Speaker / hi-fi best dampener material: granite or marble?

[mrjonsavage]

Hi.

Just about to get some dampening blocks cuts for a set of speakers but have the choice of marble or granite.

Does anyone have an idea which one would be better (if any!)?

Also, it can be polished or left au nateralle but still quite smooth so again should I have any preference?

Finally, should I also dampen the amp & separate components with the above stuff or just get some good rubber dampening feet or maybe a combo of both?

My floors are carpeted at the moment but may go boho and have wooden floors soon...


Any ideas or thoughts would be great (searched the theads but this topic not covered specifically as this).

Thanks & put yer oar in please...

[mhuk05]

I don't know that granite will "dampen" anything - the spikes couples the speaker to it. I use them to stop the spikes digging into my wooden floor; the floor still vibrated so I put some thick foam-like material underneath the granite plinth (£10 each from Tesco; not very thick so really add any mass to the speaker..).

If you need to isolate it i.e. stop vibration, you need some isolating material under it. A sandbox is another option (see tnt-audio)

There are plenty of threads on this in the subwoofer section.

[mrjonsavage]

Thanks for that info.

I suppose I was just thinking that having a really solid surface below a speaker (on speaker spikes) would be a very effective isolator on carpet and in the future a wooden floor.

Please still add comments as to granite or marble plus whether to have the surface polished.

Or do I need to get a Life...

[mhuk05]

Make them quite thick then. Polished need dusting more often

Put your hand on the floor next to speaker when it is stood on a plinth and it will still transmit energy to it as it is coupled; isolate it to prevent energy transferring. Does that make sense? Not very well explained...

Marble is porous; go for whichever is denser. A heavy slab under a turntable is often recommended.

I put something heavy on top of one of my CDPs rather than underneath. Is your kit in rack?

If this question was in the hifi or speaker section you'd get more replies.

Try searching for isolation in these sections:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/speakers/
http://www.avforums.com/forums/subwoofers-tactile-transducers/

[Knightshade]

I make these things so I'm a little bias but take what I say with a pinch of salt if you like.
Granite is good, it costs extra for cutting and polishing but it does look nicer.
Italian Slate is better and cheaper, though not as pretty.
When it comes to isolation several different materials and air will IMHO, work best. Spikes aren't always the best thing to use.
If you have solid floors already don't expect massive differences but if you are unfortunate and have floorboards then this kind of thing will make staggering changes.
Any decent (non glass) rack will be good enough to isolate your electonics.
Several friends of mine have things sat on 'bits of 4x2 guv' and it sounds good. Not pretty but it doesn't resonate like glass.
HTH

[mrjonsavage]

Thanks for all that.

Knightshade, contact me directly if you can better the deal I was offered: two granite pieces, 250x250x20mm, polished on all sides for £30 delivered.

As for the system, it's on a shelf system so is semi-isolated already with most components stacked on top of each other (amp, sacd player, dvd palyer & pvr) with a centre speaker on its own shelf so would it benefit from a bit of granite between each component?

Overall I'm trying to maximise the speaker fidelity by dampening & isolating plus stopping too much bass transmitting through the floor hence the questions on granite etc bases.

Thanks for the tip for postig on the speaker section so don't worry if you see this again there...

[Knightshade]

That's a good price, go for it if I were you.