PMC Twenty5 23i with Gaia’s?

I have a beautiful pair of PMC Twenty5 23i’s paired with my Uniti Nova. I’m just about to add a set of Gaia IIIs, however the 23i’s do have an isolating rubber washer in the base already - an improvement over the 23’s I believe. My speakers are on a tiled floor, hence the Gaia’s; any opinions on compatibility of the Gaia’s given the existing ‘isolation’? The Gaia’s are on a 30 day trial, but interested if anyone has tried anything similar?

The suggestion would be to give them a go and see what you think. I use Gaias on my MAs and love them, but cannot comment on the PMCS.

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I use Gaia’s on my PMC Twenty5 23, not the i version, I like the results, recommended. I felt they tightened up the bass and are much easier to live with, easier to move and stable.

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Same here (20.23s). The Gaia IIIs do quite a bit more than the isolating rubber washer. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed, and they don’t cost the earth.

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Not that this helps but apparently the Townshends were designed on PMC’s.
I know @PeterR tried the Gaia’s at one point but owns the Townshends. Maybe he can offer some advice being a PMC user. :+1:t2:

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I believe @NoNaim decided to keep the Townshend Seismic 2 podiums in place of the Gaia III for his PMCs. From going through various threads on this forum the benefits can be very dependent on floor type, solid with and without carpet, wooden sprung floors etc. I was considering of going down this route myself as I have some 26s but thought it more important getting the major purchases completed first ie the black boxes!

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Problem was that I tried them at a point, where I hadn’t got my room acoustics resolved at the time, and hence took them off again realising, that my issues were still of a different ilk namely ‘The Room’.
Once that finally got sorted, I felt I couldn’t loose anything by at least trying the Podiums. They also got highlighted in conversation with PMC’s delightful rep. Tom Barron as an avenue worth exploring. Secondly I also realised that Mr Townsend himself is using PMC Fact 12s for his development of gear including the Podiums of course. It is a real quality product also with a stable large footprint, it’s just the swaying of the speakers, which is bit unnerving when pushed gently :nerd_face:
It turned out to be a no brainer tbh. I did put a thread up on the subject. Type in Townsend Podiums in the search-function and you will find my description of the uplift I felt they brought, its not subtle even on a ‘modern’ floor :+1:t3: ATB Peter

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You could be surprised as there is more to our replay than just another black box :wink: ATB Peter

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I suppose we could ask popeye as an independent witness having listened to my speakers on the podiums?! :thinking:

I would say it depends on floor/room, experiment, I have 20.23 and have used on carpet and now wood floor, linn skeets work well for me, I am not a fan of expensive after market accessories, but whatever works for you at the end of the day.

I would certainly like to have a listen to the podiums on my Twenty5.26’s at home at some point in the future. :+1:t2:

Problem is - Podiums are more than four times the price of the Gaias, if I’m not mistaken.

I think I agree with you @SamClaus. For the PMC’s Gaia’s are £400 per pair of speakers up to and including the Fact 12 that @PeterR has. The podium is £1400. Peter also has Statement/500 series electronics. I can understand and think he could justify spending the money on the Podiums to wring the final few per cent of performance out of that system as it is a very small percentage of speaker/system cost.

For those of us with “lesser” systems or speakers would greater improvement not be achieved by putting that money towards new speakers / electronics ?

In any case, with lower level systems/speakers, I’d be tempted to try and demo both the Gaia’s and the podium before buying. Firstly to see if they gave the hoped for improvement and secondly to see if you can justify the price of the Podiums over the Gaia’s.

If on carpet i think i read something about the podiums not working as well as they should, as i know the gaia’s should be used witth the spike kit on carpet
I use the gaia on my pmc fact 12 speakers and it makes a very nice improvement, especially for the money

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Not heard that before but I can assure you the Podiums are working beautifully on my thick carpet and underlay. Great improvement all round.

Infact i did previously use Gaia’s and spiked carpet discs on the same carpet [but with my previous Rega RS10 speakers] and did not find much improvement so they didn’t stay long.

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Maybe a bit controversial in this forum but when we installed wooden flooring (engineered not laminate) I looked around for alternatives to the spikes that I had used up till then on my twenty5.23s (not i variant). Note they do have the pmc isolation bar. After looking at Gaia’s and other options I spoke to my dealer who provided my speakers with a view to getting something on trial. He advised to try a much cheaper solution before investing in something else that may not deliver benefits. Total cost for qty 10 feet was around £10 on the big river. Ok they are usually used to level furniture but the mounting thread is correct size and installation extremely easy. The part on the floor is a hard plastic and not rubber/silicone so no marks and easy to slide or move if required. To my ears in my room they work extremely well. Surely worth a try?

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Do those bolts have locking nuts beneath the bars? If not, you really should add them, otherwise things will move.

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HH, Many thanks for the tip. No lock nuts fitted currently will address this soonest. The bolts have not moved as yet, I regularly check that the speakers have not developed a “wobble”, still very stable and never moved. Perhaps I’m not playing the music loud enough. :grinning:

Will see later if i can find it, but think i found it when i was researching about different feet for my pmc’s and was looking at the podiums and gaia’s

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I would try the Gaia’s - they will work well on a tiled floor. I have a stone floor and I am not convinced that spikes mounted on floor protectors is the best solution. Even properly seated there is a lot of energy that goes down into the floor and will then be reflected back up. I am not sure, either, that you can really ever seat four spikes into four protectors with absolute precision - meaning that at least one spike is likely to be vibrating in some way or another. I have KEF Reference 1 speakers and the Gaia’s really worked well - particularly in controlling bass boom. I don’t buy into the notion that rigidity is required for the drivers to operate properly. That might have had some merit years ago but modern speakers with small light-weight high tech mid/bass units are never going to ‘move’ an 18kg speaker like my KEF’s. In any event the Gaia’s are quite stiff in the front/back direction and actually do not allow that much left/right movement either. Go for it.

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