Stand Ringeth No More

Well, we finally got moved into our new digs and have had the obligatory Open House. So, with all that done, time finally to get back to my Pesky ProAcs.

When we left off, I had followed ProAc distributor Richard Gerberg's advice and loosened the driver nuts a bit, replaced spikes between the speakers and stands with blu-tak, and bi-wired. Of these, bi-wiring made the single biggest difference but all three changes were audible.

The final thing Richard recommended (besides replacing my speakers cables and kit with something to de-mulletfy the system) was to replace the lead in the stands with sand. The idea is that for the ProAcs to sing, the stands *cannot* ring.

I was skeptical. I mean, c'mon - I've already got 50lbs or so of lead shot in there. Isn't that gonna damp the stands enough? Easy enough to prove wrong: by just tapping the stands along any of the columns I could heard a dull "thud" at the bottom of the stands and then a decided "ring" once I got above the level of the lead. Jeepers - maybe something to this.

So $3.50 USD later (MUCHO cheaper than the lead, BTW) I was the proud owner of 70lbs of dried sand. Lucky me. Following the advice, I filled the stands completely with sand. The final weight is just a tad lighter than the lead I had in the stands before, but the similar weight of sand fills the stands.

Well, the change from switching the lead for sand was astonishing. Wow! My wife heard the difference straight away. We compared a bit after one speaker stand had been changed over and the difference was obvious. The speakers have been re-voiced and much of the nasty resonance is gone.

The effect of this is that my components - and even different TV stations - now sound different from one another. Before, everything sounded very similar. The homogenizing could be construed as a benefit. Its kinda nice switching from the DVD player to the video or TV or LP12 and having the general sound be the same. I've known people to tweak like crazy because their LP12 and CDX do not sound the same. The change of sound can be distracting. But I'm convinced that the speakers are now delivering a far more honest view of what the upstream stuff is doing. So if my VCR sounds daft, I will know it now.

I *really* wish I had done this when I had my Naim kit.

- GregB

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