Granite Under Speakers Over A Wood Floor

the folks at avalon acoustics recommend using marble about 1" thick or less & cut 4" wider and deeper than the speaker's footprint (this for the opus, which has an active down-firing woofer and bottom port). they also advise the use of supplied spikes for decoupling. this notion apparently came from an avolon owner who lives in a nyc loft that has wooden floors; he cut out the wood beneath his speakers and replaced it with marble. now that's a true audiophile!

I found the perfect place for my speaker and cut a hole out directly beneath them. Then I had a contractor come out and dig a hole under my house deep enough to get beneath the frost line so when the ground froze the concrete post beneath the speakers wouldn't move up and move the tweeter height. The wife sued for divorce and got the house and out of spite got the judge to award the the speakers because they covered up the concrete columns. Aint life a bitch..sookjustkiddingfolkshehe

I will not venture to say these work better or worse than a marble slab, but, you can get various kinds of floor protectors. These are available in a myriad of materials from lots of dealers. I use Tip-toes. The good news on these is that you can easily move the speakers to adjust toe-in, etc.

I'd recommend trying coins first. It should cost somewhere between $.06 and $2.00, depending on the coin and the amount of spikes. Although, I hear that old Spanish doubloons are eerily transparent and sublimely musical. :-)

Stones under speakers on a wood floor can improve the sound in many ways, but always bring some artifacts of the sound of the stone along to the party too. Therefore you need to choose the stone carefully. Granite is not good. Impure marble, soap stone and sand stone are all better. Even so you will still need to make sure the stone does not wobble on the floor - but upturned tip-toes work OK and the spike connects with the stone not the floor.