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July 12, 2007 - 1:29pm
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blue tac replacement for speakers
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The idea is to physically couple the speakers to the stands. If the product you bought is sticky enough to firmly attach the speakers to the stands it should be beneficial. I don't think there is anything magical about Blu-Tac.
What's "magical" about BluTak is its ability to damp movement. Just as when you try to remove BluTak, pulling straight up or pushing straight back doesn't get you very far but twisting the speaker against the Blutak will easily break the bond.
I've found some speakers prefer not to be tied down to the stand with BluTak. If your stands have upward facing spikes or your speakers have spikes, I would also try this arrangement before I automatically used the BluTak or similar bonding technique. Either way the stands should be affixed to the floor with spikes and mass loaded with sand, shot, cat litter or a combination fo all three. When you're done the speakers should feel as if they are bolted to the floor with no movement of the cabinet when you push straight forward, back or to the side. Any wobble and you need to readjust.
I believe you are correct, but haven't you seen this to be the case also with any similar competing product to Blu-Tack as well? (such as Faber-Castell's product, etc.
Great advice as to setting up speakers on stands.
BTW, the stuff comes in other colors. Maybe they sound different. Blue is best for R&B, white for classical, etc.
I tried using silly puddy, but it made my system sound funny.
Ouch!
The important note is that these substances are resistive, not reactive. They thus absorb vibrational energy without forming a resonant system with the mass of the speaker (think about what happens with a rubber interface).
I examined this behavior in a 1992 series of articles: www.stereophile.com/features/806.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Great articles, John. You put a lot of work into investigating speaker resonances and vibrations.
My favorite line: "The winner in this comparison, however, is the cheapest: the three pads of Blu-Tack, squashed flat between the base of the speaker and the stand top-plate." It sounds so very technical.
Has anyone tried flubber yet?
Since energy can never be lost or gained only transformed.....where is the vibrational , mechanical energy being transformed? Heat, gas,the mechanical energy has to be transformed somewhere? Something absorbing something has to put that energy soemwhere? You never really "consume" or "use" energy, just change it from one form to another. Electrical energy is used most for turning a motor say, so from electrical to mechanical energy, then the mechanical is turned into something else at teh end of teh motor, and heat from the windings, and on and on and on. What is Blu-Tac doing with the mechanical vibratioanl energy? Probably just vibrating more mechanicl energy into the air like teh speaker in the first place?
As with many vibration "absorbers" it is turning the mechanical motion of vibration into heat. Sorbothane does the same. No mystery here. No audiophile voodoo here, dup, you're barking up the wrong tree.
So you feel the blu-Tac getting warm? Hmmm, that's something, i bet you don't feel heat do you? does that mean you are not really doing anything. Anyone MEASURED with a meter as the speaker plays versus idle? So that woul dmean all them isolation devices are heating up? Wood blocks, sorbothane magic pucks, footers, brass points? think it's time for a mass vibration issue, lets see some scientific tests on all these devices, instead of just loose claims of, it made such an impact, without andy substance to back it up. So many crative writers might just be exagerating the beneits of these things. If they are changing energy from mechanical to heat, it should be measurable. Lets see some infra red imaging from some cool test equipment, playing loud and not playing a good infra red imaging tool will surely show it. It shows leaky windows, and over heating electrical connections, great tools. Lets see it used in reviews of aduio mystical blocks
I am sure someone is going to do all that work just for you dup. Why don't you do it, lazy?
What is discussed isn't rocket science, and has been around for decades dup. It is quite scientific. Your basic high school science class has probably performed an experiment involving the principles involved.
So have adudio electronics, yet the magazine is always writing about it. and the same magazine has writers claiming they can HEAR these things do something. With teh electronics there are TESTS that prove or disprove if teh thing is for real, why not hocky pucks and sticky gob tests. If something is happening it is measurable. Since it's a simple high school science, surely a mag devoted to hi end expensive stuff can measure it? They measure jitter, distrtion etc of elctroncis, measure teh claims of blocks, feet,absorbers etc. Or send it to a local high school to do it, I don't have a thermal imaging tool, Flukes are too expensive, check em out.....certainly the mag can buy one for testing everything, like over heating under designed amplifers with in effective cooling design, thermal managment in electroncis is also SCIENCE.
Not just for me, everyone else can see the results if printed and yes, I AM lazy. What else? I am also poor, dumb, ill manered, and very disagreeable. But i know I hear BETTER than you, and listen better. Now, that's all done.
You know that, huh, dup? How do you know that? Just like you know everything else? I don't think you could convince me you can hear a tea kettle whistling. Dumb, ill manered, and very disagreeable I can agree with, anything that relates to your to hear, I doubt.
I do hear better, since i know and don't hear differences in AC outlets, or AC line cords. the things i do hear that are different are more and less power to teh system, the speakers themselves, AND different phono cartridges, that i can hear. 3 different carts, all sound different into the same pre amp, and yes, I prefer one over the other 3.....more alive, never rated by any experts, or mentioned, beats the 2 that where written up, and marveld at, yet the one that is the highly rated by ears that really know, is very lifeless, boring. All 3 are now discontinued, obsolete, gee, just like the LP's they play. From several episodes like that, tell me I hear better than the creative writers, who claim to hear non existenat things, and make a glowing nonsencial report. Like everything else, every review for a pricey phono cartridge is yet another BREAKTHROUGH!!! More nonsense. Last breakthrough in audio was DSD....nothing happening since, maybe DSD II. But creative writers need to sell each month, make everything seem like it's all new, another revalution. Like teh cable scammers.
Any mechanical interface will have some value of energy absorbtion and that absorbtion of movement will be converted to heat. Depending on the materials used and forces applied the amounts of motion transfered and the amount of energy disipated can vary from close to unmeasurable to problamatic. But no mater what, if there is a mechanical connection and any energy applied, both motion and heat will be created.
Remarkable by any standard.
Why is it that just about every time I post a question on this forum the responses seem to degenerate into a 3rd grade shouting match of my lunch is better than yours?
You have one month to ask anything you like.
A painful question for us to face as a group. This, of course, should not occur.
My hope is that we will all be able to do better - starting now!
By the way, my lunch was a burger and Coke at a local Irish pub. Not bad, not great - but still nice.