speaker spikes and the placebo effect.

Adam N.

Trying to keep it simple.
In addition to ohms law and all the other stuff audiophiles are supposed to know about I would like to submit that the placebo effect is very important.

I just got some eBay cheapo China speaker spikes for the bases of my Celestion 300s because I like their geekiness and thought they'd look boss. They do! I think the speakers sound better. Who cares if I an wrong? Not me!

My wife grew up with a couple of friends kids next door. The parents there made a label to go on a jar of cold cream but the label said "Placebo Cream". Anytime one of the neighbor kids fell down or bumped into something out came the Placebo Cream. It became something of a 3rd world clinic operation where kids came from all around for the miracle cure. The net result is that the neighbor kids believed they felt better and did.

If it sounds better, I guess it does. I am not kidding, the Celestions sound better to me.
 
No "placebo effect" with spikes as they sure do help to make a speaker "sound better". I found this to be true when I spiked my 18'' sub which reduced the rumble thru my tt enough that I could actually use the sub while playing vinyl. I also noticed clearer mids on my main speakers once they were spiked. Every little bit helps and imo spiking is a worthwhile improvement.
 
Spikes help decouple speakers from the floor which can clean up boomy, sloppy bass and help with overall clarity. Is it always a "night and day" type difference? Not necessarily, but if you notice a difference who cares if someone else thinks it's baloney?
 
The best explanation I have heard is that the footprint is too small to successfully transmit the vibration to the object that the speakers sit on. What I am talking about here is the spike with the cup it sits on. it has to do more with the wavelength length and the contact area. So these decouple. There is no hard nail like contact between the speaker and the object it sits on.

Speakers Stand Spikes, on the other hand, help to reduce vibration in the stand and prevent it from transmitting that vibration back into the speaker. With Stand spikes these are driven into the supporting material to couple.

Speaker spikes decouple, speaker stand spikes decouple. The claims are suspicious at any rate and sound like malarky. From my vantage point I fully expected them to be pretty but useless bobbles.

This is the thing: I am listening to the speaker now and they sound better to me. The bass sound a bit cleaner and tighter. I am a little surprised but the mids sound crisper too. My speakers are transmission lines so there's other stuff going on with them too. Resonance matters with these and they came, originally, with spikes but got lost along their way to me.
 
Spikes I've used have never effected bass but did help cleanup the midrange a bit. Nothing earth shattering but it did help.
 
You know, this is turning out to be a lot better. My wife is away and I have had a long uninterrupted listening session. I pulled the speakers further out from the walls and it just keeps getting better. Aside from the spikes and the positioning nothing has changed.

Let's hope that the speakers being out further from the walls is "domestically acceptable" which is an actual term from the Celestion manual that came with the speakers. WAF indeed.
 
Spikes are fine but they make it more difficult to slide the speakers on the carpet. :)

I've added carpet sliders to make moving my main speakers and sub easier. I guess i'Il take dirty mid-range si can move them for cleaning and maintenance.
 
I added homemade spikes to my speakers because they were on thick carpet. My understanding is is based on the physics of how speakers work. To make sound, the cone basically pushes back and forth, especially the woofer. If the speaker cabinet was not secure, but instead kind of floating on the carpet, some of the force of the cone moving forward would be transmitted into pushing the cabinet backwards, if only microscopically. Something like Newton's third law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. If the speaker cabinet is coupled solidly with the floor, then the majority of the force goes into moving the cone, and therefore making beautiful music.

And yeah, I think they sounded a lot better!
 
I added homemade spikes to my speakers because they were on thick carpet. My understanding is is based on the physics of how speakers work. To make sound, the cone basically pushes back and forth, especially the woofer. If the speaker cabinet was not secure, but instead kind of floating on the carpet, some of the force of the cone moving forward would be transmitted into pushing the cabinet backwards, if only microscopically. Something like Newton's third law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. If the speaker cabinet is coupled solidly with the floor, then the majority of the force goes into moving the cone, and therefore making beautiful music.

And yeah, I think they sounded a lot better!
This is no joke, my new AR58S were moving all over the place. I had the music cranking while in the shower and the speakers had moved back 2" and we're about to fall off the supports.

Reviews on the net were all over the place, but more than a few labeled the AR's as bright, and at first listen I had to agree. But as the new woofer surrounds broke in the bass was a lot better, but still not what I was hoping for. My goal when purchasing the AR's was to remove the twin 12" subs from the little ladies living rm, it wasn't looking so good.

But after noticing how much the speakers were losing by wasting so much energy pushing the cabinets around I decided to get the spikes. Well, I've achieved my goal, the subs are no longer needed, the bass is incredible. I ordered two more sets for my Heresys lol.
 
I added homemade spikes to my speakers because they were on thick carpet. My understanding is is based on the physics of how speakers work. To make sound, the cone basically pushes back and forth, especially the woofer. If the speaker cabinet was not secure, but instead kind of floating on the carpet, some of the force of the cone moving forward would be transmitted into pushing the cabinet backwards, if only microscopically. Something like Newton's third law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. If the speaker cabinet is coupled solidly with the floor, then the majority of the force goes into moving the cone, and therefore making beautiful music.

And yeah, I think they sounded a lot better!
No wonder my speakers always end up flat against the wall.
No Spikes!
:confused:
 
"Oh honey, those gouges from the razor sharp spikes will blend right out of your beautiful Swedish treated oak floors, honest....." If I suspected a problem with the bass due to the little felt pads on the bottom of my speakers, I'd veer towards a nice DE-coupler system rather than sacrifice my hardwood to 10% theory/90% desired perception.
 
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