In a previous thread, many moons ago, I mentioned how the spiked feet that came with my LFM-1 were not high or sharp enough to pierce through my thick carpet, pad, and down to the concrete that comprises the subfloor of my basement.

I tried some aftermarket spikes from Dayton Audio that improved things, but I still felt like the sub was too close to the carpet and sort of thudding away into all that cloth. At the very least, the LFM-1 was not being given the same clearance as it would if it were on a hard surface. I also wondered how the acoustic response would differ if given the benefit of a wood or tile floor.

So on a lark, I ordered a 14" X 21" slab of granite from a countertop shop. Being countertop material, the slab would be considerably thicker than granite floor tile, and weigh in at around 40-50 lbs. I was even given a choice of colors, so I went with Absolute Black, which I thought would mirror the plexiglass top on the LFM-1. Total cost was $116. At no extra charge, I had it polished on all outside edges (as well as the top).

I picked it up on Saturday. It looked great! I had that kid in a candy store feeling all the way home and damn near tripped over the dog as I hurried my way to the basement.

Before I fired it up, I placed a little poster putty on the protective discs that came with the carpet spikes and lined them up on the slab. I figured without those, the polished surface would just invite travel when I cranked things up. I stepped back and noticed you could see the ports and the driver reflecting back from the shiny back surface. Cool. It also raised the sub up about another 1/2 inch compared to the carpet.

Cable connections back in place, I fired up a CD. Damn. I don't hear a whole lot of bass I thought. I went back over to the sub and put my hand under the driver and the ports. Not much happening. A quick check revealed I had accidently hit the phase switch to 180. Jim, you idiot! Once back to 0, the sub began to thump away like normal.

After running through a few bass intensive demo CDs and the depth charge scene in U-571, I was pleased with the results. I ultimately had LESS bass than when the sub was smothered into the carpet, but I had BETTER bass across the board. Where things sounded one-notey with the carpet, the granite etched out more ripples and articulation of deep bass notes. Though subtle, on some recordings, I was hearing things I had not heard before -- or at least, in the same way. After a while I found myself wanting to turn the volume control on the LFM-1 up past its usual 12:00 setting to around 1:00 on the dial. Before the granite, this only would have produced more boom. But with the granite, I got more bass not just bloat.

Anyway, I'm a pretty happy camper and the slab looks great. You'd think it was part of the original sub due to the color and the fact it was cut to match the footprint of the LFM-1.

So there you have it, the second to last tweak to my sub. (The last will be an SMS-1, which I plan to order next month.) Collectively, my sub tweaks have included the grainte slab, an aftermarket power cord and a CatCables CoolCat sub cable. I have noticed slight improvements with each tweak and have had a lot of fun experimenting on the way. Anyway, I wanted to share this latest one for public consumption.

That's a sharp tweak - a bit classier than the boards I've previously suggested folks with deep carpet use under their LFM-1's. Since my LFM-1 has only ever lived on hard wood floor, I've never tried anything like this.

Thanks Gonk. And be forewarned, I'm likely to pick your brain once I get my SMS-1!

Videodrome,

Where is the photo of the Absolute Black granite slab?

Haven't snapped one yet. Meantime, not withstanding my shutterfly page, is there a way to post a pic' within the message body on these Outlaw threads?

The forum doesn't support hosting files for people, but you can use the IMG tag to insert images into a post by putting [ IMG ] and [ /IMG ] (without the spaces) around the URL for the picture. Here's example from your shutterfly page:

[img]http://shim1.shutterfly.com/procgserv/47b6ce31b3127cce98548a70f42900000027100Abt27ZmzbM2KA[/img]

Thanks gonk. Looks like I need to break out the digital camera this weekend.