[Scott Dorsey]

Eric B wrote:
Dear Generic...
The spikes are from Hifi. The science is iffy. Perhaps they
stabilize the loading of the speaker stand. The only advantage I can
think of is to connect the bass to the floor in a point loaded
fashion.

I think this is true. I think also that they don't do anything that
isn't better done by adding mass. And they tear up your floors.

The advantage of de-coupling speakers from a work station is real.
OTOH, the foam isolation units don't work as well as a free standing,
massive stand like cinder blocks.

Mass is always your friend.

I used to believe as several have stated here that there could be no
significant advantage to stand mounting over shelf mounting. I was
wrong! The issue was irrefutably demonstrated to me while showing a
high end NY jazz producer the Earthworks speakers. On stands the bass
image was beautiful. As soon as the speakers were put on a table or
shelf the bass image went away completely. The best explanation
(rationalization)II could come up with was that A) the entire
workstation becomes a bass radiator and B) that the bass information
from the two speakers 'talks' to each other through the hard physical
medium of the wood like substance and the differences are hidden.

The low end really adds a lot to the perception of the stereo image and
a lot of things that people notice as changing the image often are
really the result in changes in bass tonality.

But, if you want a really bad example, take those same speakers and hang
them from the ceiling with ropes of chains, as is STILL commonly done
in broadcast studios. The low end is totally screwed up, even more than
on the table.

I understand that many people believe bass imaging is stupid or
perhaps ill-conceived. I have heard all sorts of explanations why bass
image can not possibly be perceived.

The problem is that people misinterpret the science. If you look at the
studies, there is good proof that actual imaging does not exist for anything
below about 20 Hz. This means that a second order crossover into a mono
subwoofer has to be located at 10 Hz to make sure there isn't substantial
energy above 20 Hz being made mono... which kind of defeats most subwoofers
completely. People handwave this and say "there's no bass imaging" when
they are talking about stuff in the 100 Hz range several octaves up.

Bass imaging comes from arrival time differences at the ear, and if you
think about the mechanism, you can see that at 20 Hz there is a pretty
small fraction of a wavelength between the two ears. But yet, there's
still some audible difference possible.

All of this is confounded by my earlier point that tonal changes in the
low end change perceived imaging.

Anyone want to argue that subject?

There's too much stuff going on to argue either way without knowing the
real circumstances of the playback system. That's why instead I am going
to go listen to another Jaco Pastorius record.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."