High End Speaker Stands

[brandondrury]

Is there any benefit to a high end speaker stand? I'm not talking aesthetics. Most of you know my view on that. Is there any sonic benefit that can't be achieved by simply stacking up some cinder blocks and using some kind of decoupling mechanism?

Brandon

[magno]

You know those sono tube "traps" you were talking about. There's your high end speaker stands.

[TonyB]

The only things I can think of is that:

1- they decouple from your desk (assuming you previously had your monitors on the console desk) and

2 - it could minimize reflections off your console (assuming you have a stuidio/mixing console and the monitors were placed just above it). In the big console days, reflections off the consoles had an impact.

Any discernible difference in a home or project setting? Maybe ... maybe not. It'll depend on each room configuration and set up.

[midKnight]

One other cheap solution,

I went to Ikea and bought a couple of 5' tall bookshelfs for cheap, tossed the mopads on top of them and viola! instant speaker stands.

This idea also worked for my 60" wide flat panel tv (bought a bookshelf and turned it on it's side) and instant perfect height tv stand (tv stands for some bs reason are *never* high enough to be viewable over the modern bed).

just food for thought.

-N

[brandondrury]

1- they decouple from your desk (assuming you previously had your monitors on the console desk) and

2 - it could minimize reflections off your console (assuming you have a stuidio/mixing console and the monitors were placed just above it). In the big console days, reflections off the consoles had an impact.

These would hold true for any speaker stand, right? It doesn't seem like the difference between a high end stand a stack of cinder blocks would be a facdtor.

[garww]

I don't imagine they are as effective as eye hooks and wire and hung in free space, but that depends on your volume levels. A coupling would dampen cabinet vibrations a bit. I have not used cinder blocks in a very long time, but they seemed ideal back then - block/wood/block as high as you needed.

[venuestudio]

I would think it depends on the type of stand. Some of the better stands are sand filled, have rubber and other absorbtion materials to decouple the speaker. All of that is a great idea, the problem is the price. If you know what technique they are using you can create it yourself. You can build a stand out of 1/2" pine, fill it with playsand and put spikes on the bottom. Buy a piece of 1/2" thick rubber for under the speaker and for $20 you can have the same effect as the stand sold in the store. If you are not handy with building things then you may not have a choice.

The real question is do they help and I would have to say they do. First they are meant to bring the speaker up to a sufficient hieght (ear level). TonyB already talked about reflections and decoupling. What you don't want is the energy produced by the speaker to couple to a surface that itself then vibrates. That will smear the sound just like a reflection will. Garww you are right in that hanging the speaker would be ideal. They do something like that in anechoic chambers during testing of speakers.

You make decisions in a mix based on what you hear in your monitors. The more faithful the representation the better. My room is not acoustically pure so any small difference I can make I will.

[garww]

speaker installation is somewhat like the break shot in billiards - my before coffee thought !!

[drgamble]

I have a pair of speaker stands. There are sand filled, but I also have the foam decouplers on the stands. The biggest thing is that they are the perfect height. The other thing is that they have rubber feet for wood floors and carpet spikes. This really helps because you have to actually lift the stands to move them. If you accidentally bump them they stay put. Oh by the way they look nice too. They are a good option if you don't have a big desk to put them on or are using bigger speakers and have them set up in a midfield arrangement.

[willieturnip]

To a point.

I think there is a benefit to GOOD speaker stands. I don't care what anybody says, but a bit of foam can NOT decouple your speakers from your desk/wherever else you have them.

You need big, heavy stands. With as little of the stand touching both the desk and the speaker.

With my speakers directly on my desk, I can feel massive vibrations when playing back material. With the stands, there is none. Even at very high volumes.