Speaker feet

[Gerry]

Not sure what to call them! The idea came from a Towshend advert where he suggests that rather than spike on speakers better response is gained from a hydraulic effect, i.e. some sort of suspension.
This made me think and rather than spend £900 on their platform I thought about a cheaper way.

The suggestion is to suspend the speaker on soft air damped springs, so I wondered about squash balls. Soft, air filled, compliant. This was the result.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f304/Gforcegerry/P1010156.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f304/Gforcegerry/P1010155.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f304/Gforcegerry/P1010157.jpg

The cost is minimal- about £2.50 each.
Squash balls (I went for Pro ones which don't bounce so much-double dot. There are others. Standard size is roughly 40mm in diameter.) 3 for £3.99 (Sports Direct).
Push fit 40mm socket plug (52824) £0.89.
M6 Roofing bolt (pack of 10) (53935) £0.55 and a washer, all from Screwfix.

Drill a 6mm hole in the end of the of the socket plug, put the roofing bolt & washer through and tighten. Then squeeze the squash ball right in. This has the effect of stopping it compress too much at the sides.

I have tried them and would be interested (if anyone else can be bothered to make them) on others comments. Interesting results is all I'll say.
I'm using Magneplanar MG12 which on custom stands weigh about 30Kg each.

[aquapiranha]

That is bloody inspired! If we had an award for the most innovative and simple design of a component I would be nominating you for it, brilliant.

[Puffin]

Ah yes, but which "spot" sounds the best? Red, Yellow or Blue:lol::lol::lol:

[Batty]

Depends on how heavy your TT is I guess :)

[Tripmaster]

Nice :eyebrows:

[Peter Galbavy]

They look great. Hope they work.

One thing that really really worked for me and also comes from the cheap-and-easy school of audio is, under Focal floorstanders, a pack of 600x300 porcelain wall/floor tiles from Homebase (£15-£25 per pack of 5) and Bluetak. Pick colour and style to suit your room :)

I put 5 small pea-sized blobs of Bluetak in a domino style 5 between each pair of tile as a 5 tile high sandwich. The tiles provide the front-back stabilisation and weight and the Bluetak absorbs the low frequencies.

They sound different and they also detect very different under Audyssey in the 5.1 TV room. I have a stereo pair in one room and a 5.1 setup in the other room for the home cinema. I won't describe Audyssey for those who don't know it, but it does "room corrrection" by detecting speaker responses in multiple locations and building FIR correction filters.

Originally Audyssey inserted a *large* correction around 70/80Hz - after, the correction is almost gone. So both my ears and my barin are happier :)

[Big Vern]

Hi Gerry,

They have the look of the Clearaudio Magix about them! :)

http://www.audioaffair.co.uk/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=1206&md=e6c4400427b57e95e0c863d7c6d178f1

A really ingenious idea of yours! I've enjoyed really good results using two Morrison's granite chopping boards (about £8 apiece) with halved squash balls between them...on my suspended wood floor, they made a massive difference, really tightening things up in the bass. What I love about your solution is how compact and 'portable' they are! :)

Speak soon,

Paul.