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Custom Stand Height for Falcon Q7s

raysablade

pfm Member
I'm in the process of buying some Falcon Q7s and planning to put them on open stands rather like these pretty things currently on the sales corner. I've been using floor standers for years so it is a long time since I thought about stands.

Because the Q7 isn't a standard LS3/5a size, its 65cm deeper, I'm going to need to have any open stands I want to use custom made. That presents an opportunity, because I want to specify a colour, but also an issue in that I'd be able to choose the stand height.

I've noticed that most stands built for for the LS3/5a are around 60cm tall, however my calculations are that, with my ear 96cm off the ground when I'm sitting, a height of 70 cm would make for better physics.

That prompts a couple of questions;
  • can anyone explain why 60cm is considered the best height for LS/5a stands? In saying that I recognise that the issue might simply be that I'm 196cm tall, but my chair does take me unusually close to the ground. My sense is that a tiny speaker on top of a stand much taller than 60cm is too much of an aesthetic challenge and that's it.
  • would it make sense to start with the Q7s on cheap or s/h 60cm and 70 cm stands and find a sweet spot, using books or similar to fine adjust the height, before pushing £400 plus into a custom job? I'm a bit concerned that a cheap stand and some books would be so different in presentation that it would not be a useful comparison.
 
I have found HiFi Racks wooden stands to be perfect for my Stirling V3s.
They will make to the customer’s spec. for a small premium if suitable height ones aren’t available.

Attractive though they are in their own way, these don't achieve my aim of there being the very minimum of supporting material under the speakers. With white walls and and white stands I'd like to create an illusion that there is almost nothing there but the speaker and the cable
 
Something solid are 60cm high +/- (a bit) for the spikes.
This put the tweeters mildly below ear level in a fairly near field position.
I find the Falcon Acoustics sound simply sublime..
I’ve hardly used the Spendor Classic 2/3’s since purchasing the Falcons.

I run my Falcons fairly flat with a hint of toe in.
I would imagine the felt around the tweeter does a good job of calming the off axis Hf response (as does the HF2000 grille strangely)
So it’s not a “must” in my opinion for the tweeters at ear height..
The Q7’s might need to be on Axis and at ear height?
 
The respective heights of the bass driver and listener affect, amongst other things, the degree to which your room's axial height mode is excited. You can use this to balance out your speaker's in-room bass response and, in the case of small standmounts, help extend the low frequency response. The closer the bass driver and listener are to the floor (or ceiling!), the stronger the output will be at this modal frequency. Conversely, the closer the bass driver and listener is to the midway height of the room, the weaker the output will be at this modal frequency.

From an imaging/soundstaging perspective I generally prefer my speakers high enough so that the mid driver is at ear level and the tweeter is just above ear level, because I enjoy life-size images to be presented in front of me and don't enjoy the sensation of 'looking down onto the performance'. However, my seated ear height is a few cm's over 1 metre, which is around 10cm-15cm higher than the average person's. Hence 60cm stands are far too low to achieve ear level with small standmounts. 80cm stands would suit me better, but with the compromise of weaker bass output.
 
Have you considered knocking together a quick stand from 'easyfix' aluminium square tube:
I don't think that you will be completely surprised to learn that i have not;)
Thank you

Something solid are 60cm high +/- (a bit) for the spikes.
This put the tweeters mildly below ear level in a fairly near field position.
I find the Falcon Acoustics sound simply sublime..
I’ve hardly used the Spendor Classic 2/3’s since purchasing the Falcons.

I run my Falcons fairly flat with a hint of toe in.
I would imagine the felt around the tweeter does a good job of calming the off axis Hf response (as does the HF2000 grille strangely)
So it’s not a “must” in my opinion for the tweeters at ear height..
The Q7’s might need to be on Axis and at ear height?

The Something Solid stands are my template and it interesting that they would want to install extra bracing at heights over 70cm. I could also try Custom Design here in Newcastle i think they offer solid steel options rather than hollow and definitely offer a white finish.

All points to treating the room as far as my partner will tolerate then experimenting to find the right height and toe in before i order.

The respective heights of the bass driver and listener affect, amongst other things, the degree to which your room's axial height mode is excited. You can use this to balance out your speaker's in-room bass response and, in the case of small standmounts, help extend the low frequency response. The closer the bass driver and listener are to the floor (or ceiling!), the stronger the output will be at this modal frequency. Conversely, the closer the bass driver and listener is to the midway height of the room, the weaker the output will be at this modal frequency.

From an imaging/soundstaging perspective I generally prefer my speakers high enough so that the mid driver is at ear level and the tweeter is just above ear level, because I enjoy life-size images to be presented in front of me and don't enjoy the sensation of 'looking down onto the performance'. However, my seated ear height is a few cm's over 1 metre, which is around 10cm-15cm higher than the average person's. Hence 60cm stands are far too low to achieve ear level with small standmounts. 80cm stands would suit me better, but with the compromise of weaker bass output.

The Q7 has a larger cabinet which implies a stronger bass response. That makes me wonder if there is more to be gained, on balance, by increasing their height. That said the review i've read suggests that a lower height is preferable.

I think I will ask Falcon if they have experimented with this.
 
Falcon’s own LS3/5A stands are 60cm, I have a pair under mine (actually under the JR149s at the moment). This is too high for my current beanbag listening, but would be fine for a typical sofa. I’m toying with buying a pair of 500mm stands for the JR149s as I suspect (like @ToTo Man suggests) it would help the bass a bit. If pfm has a good strong Christmas ad revenue wise I’ll likely take a punt on some!
 
I don't think that you will be completely surprised to learn that i have not;)
Thank you



The Something Solid stands are my template and it interesting that they would want to install extra bracing at heights over 70cm. I could also try Custom Design here in Newcastle i think they offer solid steel options rather than hollow and definitely offer a white finish.

All points to treating the room as far as my partner will tolerate then experimenting to find the right height and toe in before i order.



The Q7 has a larger cabinet which implies a stronger bass response. That makes me wonder if there is more to be gained, on balance, by increasing their height. That said the review i've read suggests that a lower height is preferable.

I think I will ask Falcon if they have experimented with this.
Yes the Q7 does dig significantly deeper than both the 3/5A and JR149 and has more 'balls', surprisingly so considering that the enclosure is still relatively small. The treble is tuned a little hot for my tastes, I preferred listening with no toe-in (i.e. cabinet parallel to wall). However, I didn't audition them with the optional Tygan grilles, and I suspect these aren't as acoustically transparent as the modern shear cloth grilles that come as standard.
 
That's interesting, I didn't specify Tygan I might revise that.
If the Tygan grilles do what I think they do (i.e. attenuate the HF a little) then I think it would be worth adding them to your order as it will give you the opportunity to tune the speakers a little darker if desired. As I said I didn't have access to the Tygan grilles during my audition but the shear fabric grilles are very acoustically transparent, I measured virtually no difference in the overall level of HF output with the grilles on vs off. The HF response is however smoother with the grilles on, when you remove the grille the 5kHz-9kHz region becomes slightly bumpy.
 
If the Tygan grilles do what I think they do (i.e. attenuate the HF a little) then I think it would be worth adding them to your order as it will give you the opportunity to tune the speakers a little darker if desired. As I said I didn't have access to the Tygan grilles during my audition but the shear fabric grilles are very acoustically transparent, I measured virtually no difference in the overall level of HF output with the grilles on vs off. The HF response is however smoother with the grilles on, when you remove the grille the 5kHz-9kHz region becomes slightly bumpy.

Did the samples you heard have the Gold Badge crossover? I've specified that and wonder if it might in itself tame the treble.
 
Did the samples you heard have the Gold Badge crossover? I've specified that and wonder if it might in itself tame the treble.
Afraid not, it was just the standard version I had. I should note that I haven't heard either the Silver or Gold badge Falcon LS3/5A so cannot comment first hand on how closely the Q7 is voiced to the 3/5A, but from my discussions with Jerry it would appear that the Q7 is essentially an LS3/5A with a more extended bass. I can only compare the Q7 to the other mini monitors I have - JR149 and Spendor 3/5R2 - and in my room the Q7's tuning is cooler than both of these (the Q7's treble output is stronger and the lower midrange and is a little leaner).
 


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