Curious - Vibration Control - One Approach

BlueWizard

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I'm curious if anyone is buying this, and I don't mean purchasing, rather do you believe the technical concepts being resented.

This is Townshend Isolation Podium for speakers -



I can clearly see how the Podium can prevent vibration from traveling out of the speaker and into the floor. But being a soft springy surface, I'm not convinced that the Podium does not steal energy from the speaker.

They do somewhat address this, but in doing so, the deal with cabinet movement relative to Cone movement, which is unrelated to Podium movement. If the cone moves and that flexes the suspension in the Podium, that would seem to be lost motion to the driver and to the sound.

I was just curious about people's opinion, on this concept, and could the same thing technical concept occur but with less soft suspension in the Podium.

I'm not sure what they are using for suspension, but I wonder if four dense cylinders of Sorbothane or other sound absorbing or energy conversion material might work better.

SVS (subwoofers/speakers) has some new energy absorbing feet that you can buy for their Sub, which seem to do a good job of preventing bass from being driven down into the floor. I believe these are made of a Sorbothane-like material. Review, limited as the are, seem to be very positive, so the concept is not completely false, I'm just not sure the Townshend are the solution even if they are the right concept.

Also, I wouldn't mind finding that Seismic App on line somewhere. That was pretty cool.

Just curious.

Steve/bluewizard
 
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Here is more info from Townshend Audio (25 min) -



If nothing else, it is an interesting concept.

Steve/bluewizard
 
The concept seems sound apart from the background vibration bit (surly that would already be present in the recording as it is a background reference sample)

some Blurb from Townshend re the Load Cell
Seismic Load Cell™

The key component is the Townshend Seismic Load Cell™.
The Seismic Load Cell™ consists of a high quality alloy steel compression spring surrounded by a flexible synthetic rubber jacket with two end plates.

Screw threads in each plate facilitate height adjustment and provide attachment points. A movement-sensitive, air-resistance damper rapidly dissipates low frequency oscillation caused by disturbing the suspended equipment.

Seismic Load Cells™ are very ‘soft’ and allow free movement in all three dimensions; up/down, left/right and back/forth.

This unique solution blocks all deleterious vibration from 3Hz upwards and from all directions.

As the frequency increases, the isolation gets progressively greater, ensuring that virtually no vibration can pass from and to the suspended equipment.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This looks like a sub 30 shore durometer sorbothane like substance in the load cell surrounding the spring and the spring is probably there to prevent the rubber jacket miss shaping under load
not sure about the air resistance damper bit might be there to stop it continually moving or speed up the recovery rate in using such a soft compound

I have a similar type set up under my front speakers which consists of four 30 durometer sorbothane hemispheres under a 3cm thick granite plinth and the speaker is sitting on top of that on spikes.

I can definitely attest to the isolation factor for sound transmission to the floor below using this set up as there is no vibration transmitted to the floor at all.

And all at a fraction of the cost if the podium as well.

I also have the SVS soundpath feet for a SB13U and they are very effective and are again of a Sorbothane like material, in this case the sub is sitting on a 3cm granite plinth which has felt feet.
this is because there are floating laminate floors where i live and again no vibration is transmitted to the floor.

Both the sub and the fronts can freely move when bumped in a similar fashion to the clip although it is not as fluid.

I guess what i am saying is a similar effect can be achieved with out the financial outlay.
 

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