Spikes for SDA. Any advice

F1nut

There is no hole for brace on back top of my speakers?

There should be a bolt near the top, you remove that.

I will have to drill my own if I want to do that mod. Seems simple and cheap enough to try out?

If there is no bolt, don't bother, it's not worth it.

DarqueKnight

drumminman wrote: »

IIRC Darqueknight uses both and found there to be a bit of improvement in bass response.

I use the bass brace with the stock feet on a hardwood floor.

DarqueKnight

drumminman wrote: »

IIRC Darqueknight uses both and found there to be a bit of improvement in bass response.

I use the bass brace with the stock feet on a hardwood floor. I have the set of stock steel spikes that came with the speakers. I prefer the brace over the spikes. I have not tried both spikes and brace.

Schurkey

My SDA 1Bs have been sitting on home-made steel spikes cut and ground from Grade 8 (hardened steel) bolts for...maybe two decades now. Close to that, anyway. Jam-nutted to secure them to tee-nuts pressed into the speaker cabinet "pedestals". Two in front, one in back--three to a speaker. If I have five dollars in all six, including nuts and tee-nuts, I'd be surprised. I don't count my labor, which would have been "about" one hour to make and install the spikes, including leveling the speakers after installation.

My floor is indoor-outdoor carpet (no pad at all) over concrete. The spikes are absolutely invisible because they're only long enough to go through the carpet, it "appears" that the bases of the cabinets are resting on the carpet. (Of course, they aren't--they're resting on three spikes which couple to the concrete.)

Spikes stabilize the speakers that would otherwise be (more) subject to Newton's Third Law. As those drivers are vibrating fore and aft, the speaker cabinet will tend to vibrate aft and fore. Put the speaker cabinet on a nice, soft gasket--carpet and carpet pad, for example--and the speaker cabinet will vibrate in opposite direction to the driver's net force. This smears the mids and treble, and partially-cancels the bass.

The worst possible surface for that (in most homes) is thick carpet on top of thick pad--but any surface that is squishy will have some of that same effect. (Vinyl floor covering, for example.) The harder the floor surface, the less you need spikes.

Put the speaker on top of bare concrete, the spikes won't be of any more benefit than those hard plastic pads that the speaker comes with; unless you're particularly susceptible to sweetening tea by stirring rather than with sugar. (UNLESS the additional height of the spikes brings the tweeters to a more-desirable height; or you change the radiation pattern slightly by raising or tilting the speaker when the spikes are added.)

You put spikes on the speaker, then put those stupid floor-protectors under the spikes...you might as well not bother with the spikes to begin with. If you use spikes to couple the speakers to the floor, then use floor protectors to prevent the spikes from coupling...you've spent twice as much money to achieve NOTHING.

Spikes are made from brass because brass is easier and cheaper to machine than hardened steel. Don't have to sharpen the cutting bit as often. Mass-production economics--and perceived beauty--over actual performance. There is no difference in performance between brass and steel spikes provided they both couple the speaker cabinet to the floor.

Schurkey

One more edit, except I'm past my twenty minutes:

The lower the center of gravity, the less improvement you'll have with spikes. The deeper the cabinet base (front to rear) the less improvement you'll have with spikes. The lower the volume, the less improvement you'll have with spikes. But the big thing is thick, squishy floor coverings. You have heavy carpet, or any carpet at all, you need spikes.

Conversely, an under-engineered wood-joist floor can be detrimental; the floor itself may vibrate based on the moving mass of the drivers and cabinet. Firmly coupling a speaker cabinet to a trembling floor isn't going to do much good.

If I had speakers that used a bass-brace, I'd have two spikes under the cabinet, and the third point of the plane would be the bass-brace, SCREWED INTO A WALL STUD or mounted to a concrete wall. I would NOT mount the bass-brace to unreinforced sheetrock or plaster-over-lath. A lateral brace (2X4 or 2X6 across several wall studs) would be acceptable, I think.

motorstereo

Thanks for all that info Schurkey. I had been contemplating spikes on my 1.2s but they're sitting on a rock solid hard floor with the bass braces securely mounted. I'd also been thinking about spikes for my subs. But after reading your thoughts on the low center of gravity it seems that they wouldn't benefit from them either.