Filling hollow speaker stands?

Posted by: jimj on 29 March 2004

I have added some new bookshelf speakers to my relatively new Nait5/CD5 setup. The old floorstanders (N.E.A.R 40Me) just would not work well in the small listening room. The wall where the speakers have to be placed is 8 feet wide and for some reason the right speaker was in a black hole, where no sound escaped.
I have purchased Polk Audio LSi7's and have them mounted on stands that have a 2 inch by 2 inch hollow steel pole for support.
The bass (50 Hz. and up) is not as tight as it was in the dealer's room. I think that the stands need to be a bit more solid. I replaced the rubber pads the stands were resting on the hardwood floor with spikes with a coin under them and the sound bacame more open and got sharper.
I have been told that I can fill the stands with lead shot or sand. I remember reading a speaker review where the author used a mix of shot and sand.
I have no experience with speaker stands and wonder if those with some experience might be able to halp me avoid some really messy experiments. My past experience with dumping out sand is that it goes everywhere and I don't think my vacuum cleaner will respond favorably to finding an occasional piece of shot. I know that I won't respond favorably to finding either when I am on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night!
Like to fill them right the first time, if possible.
Thanks, in advance.
P.S. I suspect most in the UK will not be familiar with the Polk Audio speaker. Only one distributor was listed in the UK Dealer section of their website. It uses a 1 inch ring radiator tweeter (made by Vifa) that is shared by some really high end speakers. The midbass is a 5 1/4 inch proprietary blend that produces usable bass down to 50 Hz. The speakers love jazz and small groups and are breaking-in to orchestra. I'll have to let you know about that.
jimmyj
Posted on: 30 March 2004 by Stevea
Years ago I did this with a set of speaker stands - lasted all of 20 minutes. This may well have been due to the basic lack of quality of the stands and/or the speakers tho.

Have you tried concrete paving slabs under your stands instead of the coins (put some cloth under slabs to protect floor if required). I did this as an experiment about 5 months ago with a pair of floorstanders and the slabs never came out.

Steve
Posted on: 30 March 2004 by Adam G
I second that... I bought 2 concrete slabs for £2 each from the local B&Q as I had heard they make a big difference. I have Castle Howard S3's (http://www.castle.uk.com/pages/classic.htm - the howards are the ones on the right hand side) and after placing them on concrete slabs, never took the slabs out...
Before, my speakers were spiked into carpet, underlay, then floor boards with a 3 foot gap underneath to the ground...
This used to produce an immense amount of bass that used to reverberate around the house (and the neighbours house too)...
Added the concrete, and it tightened the bass up... Everything was so much more precise...
You can hear the bass now, rather than just feel the earth tremble and the room rattle to bits...
Give them a try... Im sure plently people on here will agree that it makes an improvement... And what will you lose... £4?

Adam