what floor surface are your B&Ws dancing on?

[tmt]

I'm having the luxury to design a room for my B&W 802 speakers.
We're in the planning stages for building our house, and I'm going to "reserve"
a room of 5x6 meters for HT/music puroses

The room will be on the ground floor and we will use floor heating.
We'll probably have a wooden floor in the living area, but I'm wondering if that's a good floor to have in a HT/music room.

I'm gonna post this question in the HT room section, but I'm wondering what do you guys have your B&Ws sitting on?

the possible surface I could think of are:
- wood
- fitted carpet
- stone tiles

stone probably needs some carpets on the floor?

[alpina]

we have polished concrete - black with white stones in it.

probably the worst surface but wow does it look stunning! no idea what it will all sound like when we put it all together but polished floor is here to stay

julie

[ChrisssB]

My 804Ss are sitting on 3cm marble bases and the floor is parquet :-)

[miner]

My 804N are on oak floors. I am using the rubber feet supplied by B&W.

[aphexist]

Kryptonite laced with plutonium

[jim777]

My 804N are on oak floors. I am using the rubber feet supplied by B&W.

Try the spikes instead of the rubber feet, using spike shoes to protect your floor. The rubber feet are too soft. Do a test with a few dimes at first if you don't want to spend money before a try. You could be surprised...

[dknightd]

Jim777
What are the spikes supposed to do for us? I'm currently rubber feet on oak floor.
Now that I have speaker position sorted out, I'm ready to think about trying
different feet (after I get my room acoustics sorted out).
I don't want metal spikes digging into my wood floor - unless it will
make the music better. I'm a big spender, I can afford dimes, nickles,
quarters, even dollar pieces if it will sound better
I'll be honest, I don't understand the benifit of spikes over rubber feet.
I guess spikes make sense if you need to penetrate thick carpet to make
sure the speakers don't fall over. But are their sonic benifits? How? Why?
Eventually I'll get around to experimenting with different feet I suppose,
but, is this something I should put on the fast track because the results
are so obvious?

[jim777]

dknightd, a speaker pushes air back and forth, so it must be well anchored to the ground. The rubber feet are soft enough that the speaker can move in the opposite direction of the sound pressure. Even though we can't see the speakers move, Newton says they do

The spikes, installed correctly, make it impossible for the speaker to move.

Carefully try to balance your speaker back and forth a half-inch or so. You will see how "soft" it is on its rubber feet. With the spikes they will be solid rock and won't move. They might just sound that much better...

Then "spike shoes" are metal with a very hard rubber that make it easier to get a good contact on each of the 4 feet while still keeping the speaker stable. This worked for me

p.s. but you can use pennies if you want :T

[dknightd]

Ah, yes, I remember reading something about Mr (or was it Sir) Newton.
Among other things I think he discovered that for every action there is an equal but
opposite reaction. So if my 2 oz speakers cones move 1/2" then my 60 lb
speakers will move, um, much less than that. Still since B&W supplied me with
those deadly looking spikes, and it will only cost me 8 cents to try them out,
what the heck, I'll give them a try It won't look as nice as those spike shoes
you have, but, my listening room has so many fabric covered peices of fiberglass
in it right now I don't think anybody will notice 8 pennies under my speakers. . .

[jim777]

So if my 2 oz speakers cones move 1/2" then my 60 lb
speakers will move, um, much less than that.

Your 2 oz speaker cones are rigid enough to put over 100dB of sound pressure in the room :B

Just try it...

[miner]

Jim777,
Where can the 'spike shoes' be purchased?

[jim777]

I got them from "Justice Audio". I think they are a shop in Ontario. They were selling a lot of fun stuff at the FSI show in Montreal. I also got some rubber "polypods" to put under my CD player. And I almost got an AC plug too...

Maybe try to google for 'spike shoes'...

[dknightd]

I think I may just try using scraps of oak under the spikes.

[george_k]

Mine are sitting on ceramic tile, probably not the best surface from a reverb point of view

[Race Car Driver]

I like to dance on the carpet........ if you know what thats all about! :lol:

But wouldnt mind getting the smooth hardwood floors thats underneath the carpet.... :T

[tmt]

If I'm not mistaken a wooden floor would help to avoid reflection of the sound (wood absorbs low frequencies?). Would parquet have the same characteristics?
On a stone floor I would have to lay down carpets or use fitted carpet.

Am I right?! Am I right?!

[ChrisssB]

tmt:
a parquet acts like a resonator that's why I had to put marble bases under my speakers so to minimise the effect. a thick carpet helps also

[Karma]

HI All,
My systems are over thick wall to wall carpet covering linoleum tiles covering a solid concrete slab. It's all very sonically friendly. The spikes penetrate the carpet and rest on the linoleum. It's nothing fancy but works very well. The floors add nothing to the bass but the walls? ...... well that's a different story.

Sparky

[ShadowZA]

Fronts: Spiked through wall-to-wall carpet (fairly thick 80% wool/20% nylon) to solid base concrete underneath.

Rears: Rubber feet on to granite plinths which in turn rest upon above-mentioned wall-to-wall carpet.

[Stevebez]

I wood say concrete / tile floor with scatterred loose carpets. Will give a slightly brighter sound. No chance of resonating floor boards and still aesthetically pleasing. Alternatively you could go for a rubber type carpet tile on concrete should you want carpet - looks a little cheapo but will do the job just fine - and give a more neutral sound. Heavy carpeting is ok but be sure that you spike the speakers through to the concrete below, and agree with ShadowSA on how the carpet is fitted i.e. straight onto the concrete - thin underfelt - this will give the most quiet / neutral sound.

I can't see wood flooring do the job in a dedicated home theatre.

I think as important is the wall treatment. I would hang really thick heavy quilted and folded curtians all round the room - you can pick a nice partern too, and make it motorised open/cose if you need to. This will be very important if the room has any large windows. If need be you could hide any bass traps behind these curtains too - but I think with this curtain treatment it may not be necesary. An alternative to carpeting is to have the walls quilted with foam and material - but that would depend on your specific taste.

Ah make sure you have a rock solid (not hollow) door and have the side to the room quilted too. Hollow doors are rubbish for a good sound room.

Rgds Steve.

[Karma]

HI Steve,
A couple of quick comments. I generally agree with your comments on wall treatments but one must be careful. It's easy to over do it and end up with a very dead and un-dynamic room. There should be a balance between reflection control and reverberation time. Put the treatment where it does the most good. By the time you have the early reflections under control often additional treatment is not needed. This assumes that the normal and obvious problems areas such floors and windows are treated with carpets and window drapes

Wall treatments have almost no effect on bass. Bass is a bugger and requires more effort and money and less sensitivity to aesthetics. The best one can expect in a small room is adequate bass performance. For good bass, one needs a large room. There are no shortcuts.

One last thing. Suspended floors of any kind are enemies of bass unless they are specifically designed for audio use. Avoid.

Sparky

[Andries]

I am fortunate in having a room built on top of a double garage (some 38 squares) and so the floor is solid concrete and carpeted throughout. My B&W 703 speakers are spiked and because of the pattern and texture of the carpet there is no visible damage at all. The furniture for the system, designed by Sound Structures, is also spiked and so everything is pretty solid.

My one gripe is having two huge windows with steel frames. The steel frames rattle at low frequencies and the large glass surfaces often want to sing along as well. I have curbed this by tightening the window handles and by adding thick curtains that absorb low frequency sound waves.

While friends thought it was amazing that the system would make the windows rattle, I was not impressed. The room was not specifically designed for AV / Stereo and if I could I'd take out the steel window frames immediately and replace them with more sturdy aluminium ones.

[JKalman]

Concrete floor covered with carpet (basement).

[alpina]

what do people think of this product?

http://www.acousticart.com.au/

regards,

julie

[JKalman]

what do people think of this product?

http://www.acousticart.com.au/

regards,

julie

It would be nice to have artwork on a room treatment. I would prefer more choices, treatments with more low end absorption below 1000 Hz. I wonder how much I could make those on my own for? The fiberglass is cheap and so is framing. I wonder how much it would cost to print themes onto an open weave textile? Now would be a good time to start learning how to silkscreen Playboy centerfolds.

[james_dmi]

I’ve been thinking along the same lines about making my own picture / sound treatment panels. One thing I though that may save some time is to get the artwork framed as normal onto one of those contempory block type frames. (Lazy I know but I don’t have a garage to do the DIY) and then just put my own foam in and backing on. For the backing I was thinking of sticking some sound diffusion pads onto a sheet of ply to further break up sound waves or perhaps just some thick rug material. Some things I need to work out would be the best density for the foam and how to get some descent artwork onto an acoustically transparent material.

Has anyone done this already? I seem to remember seeing someone making there own panels somewhere on this forum minus the artwork bit….