IsoAcoustics Gaia II

joecoulson

I mentioned in the Isopucks thread that I would be adding these. At the recommendation of @marvda1 and others. The two sets were delivered today.
Caveat: since the Auralic is getting replaced with a new one, this will be more of the first thoughts as I am using Sacd straight out of the Denon 2910. Not terrible, but not even close to the G1’s talent.

The box is a top lift one similar to mobile phone device boxes. Closed cell foam is used to pack the contents tightly inside.





The four feet are loaded separately from the hardware. Upon closer inspection these are of much higher quality than the already nicely made isopucks. As a side bonus, the finish is a dark chrome which is perfect!! I’ll elaborate further down.




Now onto mounting, first I had to disconnect the speaker wicker and lay the towers on their sides. These are heavy towers at 105lbs I believe. The hardware had my exact size thread for the Elac Adante’s (M8) and I followed directions for mounting the hardware first on each foot, then each foot onto the outrigger plate on the Elacs. This is where the finish is a cool bonus. The Elacs employ a top nut to finish off the original spikes. Because I wanted a nice finished look, I reused these top nuts. And they match perfectly!!




After mounting the feet, I positioned the speakers back upright. Because I am on carpet, and I didn’t want to wreck the feet by trying to walk the speaker into place. I had some “furniture movers” These allowed me to move the speakers around and position them in perfect alignment much easier.




After aligning, I tilted the speakers to each side and removed the furniture movers. Pretty good looking if you ask me!



Now I am listening to DSOTM on Sacd, it sounds good, but I will have to try some vinyl here in a while as I said, I have been so used to the sound of the G1 for hi res.

Will report back after some listening.

VR3

Would think with carpet you would prefer spikes? Just thinking out loud.

Looking forward to your results!

I recently realized that with my approximately 3/16" tilt on my utopias, the speakers were actually "rocking" at higher volumes. I added 3 fender washers to equal this space for an extra tight and I was pleasantly surprised with the change.

joecoulson

Trey, because I am on a sunken floor on a crawl, with 10” floor joists, I learned before I got these that decoupling from the floor worked better for me. To much resonance.
I might get a couple slabs of granite to see if that works but I’m afraid of getting the tweeter to high above the listening position. It’s off axis performance is great, but that would be pushing it.

So I have spun two discs. One was Madonna with one of my guilty pleasures: live to tell
I was listening for the drums as I feel these feet are going to improve the mid bass more than anything else. Not that they won’t improve across the board, I just think the mid bass/low mids will see the most apparent change.
In this track, I could just tell a little that snare hits and toms we’re giving a little more umph (technical term)

My second disc is one of my favs that I knew would showcase any mid bass changes.
Dave Grohl : Play
Now here we go. I turned off the SVS for this track to really hear what was going on. I have heard this 20 min song about 25 times now. It just gets better every time. This time, the breakdowns in the track where Dave really gets pounding on the skins is so much more impactful. Damn as I listen now it’s just like a drum set is in here! No sub.

So far so good.

VR3

Got it. Sounds like a good improvement so far

marvda1

see if you can get the spikes for the gaias to try out with a return policy as part of the design is a sort of suction on the bottom that adheres the speakers to smooth surfaces like the pucks. the gaia spikes on carpet provides a solid base so if can get a return policy give them a try.

joecoulson

Might be worth a shot. I just know that the stock spikes on the Elacs did not sound as good as using the discs under them.

joecoulson

Ok. Bit the bullet and ordered the spikes. $120 for the spikes is high, but the tweak is kinda dependent on using the feet for isolation, not carpet pad. Fingers crossed my floor plays nicely.

I used granite slabs to test the rigidity of the towers and it was obvious to me the carpet was just allowing too much movement in the tower. Most likely affecting (as Skip said) the mid bass and imaging.

joecoulson

The feet are now secured to the sub floor.
Carpet spikes installed. Should get G1 back tomorrow and will be back in the saddle tomorrow night fingers crossed 🤞🏻
I have to say, I have three different models from IsoAcoustics now and couldn’t be happier with the quality of construction.

Pics.