Punchy base for my WD25Ts (Spelling is correct)

[VantheMan]

Just thought I´d mention this.
I use WD25TEx, on spikes . I originally built them slightly shorter than Peter´s plans - he told me that would be Ok so long as I didn´t alter the baffle width. After reading that similar sized Yamaha NS1000s are considered bookshelf speakers and that they use a stand I started thinkuing of trying to raise my speakers a bit by knocking up a stand . So I got my old Heybrook HBS1 stands which are/were flatpack stands made to match the old Heybrook HB2s and started thinking of getting new uprights made to shorten their height. Then I got to thinking why not use just the bottom part with its splayed outrigger feet as a sort of plinth/platform again with spikes on the ends of the outriggers.
Result instant 100% stability, solid as a rock. Great and the sound had also improved. Then I started thinking of Townsend´s wobbly platforms which seem to have good press despite their price and being fed up with the presence of spikes when moving my speakers around and the dartboard appearance of my parquet floor Idecided to try and introduce a bit of controlled wobbliness into the equation to see what happened. At my local metalwork fixings shop I picked up some rather splendid looking inverted quality rubber "silentblocs" on an M6 stub, presumably for fixing lathes and things to workshop floors. Out with the spikes and these great bung like cones took their place introducing a bit of wobble but nothing like the Townsend wobble I had seen on Youtube. So I then placed some Valhalla Technology isolation foam pads I already had between platform and speaker to introduce even more wobbliness. Unfortunately the pads are for really heavy speakers (120 lbs) and I reckon mine are about half that but I have ordered some new pads for around 60lbs. Apparently the ideal value for springy/wobbliness wotsits should be a 2Hz resonance to filter out all or much of the movement caused to the boxes themselves (Newton´s 3rd Law) generated by bass notes, infinitesimally small but there according to Max Townsend´s seismographs.
Anyway, nuff said about physics, I haven´t a clue but if you want to tighten your bass up and render pin-point imagery to your music. After 40 years without questionning their effectiveness I now suspect spikes are a no-no under speakers. There are several alternatives out there, both cheap and expensive, steel marbles in cups, foam springs, real springs, who knows but deffo worth a try. Speaker spikes are out chez moi (but dont touch my Mana).

[A.N. Beal]

My speakers (WD25s) are mounted at high level on wall brackets, with the tweeters below. It occurred to me that the vibration energy in the loudspeaker is all 'fore and aft' and whilst the wall brackets are stiff vertically and laterally but they do allow the speakers to rock to and fro. Having thought about this (sorry, I'm a structural engineer, so that's what I do), I fixed a bracket to the back of each speaker near the top of its cabinet and a bar back from there to the wall behind to prevent any fore and aft rocking movement.
Result? Pin point, rock solid stereo, definitely an improvement. As a bonus it removed any risk of a speaker falling on to anyone.
I wonder whether the claimed benefits of spikes is actually that they stop a speaker cabinet which sits on a carpet from moving fore and aft in response to loudspeaker movement - and, if so, whether a simple strut from the wall to the back of the cabinet (near the top) may be more effective (as well as stopping damage to flooring).
Regards,
Alasdair