By Juan C. Ayllon Details matter -- even the little ones -- and yet, sometimes, in dealing with the day-in and day-out battles with the urgent, it's so easy to overlook and forget them. Several years back, I had heard about Herbie's Audio Lab Cone/Spike Puckies, as well as their Cone/Spike Gliders, and was anxious to try them out. For those unaware, Herbie's Audio Labs specializes in products designed to isolate electronics and speakers from the degrading impact of vibrations on audio playback. Herbie's Cone/Spike Puckies are designed for use on turntable feet, Black Diamond Racing Cones and other cones having rounded points, providing excellent grounding of cone and spike vibrations via decoupling/isolation on shelves and bare floors. The rubbery Micro-vibration blocking dBNeutralizer base is bonded to your choice of three disk metals:
At the time, I was reviewing the Usher TD-10 loudspeakers that, at just under four feet tall, weighed 180 lbs. each. Moving them around on their stock spike protectors was cumbersome, but I found with Herbie's Audio Lab Cone/Spike Decoupling Gliders it was much easier moving them about the room for optimal positioning (note: placing the speakers atop the gliders was a two man job). I found it best to slowly move the speakers with pressure applied lower on the speaker to avoid the spikes jumping out of their indentation if they hit an uneven spot on the wooden flooring. Once I found the ideal placement, I carefully swapped in the Cone/Spike Puckies and was immediately wowed by the improvement in detail during music playback. The pucks remained with me after I shipped back the TD-10 loudspeakers, and I found they had a similar impact on the aural presentation of my Usher Mini Dancer 2 DMD speakers. However, when my oldest stepson and his young family moved in with Belle and me for the better part of nine months, I found myself sliding the speakers (which normally were five feet into the room) in and out to accommodate family demands. Hence, it was more practical to keep the Ushers on the Gliders. And like that, the Cone/Spike Puckies went into a drawer and were basically forgotten. About a year later, Belle and I relocated to a new home with an unfinished basement where the listening/AV Room would be. Taking great pains to design and furnish the space to our liking, we had commercial grade vinyl flooring installed. Pleased with the aesthetic, I set up the listening room and was very happy with the results. However, after several months passed, I noticed a certain digital glare that I didn't care for -- especially when taking in HD movies with Belle. One evening while we were binge watching a show, I recalled the Cone/Spike Puckies tucked away in a drawer. Retrieving them from storage, I swapped them in and was startled with the results; frankly, the sound seemed muffled in comparison to what we'd heard moments before! But as our ears adjusted, we realized that a certain amount of sympathetic resonance was occurring between the glider's fiberglass reinforced vinyl base and our floor's vinyl planks, whereas the rubbery base of the Puckies eliminated that as they had before at our previous home, resulting in a more focused and natural listening experience sans much of the digital hash. Later, I also found that my music listening sessions were incrementally more pleasurable, now that the sympathetic resonance issues between floor and speakers were better addressed. Yes, details matter, and thank goodness I remembered these little gems I had tucked away in storage!
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Juan C. AyllonA writer, artist, educator and owner of Prairie Audio Man Cave, he lives with his wife, Isabel (AKA Belle), and their Goldendoodle, Liam, enjoys listening to high fidelity music and all things hi-fi at their home in the greater Chicagoland area.. Archives
March 2024
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