Foundation...

jaxwired

jaxwired

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Joined
Jul 10, 2013
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644
Location
Texas
Would love to hear thoughts on putting speakers on a granite slab. I have carpet under my speakers and there is plywood subfloor under that as my room is on the second floor of my home. My speakers currently use spikes and sit directly on the wall to wall carpet. Anyone think that a granite slab or similar under the speakers would be a good idea, bad idea, or irrelevant?
 
I have been doing it for years starting with a pair of Mirage M970s that were bass dead until I put them up on slabs. Then I continued using them with my Dynaudios with similar success. The Clearfields are not as easy and I don't have slabs big enough.

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I have granite under my D3's, thanks to Jock, and it works well on my carpet over hardwoods that's also on a slab foundation.
 
I've been using granite ( drilled holes @ 3/8 - 16" ) underneath my speaker stands since 1988, and continue to do so to this very day, yet I've gone a few steps further and added Track Audio Spikes under both the slabs of granite and stands, as it allows me to adjust the height on both, and atop the granite I've placed a set of Isoclean Power TT-008 Tip Toe Bases.

And then seeing a few of my friends do the same, in one case as ex-friend added slabs under his Harbeth Compact 7ES-3s and Skylan Stands............, and it snapped the bass notes together in a manner, I didn't know they were capable of, whereas before the slabs, to my ear it seems as if their bass notes where always 3 - 5 beats behind the treble and mid bass if you will.

I know some prefer some sort of wood ( Baltic Birch or Maple ) underneath their speaker/speaker stands, as some feel granite rings!, yet to my ears, I think not!, yet I tend to be from the mass loading school of thought as opposed to the rigid and light loading mindset, in which case, I'd say the truth lies somewhere in between the two - but granite has a weird way of snapping into focus both the sound staging and hidden nuances as presented at the speaker end in a manner that draws one deeper into the backdrop more readily - at least to my way of hearing/feeling musical notes.
 
Alright. What I'm about to say is going to make it sound as though I toked one too many ... but hear me out..

In my Hi-Fi travels, I've come to find that most things sound exactly like what they are. A metal dome will always sound like a metal dome. Silver will always sound like silver. Copper will always sound like copper. Paper like paper, and so on and so forth. This principle holds ESPECIALLY true when it comes to resonance-control platforms.

That said, let's take a look at the material you're talking about. It tends to be dark, rigid, and cold. Now if you employ slabs that are 2" or thicker, I can almost guarantee that you'll notice the same thing that KT77 did. The bass *should* tighten up quite notably. You may even notice the sound of your rig shift towards the more linear and controlled side of the aural spectrum. Now for some systems and for some speakers (transmission lines, thin walled speakers, etc), this is a good thing. For others however, I noticed heavy slabs of marble, concrete, etc... can 'deaden' the sound.

As a fun aside, go out and buy a bag of cedar circles from Bed Bath and Beyond. You'll find em' in the coat hangar section. Place four of them under the granite slab, and then another four on top (where your speakers will sit). See if ya notice a difference. It's an $8 experiment worth trying. :)
 
When I used to use a pair of M&K MX-70 subs I put concrete bricks under them instead of just having them on carpet. This did tighten up the bass and improved the extension a bit as well. The MX-70 subs have a downward firing driver as well as a front firing one in a push-pull configuration.
 
Albert said:
When I used to use a pair of M&K MX-70 subs I put concrete bricks under them instead of just having them on carpet. This did tighten up the bass and improved the extension a bit as well. The MX-70 subs have a downward firing driver as well as a front firing one in a push-pull configuration.
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Albert, did they sound brittle & heavy?....:D
 
Kind of, as I couldn't get them to integrate with my Acoustats. I now use no sub and just run the Acoustats full. They do go down to about 25 hz but they don't have the output that sub would have. They are still quite satisfying and have many more pluses for me than minuses.
 
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