advertisement


How much difference do Speaker Stands make?

Speaker stand bake off, that would interesting, i suppose it could be possible to arrange with a wood vs metal blind test, if anyone had the means to construct identical stands, one from steel, the other from hard wood of some sort.
This would have nothing to do with personal preferrence, just the ability to hear the difference with a given speaker on very different stands & the effect both have on the speaker in question.
 
That should be reasonably easy to organise if you use something the size of the LS35a. You could use MK2 Linn Kans stands for the open metal version, Partington Dreadnaughts or the old AE1 twin fluted column design for the mass loaded (Foundation made some very good high mass stands too) option and someone like CAVF for the wooden option. You'll find its all a bit speaker dependant though and don't forget to try Blu Tack or spikes on the top.....
 
Ragaman said:
Speaker stand bake off, that would interesting, i suppose it could be possible to arrange with a wood vs metal blind test, if anyone had the means to construct identical stands, one from steel, the other from hard wood of some sort.
This would have nothing to do with personal preferrence, just the ability to hear the difference with a given speaker on very different stands & the effect both have on the speaker in question.
Click to expand...

I was being slightly facetious, but I have had my Harbeth SHL5+ on Something Solid metal stands and HiFi Racks wooden stands, the same height and generally the same dimensions, the spikes being very close to the same distance apart. So far as I can tell, no difference at all.

The reason for the change was entirely cosmetic and fortunately I had a buyer for the S/S who was happy to wait until the HFR stands were delivered and then came and picked them up for cash. So two happy bunnies.
 
Cesare said:
Well i've previously convinced myself that stands are very important, but now i'm using Obelisks which are on cheap plastic castors, and these sound excellent to my ears. My conclusion is that it may be very dependent on the speaker design as to whether the stand construction is important or not.
Click to expand...

No doubt they do sound excellent - but who is to say they wouldn't sound even better if supported by something other than the castors used; unless you have tried some alternative support methods?
 
DonQuixote99 said:
But there is a school of thought that says you want the speaker well-coupled to it, so that it can serve as a sink for unwanted vibrations transferred to it from the speaker, thereby minimizing spurious noise cause by reverb in the speaker.

One way this can happen is if the 'decoupling' is accomplished by putting a vibration sink between the speaker and the stand. The speaker will be well-coupled to this mass.
Click to expand...
"You gain nada from the coupling, only problems. This is the point you do not realize.
The object vibrate 90% because it exchange forces with the floor.
You do not need any damping effect, the opposite is true.
Zero exchange of forces. Only reaction of inertia.
The reaction is the great problem.Not the opposite."

why do studio go to such extent to decouple speakers from the room. but then people wants to couple their speakers to their room with spikes? its bad science brought by the commercialisation of spikes. they make things worse.
the best is to have suspended speakers!!
http://www.northwardacoustics.com/portfolio/ this is a reknown acoustician. he recommends sorbothane and sylomer if suspended is not possible.

so, decouple with sorbothane or sylomer (*very pricey) between speakers and stand and stand from floor.


http://www.stereophile.com/reference/52/index11.html

heres a very interesting posts about the matter:

"Spikes act like as springs. Very rigid springs.
The combined effect of Mass ( speaker) x springs = Resonant Frequency normally located in the 1-3 Khz.
This is bad because the system work in elastic reaction. The system is coupled below the FR and decoupled above Fr.
The woofer shake your floor and viceversa.
Diodes do not exsist in mechanic .
If you want seryously decoupling all the frequencies 20-20000Hz
you must employ a subsonic FR ie employ a very soft souspension,
ideally below 5Hz with the minimal damping (important).
In this case the system works in inertial reaction.
The souspension filter the armonic spectra of the reaction that the floor act to the speakers movements. This is good because you minimize the exchange forces (vibrations) and maximise the immobility in the audio band.
Yes the speaker float but it is near immoble in the audio band.
Best method to obtain this are air spring or use long elastics from the ceiling ( bad WAF )
You can solve all your problem of vibrations , as like every Lab in the worlds do : air spring or elastic cables tuned subsonically.
see this article

http://www.stereophile.com/reference/52/index.html

or search " damped armonic oscillator "- principle

hope this can help

cheers,

Paolo"
 
sls4321 said:
I was being slightly facetious, but I have had my Harbeth SHL5+ on Something Solid metal stands and HiFi Racks wooden stands, the same height and generally the same dimensions, the spikes being very close to the same distance apart. So far as I can tell, no difference at all.

The reason for the change was entirely cosmetic and fortunately I had a buyer for the S/S who was happy to wait until the HFR stands were delivered and then came and picked them up for cash. So two happy bunnies.
Click to expand...
Are something solid the open frame type or mass loaded, single column type, if open frame, it doesn't surprise me you heard no difference, i would imagine the open frame type would have little effect on a speaker, as i have found with wooden types. Mass loaded, heavy stands inserted character to every speaker i tried, i have tried quite a few of this type over the years but never open frame, i have been tempted to try them many times but never got round to it, i now have no need.
 
murphythecat said:
"You gain nada from the coupling, only problems. This is the point you do not realize.
The object vibrate 90% because it exchange forces with the floor.
You do not need any damping effect, the opposite is true.
Zero exchange of forces. Only reaction of inertia.
The reaction is the great problem.Not the opposite."

why do studio go to such extent to decouple speakers from the room. but then people wants to couple their speakers to their room with spikes? its bad science brought by the commercialisation of spikes. they make things worse.
the best is to have suspended speakers!!
http://www.northwardacoustics.com/portfolio/ this is a reknown acoustician. he recommends sorbothane and sylomer if suspended is not possible.

so, decouple with sorbothane or sylomer (*very pricey) between speakers and stand and stand from floor.


http://www.stereophile.com/reference/52/index11.html

heres a very interesting posts about the matter:

"Spikes act like as springs. Very rigid springs.
The combined effect of Mass ( speaker) x springs = Resonant Frequency normally located in the 1-3 Khz.
This is bad because the system work in elastic reaction. The system is coupled below the FR and decoupled above Fr.
The woofer shake your floor and viceversa.
Diodes do not exsist in mechanic .
If you want seryously decoupling all the frequencies 20-20000Hz
you must employ a subsonic FR ie employ a very soft souspension,
ideally below 5Hz with the minimal damping (important).
In this case the system works in inertial reaction.
The souspension filter the armonic spectra of the reaction that the floor act to the speakers movements. This is good because you minimize the exchange forces (vibrations) and maximise the immobility in the audio band.
Yes the speaker float but it is near immoble in the audio band.
Best method to obtain this are air spring or use long elastics from the ceiling ( bad WAF )
You can solve all your problem of vibrations , as like every Lab in the worlds do : air spring or elastic cables tuned subsonically.
see this article

http://www.stereophile.com/reference/52/index.html

or search " damped armonic oscillator "- principle

hope this can help

cheers,

Paolo"
Click to expand...
I agree with this, i'm no scientist :) but in my experience this is what i have found from trying out different coupling & decoupling, i currently use Atacama gel pads under my one set of speakers on metal stands, it seems to work, eliminating any vibration from speaker to stand & vice versa, completely dead, i have tried this on various metal stands, there is no difference in sound, whichever stand was tried, when i attached using metal spikes & wooden spikes, the sound changed, not only from one spike to another but also from stand to stand, no such change with the gel pads underneath.
 
Paolo, is suggesting a very much more compliant mounting than that which the gel pads provide.

Edit: I've just read the Stereophile article linked to by Paolo and it's very good. It doesn't conclude that speakers should be compliantly mounted though - in fact it accedes that in the case of speakers there are likely benefits to be had from rigid coupling. The main angle of the article is in relation to support tables intended to isolate equipment.
 
If you read 5 articles you will see 5 different ways to go to achieve the best result, there seems no best way scientifically so best to choose which suits your personal circumstances, it is what i have done, my metal stands have gel pads, best thing for these stands, eliminates that annoying forwardness of metal supports which i truly hate, my wood stands are coupled with oak supports, no need to decouple these & sounds best this way.
 
YNWOAN said:
Paolo, is suggesting a very much more compliant mounting than that which the gel pads provide.

Edit: I've just read the Stereophile article linked to by Paolo and it's very good. It doesn't conclude that speakers should be compliantly mounted though - in fact it accedes that in the case of speakers there are likely benefits to be had from rigid coupling. The main angle of the article is in relation to support tables intended to isolate equipment.
Click to expand...
read the sidebar 1-2

any coupling method will make the system work in elastic reaction. what we want is inertial reaction that only good working decoupling can provide...
 
murphythecat said:
read the sidebar 1-2

any coupling method will make the system work in elastic reaction. what we want is inertial reaction that only good working decoupling can provide...
Click to expand...

Yes, I've read the 'Sidebar' comments and don't dispute any of that written. However, the author is writing from the context of isolating components. If the intent is to actually couple the component to the floor - as spiked, rigid stands are intended to do, then the issues are quite different. One is isolating source components (primarily turntables) from the speakers rather than vice versa.

Have a look at page 8 'Speaker Coupling'.
 
YNWOAN said:
Yes, I've read the 'Sidebar' comments and don't dispute any of that written. However, the author is writing from the context of isolating components. If the intent is to actually couple the component to the floor - as spiked, rigid stands are intended to do, then the issues are quite different. One is isolating source components (primarily turntables) from the speakers rather than vice versa.

Have a look at page 8 'Speaker Coupling'.
Click to expand...
yes, and as it been shown, coupling adequately speaker to floor is basically very very hard to do, its much more safe to decouple.

again, why do most high end studio build with the guidance of acoustician go to extreme ways to decouple speakers?
 
Placing a speaker directly on the floor is 'coupling', correctly loaded sorbathane ,(height of tower and durometer of material ) will offer broadband isolation.
Keith.
 
Purite Audio said:
Placing a speaker directly on the floor is 'coupling', correctly loaded sorbathane ,(height of tower and durometer of material ) will offer broadband isolation.
Keith.
Click to expand...

yes
what I meant by " coupling adequately speaker to floor is basically very very hard to do" is that coupling speaker will in 99% of the time result in problems as been pointed in the article.

decoupling is much more guaranteed to works if you use the right material.
 
The 'Audiophiles' among us will cringe, but I still use my trolley stands
( with castors ! ) which came with my Spendor BC1s.
As I need to pull the speakers out into the room when using them,
they're staying.
 
murphythecat said:
"You gain nada from the coupling, only problems. This is the point you do not realize.
The object vibrate 90% because it exchange forces with the floor.
You do not need any damping effect, the opposite is true.
Zero exchange of forces. Only reaction of inertia.
The reaction is the great problem.Not the opposite."

why do studio go to such extent to decouple speakers from the room. but then people wants to couple their speakers to their room with spikes? its bad science brought by the commercialisation of spikes. they make things worse.
the best is to have suspended speakers!!
http://www.northwardacoustics.com/portfolio/ this is a reknown acoustician. he recommends sorbothane and sylomer if suspended is not possible.

so, decouple with sorbothane or sylomer (*very pricey) between speakers and stand and stand from floor.


http://www.stereophile.com/reference/52/index11.html

heres a very interesting posts about the matter:

"Spikes act like as springs. Very rigid springs.
The combined effect of Mass ( speaker) x springs = Resonant Frequency normally located in the 1-3 Khz.
This is bad because the system work in elastic reaction. The system is coupled below the FR and decoupled above Fr.
The woofer shake your floor and viceversa.
Diodes do not exsist in mechanic .
If you want seryously decoupling all the frequencies 20-20000Hz
you must employ a subsonic FR ie employ a very soft souspension,
ideally below 5Hz with the minimal damping (important).
In this case the system works in inertial reaction.
The souspension filter the armonic spectra of the reaction that the floor act to the speakers movements. This is good because you minimize the exchange forces (vibrations) and maximise the immobility in the audio band.
Yes the speaker float but it is near immoble in the audio band.
Best method to obtain this are air spring or use long elastics from the ceiling ( bad WAF )
You can solve all your problem of vibrations , as like every Lab in the worlds do : air spring or elastic cables tuned subsonically.
see this article

http://www.stereophile.com/reference/52/index.html

or search " damped armonic oscillator "- principle

hope this can help

cheers,

Paolo"
Click to expand...

I will read the sources you linked to.

But my thinking going in is like this. Say I have a tuning fork. If I hit it, it emits sound. But say it's a bad tuning fork, and I don't want to hear it. I can silence it by coupling it (bringing it into contact with) some more massive thing, like a tabletop. The tabletop does not vibrate the floor, and transmit vibrations in turn from the floor to the tuning fork. Something else happens. The vibrations stop. Further, if I strike the tuning fork while it is in contact with the tabletop, it is damped, and so produces only a short-duration and low volume klunk.

That's the effect I'm hoping for. If a stand transmits vibrations back and forth, it's not what I want.
 
murphythecat said:
yes
what I meant by " coupling adequately speaker to floor is basically very very hard to do" is that coupling speaker will in 99% of the time result in problems as been pointed in the article.

decoupling is much more guaranteed to works if you use the right material.
Click to expand...
Coupling a speaker to stand & then to the floor is a very simple excercise, spike stands to floor, spiked speaker to stand, done, what is difficult about this procedure.
The problem i have noticed with doing this, after trying many options is, any vibration travels through the stand into the floor, via spikes, then unfortunately travels back into the stand, which then obviously travels back into the speaker, not a great idea for sound quality or stability.

My atacama stands are average stands that have poor damping (even whe filled with any substance) so it quite easy to see how these things work with this particular stand, if i rap the speaker top (Castle Richmond 3i, extremely solid & well damped cabinet) i can feel vibration in the stand with my hand, same vice versa, this is with stand spiked to the floor & with speaker spiked to stand, blu tac (once settled, give it half an hour to adhere) same problem, felt pads, same, Atacama gel pads, zero vibration in either direction, completely dead, not a single twinge of vibration, even when rapped hard with a knuckle.
My wood stands have no such problems, spiked to the floor, spiked to the stand via oak cones, no vibration in stand or vice versa when rapped with a knuckle.
IME, metal stands are best spiked to the floor for stabilty, (otherwise there will always be some small form of rocking on wood floors, through carpet, spikes, obviously,) then decoupled from the stand using gel pads, best of both worlds.
 
I fancy giving the Atacama gel pads a try but not at £2 per pad! I found this eBay listing for £9 for a pack of 8 (http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-5...0001&campid=5338728743&icep_item=172315406129), but didn't receive a reply when I asked if they were genuine Atacamas or not. I'm assuming not all sorbothane pads are created equal, so if people are reporting good results with the Atacamas then it's the Atacamas I want! Where is the cheapest place to buy them?
 
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
Sorbathane ( open cell rubber) is available in a number of thicknesses and durometers.
A correctly loaded pillar will offer wide band effective isolation.
Keith
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top