Purpose of speaker spikes?

[cyberspyder]

Do they offer a noticeable improvement, or are they just snake-oil?

Brendan

[jwmbro]

apparently the main purpose of speaker spikes are to couple (not de-couple) the speakers to the floor. From what I've read you should use spikes when placing floorstanders on cement or tile floors, or speaker stands on hard floors like that. so in other words, connection between speaker and rigid surface. if on the other hand you're putting the speaker on a table or speaker stand or wood floor, you'll want to place it on rubber feet, or bitumen, or some similar soft material, to prevent the wood from resonating with the speakers.

[cyberspyder]

Good, cause I didn't put any spikes in my order from PE...thanks alot!

Brendan

[Sonusthree]

I recommend trying both coupling and de-coupling. Both have they're uses regardless of floor surface.

Spikes can help to keep your speakers from wobbles that smear the high frequencies and may also give increased bass (not always in a desirable way). They also provide an easy way to keep your speakers exactly straight and level on uneven surfaces.

Rubber feet or other decoupling stops the rest of the building 'singing' with the low frequencies but this can be useful with SOME speakers. My experience is that HF suffers without a solid footing.

I have used a combination before: Large floorstanders with spikes resting on heavy concrete slabs. The concrete slabs were supported by rubber 'bouncy' balls cut in half. The balls were under so much compression that the HF didn't really change.

Speaking of balls under compression .......
Don't put spikes into your wife's laminate flooring!

[cyberspyder]

Sorry to bring this back from the dead again....what about spikes for speaker stands? Currently thinking of getting some concrete blocks and stacking them to make a stand...what would be the correct spikes/decoupling thing to use? Note, this is all going to be on a hardwood floor. Also, what kind of material should I have between the base of the speaker and the stand? Foam? Rubber?

Thanks, Brendan

[ion]

Well, If you ask me, I think the main purpose of spikes is to make it possible for hi-fi dealers to earn some extra cash by charging hilariously much for vitually nothing.

[BERENO]

If you are building some stands out of a very dense and heavy material (like your concrete blocks) then I do not believe that it will really matter what you use to decouple the stands from the hardwood floor. Noticeable resonances from the speakers are not really going to travel through concrete and be heard through the hardwood flooring. Personally I would be too afraid of hurting the wood, so I would put some old carpet on the bottom of your stands, or some of those felt shoes that you can put on chairs.

Here is a link for you if you choose the felt pads

[454Casull]

I have no idea why people claim that spikes can "decouple".

[BERENO]

I have no idea why people claim that spikes can "decouple"

agreed, hence the felt pads

As Sonusthree suggested, you can use the spikes to between the loudspeaker and the concrete stands acting as a coupler. However, I would decouple the stands from the hardwood flooring with the felt pads

[Juergen Knoop]

setting a bookshelf speaker on spikes let the shelf resonate less.
This is from personal experience and I would call that 'decoupling'.
regards