Wall or Off Wall that EQ's the lower mid frequencies for each.

I haven't done much measuring of the center speaker over the couple years or so I've been using REW, so trying to find measurement sessions with the Center involved isn't a quick process, especially when wanting to find sessions that have higher than 300Hz sweeps as most of my interest has been in the lower ranges. But I'll post a sweep for the Motif when I find one.

There is a measurable difference with/without isolation, but it's pretty minor when measuring dB's. I don't know how to measure clarity, but it's an obvious difference. I went back and forth a bunch of times, with/without, because I kept thinking I was not positioning the speaker exactly correct, so it took a few times to mark with tape where the speaker needed to be so its position was easily repeatable and safe. The speaker is not a box, it's a multi-contoured shape so it's not easy to work with when trying to get the angle just right when changing what is supporting it from underneath. Once I was happy with the changing from Pucks to Cork I became confident in what I was hearing.

Makes sense that they would compensate for wall or table with the switch, and I'd guess that would be more for below 200Hz.

Clarity in REW has three elements and the REW wiki defines them ... generally higher is better.  C50 is speech clarity, C80 music clarity.  Here's my Magnepan CC5 + DWM for reference.

[405x5]

Mar 19, 2022 8:47:32 GMT -5 zoomer67 said:

 “even though the room's arrangement is not optimal (no sealed doorways to other rooms”

I part company with you on this…..

There is no correlation (necessarily) on the listening space being sealed off from adjoining rooms and “optimal’ and in fact the adjoining rooms can work to an advantage, particularly in the case of subwoofers. 
This was taken very carefully into account in my own system configuration and where I elected to go with subwoofer placement. The adjacent room is sharing the cubic volume of airspace by DESIGN 

[ttocs]

Mar 19, 2022 9:07:17 GMT -5 marcl said:

Clarity in REW has three elements and the REW wiki defines them ... generally higher is better.  C50 is speech clarity, C80 music clarity.

Excellent! Thanks!

There's a huge difference between the wall mounted location and any of the tabletop measurements, with and without pucks, however, the tabletop Clarity measurements are pretty close to each other, if I'm reading them correctly.

I want to compare just setting the speaker on a substrate vs on top of Iso Pucks. After running some measurements this morning before I had to leave, it became clear to me that I want to rule out where some differences are coming from - the Pucks or something else. In a perfect world it would be obvious that a measured difference is either one scenario or the other, Pucks or No Pucks, and not related to a goofed up methodology throwing anomalies into the mix. So I will think on it tomorrow while watching a few races with friends and get into this on Monday. I do hear a difference, but again, is it really related to these pucks or not? I want to find out. BTW, cork does a good job of improving the sound as well, but the Pucks still seem to be a bit better, and this is after going through about 5 sessions of attempts using better and better methods of A/B/C (Tabletop/Pucks/Cork) runs.

One issue is that the Iso Pucks I have are rated at 20lbs each, so using 3 of them would mean the speaker should weigh up to 54lbs which is 2-1/2 times what mine weighs. Another issue is that it's recommended to have even multiples of isolators, so that would mean using 4 pucks. This really means that I need to get a set of pucks for my 22lb speaker to evaluate them properly. There is a 60 day return window for these things so it's not much of a gamble to get a set, and from what I can discern from the measurements I've seen, it looks like there's a benefit to be had - even if it's a small one - and I'm not just looking at the Clarity plots. Also, it looks more and more like the Motif center speaker is not hobbled as much as I've thought for a long time. The more help I give it, the better it sounds.

As I've said many times, Placement Is King! and that's what made the biggest difference this weekend, and it was a free upgrade. So I'll be spending money to get a smaller improvement.

[marcl]

Mar 19, 2022 22:28:37 GMT -5 ttocs said:

Mar 19, 2022 9:07:17 GMT -5 marcl said:

Clarity in REW has three elements and the REW wiki defines them ... generally higher is better.  C50 is speech clarity, C80 music clarity.

Excellent! Thanks!

There's a huge difference between the wall mounted location and any of the tabletop measurements, with and without pucks, however, the tabletop Clarity measurements are pretty close to each other, if I'm reading them correctly.

I want to compare just setting the speaker on a substrate vs on top of Iso Pucks. After running some measurements this morning before I had to leave, it became clear to me that I want to rule out where some differences are coming from - the Pucks or something else. In a perfect world it would be obvious that a measured difference is either one scenario or the other, Pucks or No Pucks, and not related to a goofed up methodology throwing anomalies into the mix. So I will think on it tomorrow while watching a few races with friends and get into this on Monday. I do hear a difference, but again, is it really related to these pucks or not? I want to find out. BTW, cork does a good job of improving the sound as well, but the Pucks still seem to be a bit better, and this is after going through about 5 sessions of attempts using better and better methods of A/B/C (Tabletop/Pucks/Cork) runs.

One issue is that the Iso Pucks I have are rated at 20lbs each, so using 3 of them would mean the speaker should weigh up to 54lbs which is 2-1/2 times what mine weighs. Another issue is that it's recommended to have even multiples of isolators, so that would mean using 4 pucks. This really means that I need to get a set of pucks for my 22lb speaker to evaluate them properly. There is a 60 day return window for these things so it's not much of a gamble to get a set, and from what I can discern from the measurements I've seen, it looks like there's a benefit to be had - even if it's a small one - and I'm not just looking at the Clarity plots. Also, it looks more and more like the Motif center speaker is not hobbled as much as I've thought for a long time. The more help I give it, the better it sounds.

As I've said many times, Placement Is King! and that's what made the biggest difference this weekend, and it was a free upgrade. So I'll be spending money to get a smaller improvement.

Interesting!  So the Clarity measurement is pretty straight forward:  More is better, and flatter is better.  If you see higher percentage and flatter Clarity measurements corelating with subjective clarity in a broad sense with the speaker on the table vs the wall, then that's a pretty conclusive outcome.

A couple other things .... I wouldn't give the manufacturers of the pucks too much credit for throwing a ton of proprietary engineering into their weight ratings and recommendation to use four of them. More likely just marketing.  So try some Sorbothane ... It's pretty cheap and you can get various thicknesses and shapes.

www.amazon.com/Sorbothane-Hemisphere-Non-skid-Adhesive-Durometer/dp/B0042U6ZDU

Something I haven't mentioned before but I think this is a good place to bring it up ... given the adaptability of our brains when it comes to listening to our systems (Toole writes about this a lot!).   Let's assume two scenarios that definitely sound different, but we have no reason (confirmation bias) to believe one or the other is more "correct" objectively.  We listen first, determine that there is a difference, then we measure and find that one IS better objectively? I'd like to suggest the following:  if two scenarios sound different and measure different, and if one measurement is considered objectively better than the other, then we should consider that one to be "correct" and do an extended listening evaluation.  

Listen to the objectively "correct" configuration for a days or weeks, and then put it back.  Let the brain adapt, and then abruptly change to the other scenario and THEN make a subjective decision as to whether one or the other sounds better.  And I'll accept that some people just prefer a sound even though it may be characterized as technically "wrong".  But my hypothesis is that given time to adapt to the objectively better scenario, we will subjectively also accept it as better.

Postscript to this ... One thing I definitely hear in my latest Dirac calibration is better clarity overall ... transients, vocals, etc.  So I went back and looked at my last Dirac calibration from September (DL 3.1.2) and compared the Clarity of the LCR channels to the new one .... definitive improvement in Clarity on all three channels with the new calibration.  QED!

[Percussionista]

Anecdotally, I can add my experience, but no measurements. In my old house, 2 stories, I had a 5.1 system set up in the "loft"/office on the second floor, Emo Xref speakers including the Airmotiv S-12 sub. Amazing extra bass from the sub (and for sure not any way flat) no doubt from the coupling to the floor, carpeted no spikes. The big scary but fun test was the first cannon-fire battle in the movie Master and Commander (actually the entire audio spectrum is frightening, with splintered wood going on all around you in addition). The same sub, now in our new house, single story on a slab, is like... is it on? When I replaced the xref bookshelf speaker on my desk, I had Airmotiv stealth 6's, but I decoupled them from the desk, also getting them up more to ear level, using IsoAcoustics risers. Now, in my new house, with a larger desk, I have stealth 8's up on the same IsoAcoustics risers.

[marcl]

Mar 20, 2022 15:05:07 GMT -5 Percussionista said:

Anecdotally, I can add my experience, but no measurements. In my old house, 2 stories, I had a 5.1 system set up in the "loft"/office on the second floor, Emo Xref speakers including the Airmotiv S-12 sub. Amazing extra bass from the sub (and for sure not any way flat) no doubt from the coupling to the floor, carpeted no spikes. The big scary but fun test was the first cannon-fire battle in the movie Master and Commander (actually the entire audio spectrum is frightening, with splintered wood going on all around you in addition). The same sub, now in our new house, single story on a slab, is like... is it on? When I replaced the xref bookshelf speaker on my desk, I had Airmotiv stealth 6's, but I decoupled them from the desk, also getting them up more to ear level, using IsoAcoustics risers. Now, in my new house, with a larger desk, I have stealth 8's up on the same IsoAcoustics risers.

Yes that Master & Commander scene is a classic demo.  I know a guy who owns a big high end home theater store and he once told me "I've sold a lot of home theater systems with that clip".

I've listened to it before I had room treatments and Dirac ... and now it sounds SO much better, still with impact, but also clarity.

[ttocs]

Mar 20, 2022 2:51:56 GMT -5 marcl said:

Interesting!  So the Clarity measurement is pretty straight forward:  More is better, and flatter is better.  If you see higher percentage and flatter Clarity measurements corelating with subjective clarity in a broad sense with the speaker on the table vs the wall, then that's a pretty conclusive outcome.

A couple other things .... I wouldn't give the manufacturers of the pucks too much credit for throwing a ton of proprietary engineering into their weight ratings and recommendation to use four of them. More likely just marketing.  So try some Sorbothane ... It's pretty cheap and you can get various thicknesses and shapes.

Something I haven't mentioned before but I think this is a good place to bring it up ... given the adaptability of our brains when it comes to listening to our systems (Toole writes about this a lot!).   Let's assume two scenarios that definitely sound different, but we have no reason (confirmation bias) to believe one or the other is more "correct" objectively.  We listen first, determine that there is a difference, then we measure and find that one IS better objectively? I'd like to suggest the following:  if two scenarios sound different and measure different, and if one measurement is considered objectively better than the other, then we should consider that one to be "correct" and do an extended listening evaluation.  

Listen to the objectively "correct" configuration for a days or weeks, and then put it back.  Let the brain adapt, and then abruptly change to the other scenario and THEN make a subjective decision as to whether one or the other sounds better.  And I'll accept that some people just prefer a sound even though it may be characterized as technically "wrong".  But my hypothesis is that given time to adapt to the objectively better scenario, we will subjectively also accept it as better.

Postscript to this ... One thing I definitely hear in my latest Dirac calibration is better clarity overall ... transients, vocals, etc.  So I went back and looked at my last Dirac calibration from September (DL 3.1.2) and compared the Clarity of the LCR channels to the new one .... definitive improvement in Clarity on all three channels with the new calibration.  QED!

The center speaker has moved many times over the last 9 years of being in the same house. With the speaker on the table it's a big improvement vs the wall. It's been in this location before, but at that time it was on top of an a/v cabinet and there was noticeable resonance and sounded boxy, so that's where the wall came into consideration.

It needs to be lifted above the surface below or it doesn't sound so good. But, the different types of supporting elements represent smaller differences in performance. Using cork, rubber, or pucks, there are repeatable results with each. It looks like pucks actually work the best each time I come up with a different way to support the speaker. But again, the differences are small. I didn't have time today to work on anything related to this, so it'll be days before I can really post any meaningful measurements. What I can say is that cork works very well.

I've used your idea about living with it for a while quite a few times over the years. And yes, going back after a time can be a shocking confirmation or not. It's how I knew in advance that this speaker sounds best when it's as far over the edge of the table as possible, and sounds better on a petrified tree stump I bought just for this speaker, but it ended up being too low. I actually may devise a riser for it and try again. It was the best support for this speaker yet, but like I said, being too low, anyone watching movies behind the first row had compromised sound and is why I mounted the speaker above the tv.

[marcl]

Mar 20, 2022 19:46:34 GMT -5 ttocs said:

Mar 20, 2022 2:51:56 GMT -5 marcl said:

Interesting!  So the Clarity measurement is pretty straight forward:  More is better, and flatter is better.  If you see higher percentage and flatter Clarity measurements corelating with subjective clarity in a broad sense with the speaker on the table vs the wall, then that's a pretty conclusive outcome.

A couple other things .... I wouldn't give the manufacturers of the pucks too much credit for throwing a ton of proprietary engineering into their weight ratings and recommendation to use four of them. More likely just marketing.  So try some Sorbothane ... It's pretty cheap and you can get various thicknesses and shapes.

Something I haven't mentioned before but I think this is a good place to bring it up ... given the adaptability of our brains when it comes to listening to our systems (Toole writes about this a lot!).   Let's assume two scenarios that definitely sound different, but we have no reason (confirmation bias) to believe one or the other is more "correct" objectively.  We listen first, determine that there is a difference, then we measure and find that one IS better objectively? I'd like to suggest the following:  if two scenarios sound different and measure different, and if one measurement is considered objectively better than the other, then we should consider that one to be "correct" and do an extended listening evaluation.  

Listen to the objectively "correct" configuration for a days or weeks, and then put it back.  Let the brain adapt, and then abruptly change to the other scenario and THEN make a subjective decision as to whether one or the other sounds better.  And I'll accept that some people just prefer a sound even though it may be characterized as technically "wrong".  But my hypothesis is that given time to adapt to the objectively better scenario, we will subjectively also accept it as better.

Postscript to this ... One thing I definitely hear in my latest Dirac calibration is better clarity overall ... transients, vocals, etc.  So I went back and looked at my last Dirac calibration from September (DL 3.1.2) and compared the Clarity of the LCR channels to the new one .... definitive improvement in Clarity on all three channels with the new calibration.  QED!

The center speaker has moved many times over the last 9 years of being in the same house. With the speaker on the table it's a big improvement vs the wall. It's been in this location before, but at that time it was on top of an a/v cabinet and there was noticeable resonance and sounded boxy, so that's where the wall came into consideration.

It needs to be lifted above the surface below or it doesn't sound so good. But, the different types of supporting elements represent smaller differences in performance. Using cork, rubber, or pucks, there are repeatable results with each. It looks like pucks actually work the best each time I come up with a different way to support the speaker. But again, the differences are small. I didn't have time today to work on anything related to this, so it'll be days before I can really post any meaningful measurements. What I can say is that cork works very well.

I've used your idea about living with it for a while quite a few times over the years. And yes, going back after a time can be a shocking confirmation or not. It's how I knew in advance that this speaker sounds best when it's as far over the edge of the table as possible, and sounds better on a petrified tree stump I bought just for this speaker, but it ended up being too low. I actually may devise a riser for it and try again. It was the best support for this speaker yet, but like I said, being too low, anyone watching movies behind the first row had compromised sound and is why I mounted the speaker above the tv.

Have you used one of these?

www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KJ2624C/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[ttocs]

Mar 21, 2022 1:35:22 GMT -5 marcl said:

Have you used one of these?
<button disabled="" class="c-attachment-insert--linked o-btn--sm">Attachment Deleted</button>
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KJ2624C/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

No I haven't. Looks interesting though.

I'm wrestling with speaker placement. Some of the improvement is related to the inverse square law, with the speaker being physically closer to the MLP. Some improvement is which surface that's making contact with the speaker is resonating, or not. The speaker being located above the tv is my favorite location by a huge margin. Locating it below the tv is causing a lot of grief for me in thinking about how to configure the rest of the system to be able to allocate the space for the speaker and its support, probably my tree stump, and then the rewiring of everything after having moved the other components around.

Then there's the fact that this speaker is ten years old and might need some attention. Now that I'm taking all the measurements, I'm seeing things related to the stat panel being a little weak, so it may need a better cleaning than I normally perform. When stat panels age, tiny particles can stick to the membrane and vacuuming doesn't always clean them out. The membrane can also age and deteriorate and need replacement. And then there are the woofers that might not be quite right. So I need to investigate some more before doing anything really stupid. I've been thinking about getting a new center speaker for a couple years now, but I was hoping to wait till next year. Might be sooner.

I want to try to improve the wall mount. The first part is to sandwich cork between the wall and bracket, and also rubber isolate the screws from the bracket. Then use your sorbothane between the bottom edge of the speaker and the wall. And I truly believe that this location is not the best for sound, but can at least be improved upon. It's a compromise like a lot of audio decisions, but this location gives the best coverage for the movie watching area.

The Pucks seem to measure the best vs cork or anything else I tried. Cork is almost as good though, but I need to put a 10lb slab of granite on top of the speaker for the cork to do its best. The differences then become very small for cork vs Pucks. But the odd thing is that the Waterfall plots still mostly look better with the Pucks, and I don't know why this should be unless there's some ringing in the table? I really have to wait for outside noise - planes, trains, and trucks on the highway a mile away - to die down so the lower freqs aren't skewed. What is most noticeable when listening is that with the Pucks the S sounds are always better, and this is easily heard and needs no time to distinguish. I haven't compared this with the table location vs wall mounted yet, but now that I know what to listen for I'll find out when it's back on the wall, or as Jonesy said in The Hunt For Red October - "Now that I know what to listen for, I'll bag him."

[marcl]

Mar 21, 2022 10:02:25 GMT -5 ttocs said:

Mar 21, 2022 1:35:22 GMT -5 marcl said:

Have you used one of these?
<button disabled="" class="c-attachment-insert--linked o-btn--sm">Attachment Deleted</button>
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KJ2624C/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

No I haven't. Looks interesting though.

I'm wrestling with speaker placement. Some of the improvement is related to the inverse square law, with the speaker being physically closer to the MLP. Some improvement is which surface that's making contact with the speaker is resonating, or not. The speaker being located above the tv is my favorite location by a huge margin. Locating it below the tv is causing a lot of grief for me in thinking about how to configure the rest of the system to be able to allocate the space for the speaker and its support, probably my tree stump, and then the rewiring of everything after having moved the other components around.

Then there's the fact that this speaker is ten years old and might need some attention. Now that I'm taking all the measurements, I'm seeing things related to the stat panel being a little weak, so it may need a better cleaning than I normally perform. When stat panels age, tiny particles can stick to the membrane and vacuuming doesn't always clean them out. The membrane can also age and deteriorate and need replacement. And then there are the woofers that might not be quite right. So I need to investigate some more before doing anything really stupid. I've been thinking about getting a new center speaker for a couple years now, but I was hoping to wait till next year. Might be sooner.

I want to try to improve the wall mount. The first part is to sandwich cork between the wall and bracket, and also rubber isolate the screws from the bracket. Then use your sorbothane between the bottom edge of the speaker and the wall. And I truly believe that this location is not the best for sound, but can at least be improved upon. It's a compromise like a lot of audio decisions, but this location gives the best coverage for the movie watching area.

The Pucks seem to measure the best vs cork or anything else I tried. Cork is almost as good though, but I need to put a 10lb slab of granite on top of the speaker for the cork to do its best. The differences then become very small for cork vs Pucks. But the odd thing is that the Waterfall plots still mostly look better with the Pucks, and I don't know why this should be unless there's some ringing in the table? I really have to wait for outside noise - planes, trains, and trucks on the highway a mile away - to die down so the lower freqs aren't skewed. What is most noticeable when listening is that with the Pucks the S sounds are always better, and this is easily heard and needs no time to distinguish. I haven't compared this with the table location vs wall mounted yet, but now that I know what to listen for I'll find out when it's back on the wall, or as Jonesy said in The Hunt For Red October - "Now that I know what to listen for, I'll bag him."

When I had the plasma it had more of the top on it and I rigged some braces behind to hold up the CC5 and it only ever fell down one time 

Then I decided this bracket thing must exist, so I found it.  Worked great on the plasma, and it was easy to tilt it forward so I got perfect on-axis line to the MLP.  Then I got the OLED and ya know you can slice a tomato with those things!  It seemed a little precarious and I had to shim with some foam because the panel is so thin .... but it's fine and most of the weight goes straight down.

I wouldn't be surprised if the pucks have Sorbothane in them.  That stuff has been around since the 80's.  

In a past life I had to specify a resilient foam material for a musical instrument keyboard that had effects linked to key pressure.  Sorbothane would have worked for shock absorption, but I ended up using Poron because its compression resistance increased with pressure up to 50% compression, and it would take thousands of cycles without losing resilience.   So Poron foam might be a solution too.

I'm just surprised that any vibration damping would have a measurable (let alone audible) effect above like 200Hz.

[ttocs]

Mar 21, 2022 11:01:42 GMT -5 marcl said:

I'm just surprised that any vibration damping would have a measurable (let alone audible) effect above like 200Hz.

It's not really a sibilance that I'm referring to, but it's still an S sound. And no, this is not measurable, but is easily audible. Same with my stats, sibilance can be more pronounced or tamed with setup - including feet, amp, and wire choices. Sade and Gwen Stefani are both prone to sibilance.

The measurability of the vibration damping shows up more as ripples in the traces. I don't profess to know why, it just shows up that way. So there are traces with sharper pointed squiggles, and smoother looking squiggles, but I don't know if these are audible, just that they're measurable. I'm not writing a book, so I'm not taking the time to listen for each type of squiggle. But what I will do is do some room dampening to reduce the room effect a little. I've got some drapes I've been wanting to install for months now, and maybe now is the time. I bought them just to reduce the reflection from the glass window wall, which right now just has wood blinds.

When I got a demo of the Isoacoustics Gaia feet vs spikes on speakers at AXPONA in 2019, the difference was in clarity of presentation, soundstage. It's in this area that I would think it's difficult to measure unless both L&R speakers are measured together. To me, it seems that it's probably most similar to toe adjustments to get a different clarity and/or soundstage presentation. Maybe it's due to wiping out some cancellations? Dunno. But I'd like to find out.

I had a similar experience that simply blew me away when I got a demo of singing bowls at a very high end audio store. Music was playing and the guy picked up one bowl sitting on a small stand between both speakers and the soundstage collapsed. I was dumbfounded as to how this could be, but that's all he did. Now, is this measurable? Maybe, but I'd think you'd have to be an audio engineer and be able to measure the timing of each speaker measured vs MLP, like phase, etc. I'm just grasping at straws here in trying to explain my experience so I might not have the correct words, but I hope the idea comes across. It's not magic, but it can sound like it is.

So again, is all of this measurable when it's audible? I will say it is, but it needs somebody who knows what they're doing to show what's going on.

Why don't we just go back to single speaker Mono?

[marcl]

Mar 21, 2022 11:40:48 GMT -5 ttocs said:

Mar 21, 2022 11:01:42 GMT -5 marcl said:

I'm just surprised that any vibration damping would have a measurable (let alone audible) effect above like 200Hz.

It's not really a sibilance that I'm referring to, but it's still an S sound. And no, this is not measurable, but is easily audible. Same with my stats, sibilance can be more pronounced or tamed with setup - including feet, amp, and wire choices. Sade and Gwen Stefani are both prone to sibilance.

The measurability of the vibration damping shows up more as ripples in the traces. I don't profess to know why, it just shows up that way. So there are traces with sharper pointed squiggles, and smoother looking squiggles, but I don't know if these are audible, just that they're measurable. I'm not writing a book, so I'm not taking the time to listen for each type of squiggle. But what I will do is do some room dampening to reduce the room effect a little. I've got some drapes I've been wanting to install for months now, and maybe now is the time. I bought them just to reduce the reflection from the glass window wall, which right now just has wood blinds.

When I got a demo of the Isoacoustics Gaia feet vs spikes on speakers at AXPONA in 2019, the difference was in clarity of presentation, soundstage. It's in this area that I would think it's difficult to measure unless both L&R speakers are measured together. To me, it seems that it's probably most similar to toe adjustments to get a different clarity and/or soundstage presentation. Maybe it's due to wiping out some cancellations? Dunno. But I'd like to find out.

I had a similar experience that simply blew me away when I got a demo of singing bowls at a very high end audio store. Music was playing and the guy picked up one bowl sitting on a small stand between both speakers and the soundstage collapsed. I was dumbfounded as to how this could be, but that's all he did. Now, is this measurable? Maybe, but I'd think you'd have to be an audio engineer and be able to measure the timing of each speaker measured vs MLP, like phase, etc. I'm just grasping at straws here in trying to explain my experience so I might not have the correct words, but I hope the idea comes across. It's not magic, but it can sound like it is.

So again, is all of this measurable when it's audible? I will say it is, but it needs somebody who knows what they're doing to show what's going on.

Why don't we just go back to single speaker Mono?

I think of feet or spikes having an effect to reduce transmission to a structure ... reducing transmission to another room for strictly noise reduction purpose, or reduce transmission to a floor that's "loose" enough that it could resonate like a sounding board (and some people actually build resonant floors because they like this).  I would not think either would matter in my house, with everything on a concrete floor.

But I have a singing bowl and now I have to try it, dammit! 

[ttocs]

Mar 21, 2022 11:58:30 GMT -5 marcl said:

But I have a singing bowl and now I have to try it, dammit! 

The demo was with 5 singing bowls. Two at about 5' up on the front wall behind each speaker, one about a foot above the floor between the speakers, and one on each side wall directly left and right of the MLP but again up about 5'. But all it took to change the soundstage was to remove that one between the speakers. It was freaky. The guy saw my reaction and asked me what I heard. My friend didn't notice it the first time, but my jaw dropped.