BSavage wrote:
My listening room is on the second floor with carpet over padding on the plywood flooring. I found it very difficult to move the speakers on the carpet with the Gaia II feet in place, so I placed furniture moving sliders from Home Depot (www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-Furniture-S...k-83036N12/203566381) under the Gaia II feet and the speakers slide effortlessly on the carpet for precise positioning.

Thanks for the tip! I no longer have carpet, but it's good to know that trick. It beats walking them around on the rubber feet or sliding on the plinth.

When I first placed the furniture sliders under the Gaia II feet, I listened to the system without moving the speakers to gauge how much the sliders would degrade the sound without the Carpet Spikes. Much to my surprise, I actually liked the sound even more with the sliders in place of the Carpet Spikes with the speakers in the exact same position. The sliders remain under the Gaia II feet and I used the Carpet Spikes to support springs under my amplifier platforms.

I've always been suspicious of spikes on carpet. When I had my carpet, the spikes didn't penetrate the carpet and contact the subfloor; the spikes just ended up stuck in the carpet weave so the speakers were floating on the carpet. It's also difficult to get the load equal between all the spikes. Add the pad, and the entire system is sitting on a spring, not something solid. The sliders would seem to spread out the load a lot more, adding to the spring effect, so I'm a little baffled as to why that would sound better. You just never know in this business. Maybe your spikes were allowing the speaker to move more because of unequal loads.

One thing to be aware of, the threaded stud on the Gaia II is slightly too long for the threaded insert in the base of the Triton Reference and if it is screwed in too far, it can start to press into the top surface of the base and potentiall crack it. To prevent this, I replaced the knurled threaded disk used to lock the Gaia II to the bottom surface of the speaker with a 1/4-20 stainless steel nut and stainless steel washer. The nut with the washer is thicker than the knurled disk and prevents the threaded shaft from going in too far and damaging the top of the Triton Reference base. The nut also allows you to use a wrench to get it more snug (I would be careful not to over tighten it) to the speaker base.

Too accommodate for the slightly increased height using the Gaia II's, I unscrewed the rear feet one turn compared to the front feet to tilt the speaker forward slightly.

Thanks for this warning. I was suspecting this might be the case. You're fix should also ensure that the feet have about the same length, whereas screwing them all the way into a blind hole and backing them out a bit might not work as well.

Right now, my ear height is close to and maybe a bit above the tweeter axis, but given my 9 ft distance to the speakers, a one inch or so height difference would change the angle only about half a degree and probably won't be noticeable. I'll keep this in mind.

Thanks again for all the info!

Charlie

Glad to hear good things about the GAIA IIs. Maybe someday I'll try a comparison.

I purchased 2 more 6packs of SVS feet to put under my T1 surrounds and my SC XXL center. My thinking was that since they made an improvement on the TRs in 2 channel, they would probably make an improvement for the rest. Of course, it would probably be harder to tell a difference with the surrounds. Also, now all of the tweeters are at the same height. My center is on top of a custom rack that puts the tweeter at the same height as the L/R. I had tried some cheap spring isolators that looked interesting, but they didn't do much. The SVS feet protrude about a 1/4" on the front feet of the T1s, but don't look bad.

The bottom line is that the center sounds cleaner and the whole system sounds better. Definitely worth the money IMO.

Hi People,

Here’s an update on my experience with the Gaia IIs and my TRefs. Note that I have vinyl plank flooring over a wood structure subfloor, and the kind of flooring will probably influence the experience. My TRefs had been sitting on the spikes with disks. I had put a thin adhesive felt layer on the bottom of the disks to protect the flooring. With this setup, the speakers were fairly well supported with only a little compliance when pushed.

Installation
I was able to install the Gaias by myself by leaning the speaker to the side, balanced on the opposite side spikes. I removed the spikes and screwed in the Gaias with the supplied knurled nut and jam nut installed. I could screw in the Gaias almost all the way before getting some resistance in the drilled hole in the plinth. I then backed them out half a turn. After installing both Gaias on the same side, I did the opposite side by leaning the speaker onto the Gaias and replacing the opposite side spikes. This all went fairly well. I left the jam nuts loose.

During the installation process I tried to keep the speakers in exactly the same positions. Since they were just being leaned over, they should have stayed put. Measurements confirmed they were very close to where they had been.

After installing the Gaias, I used a level to verify the speakers were vertical (they were slightly tilted), and adjusted the Gaias on one side one turn to bring the speakers to vertical.

The Gaias raised the level of the speakers about an inch, so I unscrewed the Gaias in the rear of the speaker by 3 turns each to tilt the speakers forward. With my setup geometry, that should have put the tweeter axis back to about where it was relative to my PLP. After that adjustment, I tightened all the jam nuts with the supplied wrench. (VERY nice packaging, by the way, well thought out and clean.)

With the Gaias, the TRefs were more compliant, but still well supported. But I also had the feeling that the support was more uniform than it had been on the spikes.

Listening
I had not expected there to be much of a difference, but there was. The first thing I noticed was that the imaging was tighter, and the soundstage was deeper and more spacious. Then I noticed that deep bass was more “tuneful” and percussion in general was more powerful. Transients were crisper. It’s like everything is just more together. Certain test recordings have had a “phasey” sound and vague images for some instruments; with the Gaias, this phasey sound was much reduced and it was easier to locate the instruments.

To verify I’m sitting in the sweet spot, a while back I made a couple of pink noise test tracks using Audacity. One track has left and right channels out of phase, and one has them in phase. When I move my head left and right, I can hear a clear center that tells me if I’m sitting in the sweet spot. The out of phase tests have always been a bit of a problem, where things didn’t seem perfectly symmetric. With the Gaias, the tests now sound symmetric. So something has improved the phase relationship between the speakers.

Finally, I measured the in-room frequency response of the system using my DSPeaker. Other than a slight 1 dB anomaly just under 1 kHz, the response was the same. But I’ve seen differences like that before when I remeasured, probably because the microphone ends up in a slightly different position from test to test. I can say the Gaias did not change the speaker response, as they claim.

Bottom line
The Gaias produced a bigger change than I expected, and all for the better. Tighter and punchier bass, more precise imaging, more soundstage depth, and more fine detail. The system sounds more musical and the imaging is more holographic. I love the changes, and I think this is a great improvement for the price (about $600 for the set from Audio Advisor).

Charlie

Thanks Charlie

Great and thorough report!

Thanks for measuring. I agree that the bass seems to have a greater impact, even though your measurements don't register a change in frequency curve or any deeper dB levels. That is consistent with anything I've read about curve measurement, and kind of what I hear. it's just...cleaner, gets your attention more, especially transients. The whole frequency range is cleaner, more detailed.

Glad you're enjoying them!

Rick

Yes, Rick. Exactly. And it's wonderful....

Hey Charlie: Thanks for your review of the IsoAcoustics Gaia 2. I do believe you've sealed the deal on what Santa will be leaving me under the Christmas tree.

On a side note...would it be possible to share a picture of how the T Refs look with the Gaia's in place?