Hi-Fi Equipment, MCRU News

Float Your Speakers with Townshend Audio + MCRU

As far back as the author can remember floorstanding loudspeakers rested on spikes. These pierced the carpet (in the 70’s and 80’s carpets ruled the roost, laminate and wood flooring was a rarity), spikes stopped the speakers from rocking and provided a firm foundation. Or that’s what we were led to believe by the engineers and audiophiles who designed speakers in those days.

Fast forward to 2015 and what we knew then has been totally reversed by a well know Australian engineer called Max Townshend. The same fine gentleman who brought us “The Townshend Rock” turntable with its trough filled with silicone fluid and a paddle system for the tonearm, totally radical technology but extremely effective sonically. It was a landmark product and is still available today in Mk 7 guise.

The same radical thinking has been applied to other areas of the hi-fi reproduction chain by Max, in particular loudspeaker design and placement. Floating your speakers is not a new idea as for many years audiophiles used sorbothane discs or pads to absorb resonances, this is effective in certain rooms/environments but a bit hit and miss nonetheless.

The Townhend Audio solution is to sit your speakers on seimsic bars effectively de-coupling them from the ground, why does this work, see this for an explanation. To cut a long story short the earth experiences earthquakes constantly, here in the UK a small one is occurring underneath us right now. Take a look at the “real time seismograms

Interesting phenomenon not useful for sound reproduction from a block of wood with speaker cones installed! The Townshend Seismic Speaker Bars eradicate these harmful tremors/vibrations and reveal previously un-heard details in your favorite music, see this review for other opinions.

Don’t take our word for it, try them on our 30 day money back guarantee, you have nothing to lose and oodles of detail to gain! MCRU have them in our dem rooms in Huddersfield together with the Townshend Seismic equipment rack.