What about these Mana Stands ?

Posted by: Ade Archer on 22 June 2001

Hi All,

A couple of weeks back I decided I was going to try to ditch the garden slabs my SBL's sit on and take up Naim's recommendation of placing crosshead screws in the floorboards for the spikes to sit in. Anyway, there's been frequent tweaking of the system since then as I wasn't sure I'd got it perfectly set up because the sound quality seemed inconsistent. I was sure I would get there in the end, even placing screws in several different positions to experiment whether speaker placement was the problem.
Today I had had enough of messing about and thought I'd try the slabs back in position, and suddenly the sound took a big step up in quality. I now realise that even with the screws in the floor, the speakers seem to be losing a lot of their energy into the floor, as on the slabs there is more life in the music, and I noticed my foot tapping and my head nodding along to the music, which it hadn't been doing recently.

The main point of all this is that I'm wondering if there is a better solution to the problem than garden slabs and I am aware that Mana make some kind of stands that would be suitable for the SBL's, but I don't know whether they would be the answer to the above problem.
Could anyone comment on whether they may be the solution or not.

Cheers

Ade

Posted on: 22 June 2001 by Mike Harris

Hi Ade,

I found that the screws thing did not work with my SBLs - too harsh. (are you sure thats Naims recommendation, I would be supprised ??)

The slab trick seemed to firm-up the bottom end, at the expense of the music - too slow.

The Mana sound bases are IMO a revelation under the SBLs. An easy test. Try them, for a while, and then take them out. The question is, will you miss them. Only you can answer that one

On phase two they really kick!! (for SBLs )

cheers

mike

Posted on: 22 June 2001 by ken c

my turn to abuse the naim forum. apologies in advance and to ade for hijacking your thread -- hopefully you will find any replies useful too.

i am thinking of getting a sound table initially, plus power supply table. but i want to know if the power supply table will be able to hold the geddon and the hicap for the prefix.

the prefix cable is quite short and it just reaches inout 2b in the preamp. connecting via hicap would solve this problem immediately. right now my geddon and hicap are stacked underneath the audiotech on the floor.

any suggestions for a better set-up for the lp12/geddon/hicap?

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 23 June 2001 by Richard P

Does anyone know what the Sound bases for SBL's cost, and how tall they are?

Posted on: 23 June 2001 by Naheed

To answer your question Mana 'Soundbases' as there known work extremely well with SBLs, my SBLs have undergone the progression to Phase 3 (i.e. 3 Soundbases under them), the the improvement is dramatic...

naheed........

Posted on: 23 June 2001 by Ade Archer

I have what I think is a good equipment stand at the moment (Ash Design), so I do not want to follow the Mana advice of replacing racks, and I imagine this advice is aimed at those who do not have a problem with their speakers' setup, so I would also look at getting the SBL stands first. Are they a standard size or do they do a specific SBL stand, and how much are they?

In answer to Mike, this recommendation is on the SBL setup leaflet that comes with the resealing kit from Naim. I was sure this must be the best way to go, but I was disappointed with the results, which just goes to show that Naim's own advice doesn't work for every situation (although I would be surprised if they started recommending garden slabs in your living room).

Cheers
Ade

Posted on: 23 June 2001 by Andrew Randle

Mr Pig, PD,

Agreed. A while ago I tried my Kans with the crosshead screws. Although it provides a positive interface, the results were appalling.

Andrew

Andrew Randle
2B || !2B;
4 ^ = ?;

Posted on: 24 June 2001 by Jay

My dealer came around when we first moved and put screws into the floor, screwed the spikes as far as they would go into my Intros and set them up level.

It's the best I've ever heard them. By some of the comments screws look very room, speaker, etc, dependent but in my experience well worth a try.

Jay

Posted on: 25 June 2001 by Rico

quote:
There are some things that the Mana does that I find unsettling - Susan Vega Caramel had always had a very warm feeling. With the Mana I could hear exactly what was going on - but the clarity had robbed the recording of that warm feeling. Saying that - other rcording which had always struck me this way were preserved. Tom Waits voice on Rain Dogs has some extra reverb - like it had some and the engineer added some more during the mix. These two elements are clear as separate where before I only heard one set.

Jeez, Jonathan

if one wasn't already well accoustomed to Mana and the obvious benefits, reading between the lines of your post above one might have suspicions of this effect being more about HiFi than The Music!

Rico - all your base are belong to us.

Posted on: 25 June 2001 by Martin M

Personally I don't like garden slabs or screws. The Mana I have heard and liked, others are have described the differences already.

If you want to try something potentially better than garden slabs before dumping a pile of money on Mana, try a buying two 'platforms' of MDF for the SBL to sit on, and screw these to your wooden floor, rest the carpet over the platform and put the speakers on the MDF. Always worked for me (more musical, less harsh than screws & faster than concrete slabs) when I could be bothered.

Happy tweaking.

Posted on: 25 June 2001 by Andrew L. Weekes

I found screws to work extremely well with my Kans, on KanII stands, but it wasn't always so.

One factor I found very important was that the spike must only contact the screw at the tip, this often requires a large crosshead screw, and great accuracy when installing.

Because of the lack of compliance in the interface between screw and spike, the spike adjustment to eliminate rocking becomes far more critical than when the spikes are on either a wooden, or concrete, floor.

If you get it wrong it can sound horrible, but care and patience have always rewarded the effort.

Andy.

Andrew L. Weekes

Posted on: 27 June 2001 by Ade Archer

Andrew,
I've tried again with much larger screws and they are definitely better, so I'll give that a go for a while.
Also, I may be able to get some Soundbases for the SBL's, 2nd hand, but I hadn't realised they could be stacked. How much better are two pairs than one, and has anyone any negative feedback re Soundbases under their speakers, as if not I may well be tempted.

Cheers
Ade