Brass footers in Vibrapods - works for me


Hi everyone. First time poster with near zero technical knowledge, so bear with me.

I stream Tidal Masters/Hifi through AudioQuest Dragonfly Black to a Marantz PM16.  DNM Cables connect to Technics SB-C700 speakers. These sit on blutack dots on...Slate Audio stands (made of three pieces of very heavy Welsh slate). The stands three integral steel spikes sit on brass footers, on a hardwood floor laid over concrete. 

The sound was wasn’t as good as you’d hope for such a set up. There seemed to be an absence of lower bass and a piercing quality to the mid treble. Numerous speaker placement changes made no difference. 

After reading various threads on here, I decided to tweak the footer arrangement. The slate stands are VERY heavy and it occurred to me that - other than the blutack - there was nothing in the way of “give”. You’d struggle to find a more rigid system. Now, I know that has to be a good thing in terms of imaging - but the “steely” character was unliveable with. 

I wanted to try the Herbies Fat Gliders approach - footers sitting in a puck. But all my money had gone. So, using what I had, I tried my brass footers sitting in the well of a Vibrapod, one per spike. 

Result ? Deep joy ! The missing bass returned, the mid treble smoothed out and, if anything, the image widened even further. I even got the legendary “where’s the subwoofer?” comment from a friend. 

I think this this may be very much system-related, but it shows what can be done just by experimenting. Would greatly appreciate some views as to what’s going on here. 

Thanks

Mike
128x128argyle_mikey
I wonder if you were getting a lot of "reflected vibration" back up into the speakers from all those hard surfaces. Maybe adding the Vibrapods helped decouple from that? I think this is the "theory" behind the Herbie offerings.

My speakers are on carpet so I spike the speakers into wood and have a heavy ceramic tile under the wood.

Regardless, glad it is working for you.
That was my thought too, although it does seem a bit of a hybrid approach- draining AND decoupling. 

Cheers, am very happy! 

Anyone else hardwood floors, spike shoes and some spare vibrapods - give it a go. It looks dreadful of course, but when did that stop anyone ?