Chris Harris Reviews Seismic Podiums
Having completed some rather nice upgrades to my system over nearly a year in the form of new floor-standing loudspeakers / Pre Amplifier with Mono Power Amplifiers, one part of the jigsaw was missing as I was still relying on old-school spikes.Having several components and cabling from Townshend Audio, the Podiums were the items that finished things off in a logical order. Having seen and heard Seismic Podiums at Audio shows over the years and been impressed as far as you can be with hotel listening/demonstration conditions. But having great faith in Max Townshend’s designs in the past, I arranged for a set of sizes to be ordered and delivered to fit on my Neat Acoustics Iota Xplorers.On arrival and unpacking, the first noticeable thing was the high quality of the finish and the wonderful engineering design of the podiums. After some careful setup, I did not expect the amount of improvement after the first few tracks. The podiums are the most impressive of all the upgrades I have made. I’m now a fully committed disciple of the ground-borne vibration-spring decoupling system.SO WHAT ARE THE IMPROVEMENTS – I’m hearing increased transparency and resolution, which is wonderfully natural without blurring on instrumentation and vocals. Also, lead instruments appear realistic, along with backing vocals that are as loud as the main vocals should be and not recessed as an afterthought. For example, the noise floor is shallow with a darker background and silences and stunning space and distance between band members. The overall sound is now so relaxing, almost laid back correctly, but with great timing in how notes stop/start. Volume does not need to be increased to make it more enjoyable, which now makes the listening experience so absent of listener fatigue again with no blurring/glare that normally surrounds the music. The soundstage and back-to-front depth are now so believable. Also, I’m now enjoying albums that I had struggled with musically. So, to conclude, the Seismic Podiums are an incredible product that gives a high-end experience like no other add-on accessory can. Just a little thinking outside the box is needed when considering the purchase of these “stands”, which gave me greater musical enjoyment than I ever expected in my system, and they offer wonderful value in what they achieve.
