20" x 17" Subwoofer Plinth

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2" and 4" thick, air-dried Ambrosia maple stand with attached footer options for optimized subwoofer performance on either hard floors or carpet. Choose clear satin finish that enhances the beautiful natural grain character of our old-growth maple or one of three made-to-order toned lacquer finishes.

Part Number: SUBPLINTH-20x17x

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• For general sizing, we recommend using a Plinth that is about 2" wider and deeper than the subwoofer it will support; more margin improves sound further. When necessary, we offer custom-sizing at an additional cost.

• Our stock Subwoofer Plinths are hand finished with a clear satin finish that beautifully enhances the striking natural grain character of our air-dried maple. We also offer three made-to-order toned finishes: Natural Cherry, Deep Rosewood, and Satin Black.

• The default stand option is for a 2" thick Ambrosia maple with clear satin finish. Choose 4" thickness and made-to-order color options from the Maple Stands Thickness & Finish drop-down menu.

• 4" Subwoofer Plinths invariably sound better than 2" Plinths. The difference is clearly audible—and is particularly dramatic on concrete, tile, and engineered floors or subfloors.

• The distinctive character of Ambrosia maple's natural grain coloring and figuring is unique for each pair of stands. Our Amish craftsmen hand-plane matched pairs from the rough-cut, air-dried 2½" and 4½" maple to remove coarseness and imperfections from the sawmill. Typically this yields finished 2" and 4" thicknesses but, because of variations in the rough-cut timber, the exact thickness can vary by 3/16".

• The default option for footers attached to and supporting Subwoofer Plinths is Low Heavyfeet with short sharp points, the best-sounding 2" footer option on uncarpeted floors. Be sure to use the 'Pre-Attached Stand Footers' dropdown menu options to choose footers best suited for your floor type.

• To avoid marring handsomely finished hardwood floors, use Radiused Heavyfeet. The rounded bottom incurs only a very slight compromise of sound quality relative to sharp points.

• When installing a Subwoofer Plinth on carpet or a rug, use Heavyfeet For Carpet.

• When budget permits, upgrading Subwoofer Plinths with our far more massive Megafeet—3½ times heavier than Heavyfeet—is a worthwhile investment for listeners seeking the very best performance.

• We never recommend using Isoblocks as footers for speakers or as supports for speaker stands. Any somewhat soft footer allows speakers to rock which inevitably muddies the bass.

• Hand-polished brass is the stock finish option for Speaker Plinth footers. As a custom option, we also offer Satin Black, Semi-Gloss Black, and Metallic Silver powder coat finishes. Powder coating is a made-to-order finish option that usually take 3-5 weeks—but overlaps the 8 week production time for made-to-order maple finishes.

• Subwoofer Plinths with clear satin finish and stock brass footers normally ship in 7 business days and are offered with our 30-day money back guarantee. Speaker Plinths with made-to-order finish options are non-refundable, require a 50% deposit, and take +/- 8 weeks to ship. Please be sure to review our Terms & Conditions.

Hear The Full Potential Of Your World-Class Subwoofer

Unsuspected by most audiophiles, your floor and how you mount speakers & subwoofers on that floor affects your sound even more than your room's acoustics. That's an empirical fact we've been able to demonstrate in hundreds of listening rooms. Draining sound-muddying vibrations out of your speaker's enclosure is crucial for good sound. That's what spikes (or even better, brass footers) are for. But to do any good those drained vibrations have to go somewhere, that is, into a receiving 'sink' that will benignly receive and dissipate them without harmful reflections. Even the best-sounding of floors, that is, old-fashioned solid wood planks, aren't adequate sinks because they're too thin (3/4" planks or less)and thus have a somewhat deadening effect. Modern plywood or 'engineered' wood is thinner and even more overdamped and more deadening. Concrete, tile or stone floors utterly cripple the sound of your speakers (and carpeting makes it worse) because they reflect back nearly 100% of the received vibrations, albeit in highly distorted form. That causes muddied bass, a smeared midrange, and treble harshness.

Thus many if not most perceived room problems are actually caused by inadequate or really bad-sounding floors. Instead of spending thousands on room acoustic treatments that fail to address the root problem, Mapleshade offers an evidence-based and guaranteed upgrade for any floor: drain your speakers' vibrational energy, not into the floor, but into massive maple platforms rigidly mounted above the floor via large, screwed-in brass footers. First and foremost, maple provides an audibly better, cleaner sounding sink material than pine, spruce, cherry, walnut or oak floors. Equally important, these 2" (or 4") Maple Subwoofer Plinths provide 2-2/3 (or 4-1/3) times more mass to dissipate vibrations—and vastly more rigidity—than even good solid wood floors.?

To double the sonic upgrade of a Maple Subwoofer Plinth, replace the sub's spikes or damped composite feet with our much more rigid and massive brass footers to optimally couple each speaker to its Plinth. We make Maple Plinths to fit a broad range of enclosure sizes.. To increase the mass and reduce speaker rocking, we recommend a Plinth at least two inches larger than the subwoofer width and depth. If you're on concrete, tile or stone, upgrading to the 4" thickness is highly recommended.

To get the very best performance, be sure to read the "Subwoofer Upgrades" section of our Free Upgrade Advice page.

Mapleshade Vibration Control For Speakers & Subwoofers

Our Vibration Control System for speakers and subwoofers has three elements: brass footers drain vibration out of the enclosure and down into a Speaker or Subwoofer Plinth; air-dried maple Plinths receive and dissipate that vibration; and brass footers rigidly couple each Plinth to the floor below.We NEVER recommend using Isoblocks directly under speakers or as footers for Speaker Plinths. Here are the fundamentals:

• The physical movement of their drivers and the fluctuating electrical signal currents create unwanted vibrations (through both magnetic and piezo-electric forces) inside every speaker cabinet. Carefully controlled listening tests prove that these internal vibrations muddy the music signal far more significantly than external airborne or floor-borne vibrations.

• Mounting speakers on standard isolating and damping devices (like springs, rubber feet, sand boxes, magnetic suspensions, or air cylinders/bladders) traps the sound-degrading vibrations inside the speaker cabinet, exacerbating muddying of the music signals. For speakers, this phenomenon blurs image focus and creates muddied bass. This is precisely why we DO NOT recommend using Isoblocks under speakers. Isoblocks were design only to be used as platform footers for electronics mounted on hard surfaces.

• Hybrid isolation/coupling devices like Roller Blocks, IsoBearings, magnetic couplers, etc. purport to serve three essential functions—vibration transfer, vibration dissipation and external isolation—all in one convenient footer. Unfortunately, such all-in-one devices can serve none of the three functions well. They may change, perhaps even improve, sound a bit in one area, but with penalties in other areas, e.g better midrange detail but soggier bass, less edgy treble but slower, duller transients, etc.

Our Vibration Control System For Speakers serves the three functions using three separate components, each optimized for one and only one function:

• First, our brass footers are designed only to cleanly drain out as much internal vibrational energy as possible from speakers. We specifically optimized our footers’ shape, material, alloy, and mass to maximize the vibrational energy transferred out of the cabinet and minimize the energy reflected back. Fifteen years of customer shootoffs have shown they do so more effectively and sound better than any competing footer or hybrid at any price.

• Second, Maple Speaker Plinths serve as the optimal sink for receiving and dissipating the vibrational energy transferred out of the speaker by the footers. Surprisingly, exhaustive testing against every space age damping material and composite used in high-end platforms today shows solid wood (not plywood or MDF) to be better a sounding sink. And, among the wood species available, the same tests show maple to have, by a sizable margin, the most detailed and uncolored sound. (Click here for more details on this and on the importance of air dried maple.)

• Third, Each Speaker Plinth is directly coupled to the floor by four massive brass footers pre-assembled to each maple base. This approach ensures the speaker and stand are rigidly anchored to the floor or subfloor. We offer four footer options, each painstakingly honed to offer optimal sound quality on different floor coverings. This is just one example of the attention to detail that has gone into the development of Mapleshade's Vibration Control System For Speakers.

Excellent product!!!

1/29/2015

I received your 2 Carpet Piercing Speaker Plinths two days ago. I have a pair of Totem Forests which sounded superb prior to adding the Plinths. The speaker with their ball bearing feet were sitting of carpet which pretty much negated the benefit of the ball bearing feet. So, having experimented with points through carpet with past speakers, I was fairly confident I would hear some improvement. However, I wasnt prepared for the level of improvement. Every aspect of the speakers was improved. Bass extension, treble clarity, transparency, imaging and soundstage all showed impressive improvement. This is all in a tough room. I thought $475 was a bit steep but with a 30 day return policy I could always return them. All I can say is that they will not be returned and I certainly got at least $475 improvement in sound. Excellent product!!! - Robert V, NY

I can finally fully appreciate good music

1/29/2015

I wish to thank you for sharing all of your information regarding the intricacies of a good sound system. For many years I have been laboring under the many misconceptions offered by most people who sell audio components who have told me that I have good equipment and that I would have to spend several thousand dollars more and even then would not be well satisfied. I had reached the point where I really did not wish to listen to recorded music... The few things you have recommended including keeping the speaker cables off the floor, proper cleaning of CDs and LPs, and most importantly the Maple Speaker Plinths for my floor standing speakers have managed to triple my audio reception and to hear my music better than I ever have in the past. Now at the age of 87 years I can finally fully appreciate good music -- thanks to you. I will be planning to contact you again in the not-too-distant future. - Robert H

This was money well spent

1/29/2015

Just wanted to let you know that I have been very impressed by this product. The speaker plinths have greatly improved the sound quality of my speakers, Sehring 703s, $9,000 speakers. The $630 investment in your plinths brings the speaker to a whole new level. Overall, the bass frequencies are greatly enhanced, with much better definition than before. Treble for some reason is also better, with a more relaxed sound that used to tend toward edgy and fatiguing. Even my wife who is not really into audio is impressed by how much better our audio system sounds with the speakers sitting on the Mapleshade 4 plinths. So, thanks for providing a good product. This was money well spent in my book. - Mark C

Thanks for your excellent products, I am very pleased!

1/29/2015

To begin with my concerns about adding approx. six inches of height to my speakers turned out to be unfounded with the result of a slight attenuation of HF which is good in my room which is a bit under damped, my choice. Another result gave me an additional six inches in sound stage height, a good thing. After the upgrade, things sure did sound different, not better just different! After this it took 2-3hrs. of familiar listening for my ears to begin to sort out what was really happening with my system. Listening to CDs with certain familiar characteristics allowed me to experience some really exciting improvements in my speakers. Man, I was getting cranked up with what I was beginning to hear! It is difficult to describe what it is in a speaker that gets you closer to the music, Im talking about involvement with the music or when listening to a soloist you can hear every note clearly. I suppose it is because most things are complementing instead of contradicting. Another way to look at it is, more energy is getting to the music and less energy is getting to noise and feedback. If I would simplify a conclusion I would say increased clarity and naturalness to the ear. One last comment which may be of interest, prior to the upgrade my usual volume control setting was mostly about # 17 on my ARC LS-26 preamp after the upgrade it has been adjusted to about #18, Whats up with that ?? Is it possible that Mr. Maplewood is sucking up about 1 1/2 db of grunge for me? Thanks for your excellent products, I am very pleased! - Dick A, UT

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