Has anyone seen this speaker isolation demo from RMAF 2018?

[highstream]

It's been awhile, but I want to follow up in case someone comes across this thread. I had tried the Gaia III's under my 68 lb ATC SCM19A actives and found them an improvement, but not sufficient isolation from wood elements of the foundation that probably aren't nailed in sufficiently. The Gaia III's are supposed to handle up to 72 lbs, but as the Isoacoustics boss wrote me later, at least 10% leeway is needed at top. I would say more than that. In any case, I settled on 2" EVP's, which provided a substantial improvement. Recently, I got ahold of a pair of 78 lb ATC SCM40A's. Under those, the EVP's continued to do decently. Then I tried Gaia II's and it was if I had gotten a new system. The Gaia's brought a whole other level of top to bottom clarity, spaciousness, airiness and more, without any drawbacks that I've yet discovered. Well one: the speakers had to be re-positioned. As for the EVP's, they still provide substantial isolation under components. And since my subs have screw holes for the feet instead of threaded bolt holes, I decided to glue four EVP's to (under) a piece of phenolic board, with Isoacoustics Aperta Sub stands on top of the board. I hadn't heard of phenolic, but it's what Willson found the best anti-resonant material for some of their speakers back about 15 years ago.

 

[Grayson Dere]

Hi highstream!

Thank you for sharing your experiences with the various speaker isolation products your were able to get a hold of. That's pretty amazing that the Gaia IIs provided that much audible improvement. When you re-positioned the SCM40A's were they still in the same location just maybe toed-in/out? I'm just curious if the re-positioning possibly also contributed to the increased sound quality enhancement. Also, thanks for mentioning the phenolic boards! I haven't heard of them before your post but it's something I'm going to look into now : )

 

[highstream]

They were in the same location, then I moved them out a little, still toed in to aim a little outside my shoulders. The original placement, done with pro help, was based on using 1.5m power cords, but now I have 2m ones, so more flexibility. When I compared the 40A's with the 19A's, the latter were on the outside and I realized that placement further out would get me more spaciousness. Since, it's been a matter of fine turning, but it's really a work in progress and I'm trying to find some local help.

See https://www.woodcraft.com/search?q=phenolic&button=search. I ended up buying by phone from their store in Boise, which had the color I preferred, but not matching. So I choose what you see in the photos, although that color turned out to be available online from the warehouse. It pays to get them to take a look at the specific boards before buying, because there's often a difference in coloring or size board to board and color to color. Photos below (haven't tried the subs since w/o the Aperta, but I figure that given my floor, the added height and isolation won't hurt; plus, they won't be moving, as the Aperta's grab the surface they're on):

 

[Grayson Dere]

Thanks for the photos! I also have carpeted floors in my listening room and was wondering if EVPs would work : )
And big thanks for the link to the Woodcraft website. I'll browse through!

 

[highstream]

Glady. The problem with EVP's, especially with carpet -- mine's a medium berber -- come from moving the speakers. The instructions say to set the speakers first, then add the EVP's, but there's always tweaking sooner or later. You can get a sense of how they can be affected -- ripped apart to some degree -- from the left photo. In between the rubber (or felt)-covered steel top and bottoms are layers of fiberglass. The latter can be re-glued. Norm of AV Roomservice replaced some of mine where the outer piece(s) had broken mostly free from the fiberglass, but in this case I just used Lock-tite (better than other glues) and weighted them for drying. It's ok to add other materials on top of the EVP's, such as washers for leveling or, with my sub stand, another isolation device. However, the EVP's are meant to be the bottom layer.

Checking the Woodcraft site, I see it isn't showing colors, but does mention in the item details that surface color will vary. They describe them as phenolic laminate, which I took to mean all phenolic, which is what I was looking for. I could be wrong about that, but I mention it because I came across other versions where only the outer surface is phenolic, with MDF or plywood in between. Those aren't as good for killing or controlling resonance.

Here are some item numbers:
Item 123033 - light color (1/2")
Item 158137 - Mahogany (3/8") -- mine
Item 158135 - 1/4"
also walnut in at least one of the sizes