Speaker Stands Orthodoxy

Hi Bob,

Quadraspire makes  some nice looking lightweight stands. I have never tried them, hence the „looking“ part.

My completely unorthodox stands work well for me. Don't know what height you need. My harbeth 30.1 speakers are on folding iron bookcases (sold by the container store). A silicone mat (from a kitchen) sits on the top shelf and then the speaker itself.I do have the lower shelves filled with heavy books (I can use the space) - did not hear any difference with/without books. The tweeter is at the ideal height (or close enough). Also much less expensive than most purpose built stands. I think they were $59 each.

How are your DIY skills, my speakers came with stands that were at the time too high and didn't quite work.

As an interim I butchered an Ikea Lack TV bench which is conveniently 26cm wide, fitted some 6mm T-nuts in the bottom of the legs and used old spikes from my useful things box. I cannot recall where I got the extra legs, but even new it's cheaper to buy two benches to approximate a lightweight Russ Andrews style stand to see if it works for you.

Hi Bob,

Before you give up on them are you able to fill them and then still return them? Otherwise I feel that you are not really testing them.

With my Focal 1008be IIs I use: Partington Dreadnought stands, filled, Atacarma get pads between the speakers and the stands, set on IsoAcoustic Gaia IIIs. The work excellently, better than the bespoke Focal stands, which I have just given away!

These are used on a carpeted suspended wood floor.

Good luck.

M

Thanks for all the comments so far. I guess I am past the point of return with the stands now I have assembled them so I may as well fill them with the Custom Design filler they came with. I suspect this will not be the solution for me so I am resigning myself to selling them on and starting again - either lightweight stands with the ATC SCM 11s or alternatively a pair of small floor standers or if that fails then some high end headphones. The holy grail still eludes me

Hi Bob, when I bought the Partington stands  for my Kudos C10 speakers to sit on I tried them without any filling material as you have done and found they were like the proverbial singing ringing tree.  People with mass loading stands seem to experiment quite a bit with loading materials used and the level to which they are filled. One of the more economical options is kiln dried sand with the central column filled to the top and the four outer tubes three quarters filled. I went with this and it transformed a bright harsh sound to something quite spectacular. If you have bought the Kudos stands you could try kiln dried sand as a cheap experiment but don't get builders sand or they will go rusty.

I've had the Super 10As for a couple of weeks now and they are sounding better with each day so don't despair just be prepared to experiment a bit. 

Regards

Mike

I've had best results when stands 2/3 full of kiln dried sand, stood on granite plinths (unless your floor is concrete) with spikes and shoes on (no shoes if carpet on concrete). Otherwise they will sound awful. Simply flick the stand column with your finger nail, if it rings then it needs more sand.

Have you tried some lightweight open frame stands with the kudos ?

Or something soft and compliant like those sorbothane pods between the Kudos and those Custom Design Heavyweights ?  sometimes wobbly works.

Stand height is also important. With a two way speaker your ear should normally be about the same height as the gap between the woofer and the tweeter.

Hi Shropshire Hills,

Very sorry to hear about the disappointing results from such great speakers & decent stands.

This may sound a little far fetched but here goes.  There appear to be 2 schools of thought about coupling speakers to the floor.  One school says that strong coupling to the floor via heavy stands & spikes allows the speaker and stand to act as a rigid body for the bass driver, enabling it to produce more dynamic, better timed, pistonic bass.  Another says that decoupling is better, as decoupling stops the floor from singing along with delayed phase, ill-defined bass.

In some circumstances the first school seems to work better (e.g. my old Proac stand mounts on very heavy, spiked, Target R1 stands).  In others, the second school seems to be right (e.g. Brodmann VC7 and possibly my old, original Linn Saras from about 1983).

Track Audio make stands that get the very best from Kudos C10 and S10 speakers.  They are expensive though.  If you can't stretch to the Track Audio stands, do ask your dealer if you can try a pair of their decoupling stand feet.  Those feet may just provide the decoupling that your speakers need.  Worth a try.

Separately, filling the stand legs also makes a significant difference, as has already been suggested.

Hope this helps, FT

Standing the stands on spikes with shoes on granite plinth should decouple the speaker from the floor. Granite not necessary if you have a concrete floor. If you have a timber floor you always want to decouple regardless of speaker or stand.

Carpet on timber or just timber: granite > shoes > spikes

Carpet on concrete: spikes

Kudos's own stands are also worth a listen - surprised that these have not been mentioned.

I'm lucky in having the (now discontinued) Kudos S100 stands, about half filled with lead shot and floor spiked for my four B&W CDM1 cinema surround sound speakers - still sounds great, even after 24 years!

The current Kudos stands (Kudos S50) share much of the design and sound quality of the Kudos S100 stands and are still available I believe.

ATB.

George.

Proac Tablette 10 on Custom Design FS104 Atabyte filled centre column with spikes directly onto Granite plinths. I need the latter as the carpet/underlay is too thick to pierce. I did use ‘shoes’ to separate the spikes from granite originally, but prefer the look and sound without.

G

I do not know if skylan stands are availiable for you speakers, lightweight (they don‘t look so, but they are) Filled with a special granulat, high recommodation! I use them with Harbeth. Christoph 

Thanks again to Forum members for some very helpful suggestions and comments. Cyclo - I have now part filled my Custom Design FS206 twin central columns with filler and they no longer ping when tapped. The sound is much better with tighter bass, better instrument separation and clearer treble. Next step is to try some granite plinths under the stands as suggested by Halloween Man and Graeme as my stands are placed on a suspended wooden floor

Teack Audio stands look impressive but the cost at nearly £2k is too expensive for me. Skylab stands also sound interesting but I’m not sure if there are any UK dealers

George (Geejay) - The Kudos S50 are no longer available although Kudis may be bringing out a new stand aimed particularly at the new Titan 505. I did ask Kudis for a recommendation and they suggested the Custom Design FS206 which I now have

Hi Bob,

I also use the same Super 10's and can confirm that a good stand makes a very noticeable improvement to just how good these speakers can sound. I initially had them on a pair of Kudos stands, filling the pillar just above the halfway mark with sand. It improved matters. I then switched to Track Audio stands and its was transformational.

Good to see you filled the stands to reduce the ringing.  What also worked for me was to not overuse the amount of Blu Tack putty to keep the speakers on the top plate. Make a ball the size of a large pea, cut that in 4 and use that for each speaker. 

Just recently, my audio dealer suggested I try some floor protectors (to replace the twoonies I had been using) and this really brought everything into focus and a very worthwhile upgrade. We tried some Track Audio and Quadraspire floor protectors and I ended up keeping the latter. We also decoupled my Custom Design audio stand with similar feet. 

Seeing you are also on a suspended wooden floor, I really urge you to try some floor protectors, it may surprise you.

Hope this helps.

I find that the stand generally is not good or bad but needs to match the speaker. In some cases, the room overtakes the requirement on the stand more than the speaker. While heavy partially filled stands are often recommended, I have to confess that when it came to stands, I always came back to low cost open frame (light) designs. Target Audio used to make an excellent and very high stand (with model numbers starting TR- I believe) great for small speakers like Tukans but such designs are out of favour now and cannot even see these on their site anymore.  I admit open frame stands can look ugly and spindly but by being open frame, they actually eliminate many of the problems that large hollow column stands have which leads to them needed to be filled in the first place.

Heavy single column is definitely more elegant and cable-hiding freindly, but simply not guaranteed to work in every speaker/room context IMO.

Ultimately, the stand acts like an extension of the speaker and therefore, a speaker on stand A is not the same as the same speaker on stand B. And as for your chair, you might have laughed when it sounded better, but wood is actually not a terrible material for a stand in all situations contrary to common belief.

RIghtconstants thanks for the stand tuning tips - I am currently using some Audiovector floor protectors - small, nicely machined, aluminium discs but did wonder about something heavier made of stainless steel. Which Quadraspire model do you use - there are 2 types listed on their website.

Feeling Zen - Speaker, stand and room matching certainly seems a complicated process to a layman like me. For now I will try and fine tune my high mass stands but won’t close off other options should they improve the sound. Track Audio make very fine stands but at a high price and another alternative is the Russ Andrews Torlyte approach which have had good reviews 

Bob

SH, If you're seeking out granite then I use audioserenity granite plinths, really nice quality and attractive granite. Sounds like things are improving. Speaker and room setup for me has by far been the hardest thing to optimise. Just an inch or two here or there with speaker or listening chair position makes a big difference. I think my room is particularly sensitive and difficult (the room would say the same about me). 

Before buying expensive granite you could always buy a couple of nondescript heavy paving slabs to assess the effect: whilst the material conceivably could make a difference, differences in material will be minor compared to the basic effect (in fact a ‘dead’ material like a concrete slab actually could be better than some alternatives).

Halloween Man posted:

Just an inch or two here or there with speaker or listening chair position makes a big difference.

Wow, be certain not to slouch in the chair as you relax with your music! 

Hi interesting thread, as I find speaker stands one of the most infuriating though when right extremely rewarding areas.

I find some stands reinforce bass or even make boomy at the expense of smeared treble such as high mass stands, and open frame stands have spot on timing and pristine clear highs with beautiful subtle transients and atmosphere, but the bass can become a little anemic.

I currently use wooden stands made by Russ Andrews, made using Torlyte, and find they are the  best compromis with speakers placed directly on the stands. Speakers used are or have been  on the Torlyte stands ATC SCM 19, Russell K 50s and 100s, and PMC 25.23... 

Shropshire Hills posted:

Thanks again to Forum members for some very helpful suggestions and comments. Cyclo - I have now part filled my Custom Design FS206 twin central columns with filler and they no longer ping when tapped. The sound is much better with tighter bass, better instrument separation and clearer treble. Next step is to try some granite plinths under the stands as suggested by Halloween Man and Graeme as my stands are placed on a suspended wooden floor

Teack Audio stands look impressive but the cost at nearly £2k is too expensive for me. Skylab stands also sound interesting but I’m not sure if there are any UK dealers

FWIW I use Tesco Granite Worktop Protectors - £14 each.

G

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

... Speakers used are or have been  on the Torlyte stands ATC SCM 19, Russell K 50s and 100s, and PMC 25.23... 

You put a floorstanding speaker on a stand?