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Wood speaker stands; anyone compared them to metal?

High tech materials are available which were not 50 years ago, and they are not cheap so most cabinets are not built too differently.

But measuring equipment has come a long way, and that makes a big difference.
 
Off on a slight tangent, I'm surprised we don't see more stands with adjustable height.
Used used to be quite common several decades ago but fell out of fashion when the rigidity police took over.

Stand height can be critical - just a a couple of inches up or down can completely change what you hear in non-coaxial designs.
 
Tony L said:
As stated above I personally don’t view Harbeth as anything other than BBC influenced/marketed. Their cabinets are MDF, a material that didn’t even exist back when the BBC did all the research. It is also a material with entirely different properties to the damped ply of say a LS3/6. You can play an SHL5 like a conga drum, it is a remarkably resonant box!

PS I have a lot of respect for the Kef LS50. One of the most interesting home audio speaker designs of the past 40 years IMHO. In no way would I describe it as the typically lazy glued MDF box, a huge amount of real research went into all aspects of driver and cabinet design. My only criticism is it is manufactured in a dictatorship with an appalling human rights record, but so is the iPad I’m typing this response on.
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Agreed on both counts.
MDF can work well but you need to brace and damp it to death (as KEF do). It's the last material I'd choose for a thin wall unbraced design!

When Simon (Ashton) and I were building the cabinets for the AR tribute act several years ago we experimented with MDF and ply - the latter was so much better in terms of desirable acoustic properties it just isn't funny.
 
Robert said:
Off on a slight tangent, I'm surprised we don't see more stands with adjustable height.
Used used to be quite common several decades ago but fell out of fashion when the rigidity police took over.

Stand height can be critical - just a a couple of inches up or down can completely change what you hear in non-coaxial designs.
Click to expand...

Yeah, both my sets of SF stands are adjustable but I can't recall seeing any others.
 
Robert said:
Off on a slight tangent, I'm surprised we don't see more stands with adjustable height.
Used used to be quite common several decades ago but fell out of fashion when the rigidity police took over.

Stand height can be critical - just a as couple of inches up or down can completely change what you hear in non-coaxial designs.
Click to expand...

With spikes you can easily give them slight tilt.
 
I made stands for my Linn kans. made out of blockboard with the exposed edges covered and the top plate cut to fit.
One solid piece of blockboard and another piece cut longitudinally and glued and dowelled to the first piece in a cross fashion.
The most difficult bit was making legs for the bottom, wide and long enough to make the whole thing stable. Used for a couple of years and sounded pretty good. Not as good I think as the wall brackets I was then able to retrieve and use again but did not think to compare
 
canonman said:
What goes around....
Rogers used to sell dedicated wooden stands back in the 90's and I seem to recall some Harbeth ones then.
Now:
rogers-ls-speaker-stands
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The LS5/9 stands are $3000 here in the US. I know Panzerholz is expensive, but that seems a bit extreme.

A bit surprised to see a solid top plate. Also, doesn’t look like Rogers is using footers, so leveling may be an issue for some.
 
Hook said:
The LS5/9 stands are $3000 here in the US. I know Panzerholz is expensive, but that seems a bit extreme.

A bit surprised to see a solid top plate. Also, doesn’t look like Rogers is using footers, so leveling may be an issue for some.
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The old ones in the 90's were somewhat cheaper!.....think I have a price somewhere
 
Hook said:
The LS5/9 stands are $3000 here in the US. I know Panzerholz is expensive, but that seems a bit extreme.

A bit surprised to see a solid top plate. Also, doesn’t look like Rogers is using footers, so leveling may be an issue for some.
Click to expand...

I paid 14 quid for a pair of Ikea Oddvar stools a few years ago, a perfect fit for the LS3/6s and Super HL5s (I'm only using the legs):

49672505907_23f229ab4d_c.jpg
 
That is a very good fit! Try nice thick felt furniture pads on the top corners, you may hear a benefit.

PS I did a very quick and dirty height experiment earlier just plonking the 149s on the single-level Ikea Kalix or whater its called record rack the rest of the system fits on. That’s 400mm, so too low, but they sounded good tonally, a little warmer. I think 500mm is the target, i.e. mid way between the Ikea thing and the LS3/5A stands.
 
I use the audiochic wall mounted stands, rear of speaker to the wall is about 3 inches and rigid they most definitely ain’t. Then again my Boenicke W8s aren’t designed to be rigid either. They both sound rather good to my ageing lugs.
https://flic.kr/p/2mBVY7n


I’ve never tried a picture before so I’m not confident at all!
 
I still use flat pack Heybrook HBS1 metal stands under my Harbeth C7s, cost me £100 in 1989. VERY rigid if you tighten all of the bolts:)
 
Fatmarley said:
Bond it PU18
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Yes, or other similar polyurethane based adhesive.
See also window fitting mastic, it's acrylic based generally rather than PU but it has similar properties in a CLD construction. The key to it is something that sets flexible rather than things like No Nails that set hard and so don't damp the layers as they are intended to.
 
tuga said:
From the white paper I understand that Kef calls it CLD.
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I don't want to rain on the CLD or thinwall parade, but if we're pursuing maximum fidelity, and I assume we are, why would we want to introduce a radiator in addition to the driver with:
Unpredictable FR.
Unpredictable radiation pattern.
Unpredictable, or at any rate difficult to control bending modes.
Because that is what any cabinet is, to greater or lesser extent.

In an ideal speaker, the cabinet would be infinitely rigid and would pass no sound from internal vibration, or resonate in sympathy.

Your drive units are the transducers, any other contribution is a dilution of their FR, dynamic performance and phase accuracy.

The "speakers are musical instruments" line as typified by Bossendorfer speakers is, well, toss. Speakers need to put out what is put in, with the lowest distortion. Nowt added, especially out of phase singing along.

Re broom handles upthread, a cheap upgrade to any large speaker is to play bass heavy material and feel the cabinet walls to ascertain where most vibration is. Cut a length of broom and brace across, gluing it in place. Reassemble, and chase down the next live spot. Rinse, repeat until you have a very dead cabinet.
 
I built myself some wooden speaker stands last year to compare with a relatively expensive pair of Atacama stands. I swapped them in and out after a couple of weeks use and I'm very happy with the wooden stands. Improvements in all areas IMO. Just tried Tony's suggestion of felt pads and initial impressions are favourable :)
 
Yeah that's an advantage of wooden stands, fairly easy to knock some together to try options out. I made these stands out of fence posts :) to fit my previous pair of Rogers Studio 1, now using them again on my current pair of Rogers Studio 1. The chunky 'agricultural' look fits in alright with my cottage!

 
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