Homemade floor protectors -- advice needed

Forget the spikes and buy some vibrapods; buy 4 for each speaker not 3 at the proper weight. I used to spike my speakers through carpet to a hardwood floor, but after some experimentation, settled on vibrapods on laminated glass on top of a low pile carpet that I have. If you're a real detail freak, this may not appeal to you, but if you're more into musicality, I'd definitely give the vibrapods a try.

Thanks to all who posted - you've given me a lot to think about. I suppose I can simply spike into my (rented) hardwood floors, then invest in some wood putty to cover the holes when I move...certainly a lot cheaper than *buying* a place in SF ;-)

One thing to note: the "Audio Selection" support cones and disks that AA sells are very nice, but the disks have adhesive tape on the bottom, to hold them in place, for example, on a shelf. I didn't remove the plastic film covering the adhesive, but after sliding the disks around over a few months, the film peeled off...sticking the support disks to my floors. Next time I'll try disks w/o any tape.

I use the new gold/silver dollar. Take four of them, drill a small hole in the center, small enough for the spike not to penitrate to the floor. Run to Home Depot and buy light brown 1" felt stick on discs. They have ones that fit perfect. $5 total and a good conversation piece.

I use granite slabs (1/2" or 5/8" I believe) cut so there is a 1 1/2" border around the speaker bottom or footprint.
Self adhesive felt sheets were applied to the granite bottoms to protect the floors and enable the speakers to slide easily across my hardwood floors without damage. My granite is black and comes polished on the top but once cut the edges are dull. Simple treatment is to apply clear gloss lacquer or varathane to the cut edges and voila, they have a polished "look".

I've found that the granite also helps de-couple the speakers from the floor but still more decoupling was needed. So once I found the ideal speaker location via many placement tests, I then put 2" x 2" pieces of very high density foam under each corner of the granite. Wow!! The high density foam I found effective was one of those long, narrow pieces used in front of computer keyboards to rest the hands on.

Good Luck
Doug Olsen

Doug, I like the hi-density foam trick! Thanks, I'll try that out.

Cheers!