Quote:Mark 58 wrote:
No vibration that I can tell. My floors are concrete covered by carpet so probably not as much problem as with a floating wood floor. But still some vibration enters the concrete...I know. I have the Sub with spikes sitting on a piece of wood. I think I'll order the Sub Dude anyway.
Quote:Quote from Auralex Representative (SubDude):
Your question comes up all the time. I will answer it in two parts:
First, re: concrete - having a decoupling device in place absolutely makes a difference when you have a concrete floor! Many people are under the misconception that concrete is inert. Concrete is FAR from inert. Concrete moves and shakes. Typically, a concrete floor or walls will have more mass than typical wood-frame construction. So it takes more energy to get more mass to move. But when that greater mass DOES move, it actually transmits sound energy more effectively because it is a denser material. Ever seen that famous film of the concrete bridge rolling like a wave when a strong wind got it moving at its resonant frequency? Concrete is anything but solid and inert!
In your case, what might actually make the SubDude/ GRAMMA less necessary is your thick carpet. As I said, a thick carpet pad will already act as a decoupling device. The question is whether or not your subwoofer or tower speakers have managed to couple to the floor simply by crushing the carpet under their weight or if they have "feet" of some kind. If your subwoofer or speakers have "spikes", "cones" or "nubs" on the bottom, you can be fairly sure that those "feet" will sink deeply enough into your carpet that they will act to couple your subwoofer/speakers to the floor. If your sub/speakers have "feet", then the SubDude/GRAMMA will very likely still make a noticeable difference. If your sub/speakers do not have any "feet", then it is much harder to predict. The whole point though is to "float" your subwoofer/speakers so that they do not couple with the floor. If your carpet pad and carpet already achieves this "floatation", then the SubDude/GRAMMA won't make much of a difference. But any sort of "feet" will pierce or sink deeply, and just a very heavy sub/speaker might simply crush even thick carpet.
One easy way to predict: if you go into another room while bass is playing, can you easily hear the bass in that adjacent room? If so, your subwoofer is almost certainly coupled to the floor! As Ara said, with the SubDude in place, the "bleeding" of bass into other rooms is cut down dramatically! If your thick carpet is already effectively decoupling your subwoofer, you won't have this "bleeding" of the bass into other rooms to begin with!
Regardless though, concrete is never a reason to forego decoupling. Concrete construction will shake and decoupling makes a very noticeable improvement, just as it does with wood-frame or metal-frame construction.
I had a Buddy with a Mid Bass Module sitting on a carpeted concrete floor. Placed it on an Isolation Platform and the difference was quite hard to believe. The concrete it appears was transmitting the vibration straight out to the walls. So concrete can be worse than a wood floor.
If you have the Omega Sub sitting on a wood surface with thick carpet & padding between it and the concrete then you may likely be OK. Play some Bass Heavy music with & without the Sub Active and just place your hand on the walls to see if there is any appreciable difference.
If you feel the need to adjust Sub volume between songs on the same disk then I would be concerned about inadequate Sub isolation. You are right however about Older Recordings. Sometimes I find I can bump up the Sub volume and really bring Life to them. A good example is the old Jefferson Airplane. Bass was different back then, It was a lot more subtle and reinforcing that 40 to 150hz range can bring it to the surface so that you can hear individual notes and get your toes tapping.
Any time you get a new toy like this you are going to Fiddle. Once you have tried everything 6-ways to Sunday you will know what works and Sub volume adjustments will be few.
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