Gaia impact on treble

Lots of posts on the isoacoustics gaia feet for speakers. Read all of them but nobody really talks about their impact on the high frequencies.

Compared to traditional spikes on to a wooden floor, have Gaia users noticed any rounding/smoothing/refining of the treble?

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Love to hear the thoughts on that as well!

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Personally I have not noticed a direct impact on the treble, except insofar as it might seem clearer as a result of the lower frequencies being cleaned up.

My main impression is that more sound is in the air in the room, and less is transmitted as vibration to the floor/walls etc. I notice that particularly when I leave the room - it’s quieter than I would expect outside the room.

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No negative effects on treble for me. Dynaudio Audience 50’s

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I think they’ll almost certainly have an effect on treble, because they change the height of the tweeter relative to the listeners ear. (In the majority of cases).

For a fair judgement of what they do to the sound, you’d have to compare the speaker placed on something else of equal height.

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Yeah that would make a difference. Surely also going from spikes to a rubber bottomed foot would also soften the treble a little. I can only presume.

On my Kudos 505’s - none :grinning:.

Assuming you’re using stands, or floorstanders, removing the spikes and adding the Gaia’s would make a minimal difference to the overall speaker height……. or am I missing something?

ATB, J

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IMG_3576

These are the Cerabase Universal - some simulatities to the Gaias.
I can definitely discern an effect on the treble with these devices on my speakers.
It’s like there are no differentiations between bass and treble- more just a cohesive and coherent replay of music.

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Gaia’s most obvious effect imho is on bass grip and clarity.

Stereo image is more connected to higher frequencies and that too seems a good deal improved, and so is subtle or sudden percussion.

Of course, cleaner bass can encourage fractionally higher volume, which often makes detail easier to spot. We allowed for that by being careful with volume when trying Gaias for the first time, but that was a while ago now. Allow an appropriately sized pinch of salt as a result of the time aspect.

With the tall B&W 804D3 (on a bouncy wooden floor) I felt no new need to sit up in my chair after fitting them - it didn’t seem to make any difference. Otoh, if I sat close to the speakers, I would definitely want to check whether a little extra height messed anything up.

Gaias were also excellent with Neat Xplorers on a concrete floor (with a laminated wood covering), sitting around 4m away.

That’s a small speaker with low, angled drivers. It fires downwards too (it’s an isobaric design), and the restricted air volume immediately around that driver changes a lot when Gaias are added.

Given my misgivings about exactly that, I called the brilliant Bob Surgeoner at Neat. After his patient explanations and endorsement, we gave Gaias a try, and here too we found only benefits in SQ.

Gaias even make speakers easy to move!

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Hi Nick. The Xplorers are wide but not very deep (dimensions). Presumably with the Gaia feet fitted, the speakers were quite easy to rock backwards and forewards compared to spikes. Is that what you experienced?

With the rubbery bottoms, they stick pretty well to the floor. Thus, it takes a bit of intent to move them.

Otoh, they are hard to knock over accidentally, and they are easy to move if you do want to - tilting and walking them around works well. Unlike spikes, trying to get speaker placement dead right does not risk damage for floors or fingers.

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My speakers are neat elite classics which are also not very deep.

Spot on.

Yes. The main difference for me was a reduction in bass but an increase in the mids and highs. Perhaps the previous bass was masking the other frequencies?
But I much prefer the new sound on PMC Twenty26s.

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