Stands for speakers with thin walled cabinets.

[mandryka]

I have a pair of Spendors with a thin walled cabinet, they’re on heavy stands, not open but I’ve lifted them off the top plate so that there’s about 1cm of air underneat, and all the panels of the cabinet are free to vibrate.

I just wonder whether I should be on the look out for some light open frame stands. Does it matter?

 

[Mr Pig]

Different types of stand do sound different. I've always preferred open frame steel stands myself but it's a matter of taste.

 

[mandryka]

I’ve certainly noticed that changing stands can make a significant difference, but whenever I’ve done it the height has changed and I’ve always suspected that this is what’s responsible - the reflections of the sounds from the woofer with the floor for example, or the height of the tweeters vis a vis my ears!

 

[beatcomber]

I personally like having the solid foundation of heavy, mass-loaded stands beneath my speakers (Spendor SP3/1R2). I put some 1/2" semi-circle clear vinyl bumpers - purchased for $1.99 (approx.£1.50) for a sheet of sixteen at my local hardware store - between the top plate and speakers. The presentation is tight and fulsome, and it just sounds "right" to me.

 

[Man in a van]

@mandryka

These might still be available, I have no connection with the seller

https://www.hifiwigwam.com/forum/topic/142580-something-solid-xf-open-frame-speaker-stands/

ronnie

 

[mandryka]

There’s some science to this, I think. Someone once told me that in these thin walled speakers, the cab is supposed to be free to vibrate. If that’s true, are the panels more free on an open frame stand. Possibly the base panel, possibly - I’m not sure.

The other obvious difference with an open frame stand is that there’s a column of air immediately below the base. Can that make a significant difference to anything?

 

[trick cyclist]

The only columns of air are the tubes themselves, whether the corner tubes of an open frame, or central tubes in a pillar design. The central mass of air inside an open frame stand is not constrained, thus it will not resonate like a tube of air would. That's not to say it will do nothing of course, the stand toplate may still excite the air below, but it should disperse and be less obvious I would imagine.

 

[mandryka]

The only columns of air are the tubes themselves, whether the corner tubes of an open frame, or central tubes in a pillar design. The central mass of air inside an open frame stand is not constrained, thus it will not resonate like a tube of air would. That's not to say it will do nothing of course, the stand toplate may still excite the air below, but it should disperse and be less obvious I would imagine.

In that case, I can’t see how a light open stand can make a difference if the speaker is lifted off the base plate slightly by washers or bumpers in the corners like beatcomber.

 

[h.g.]

There’s some science to this, I think. Someone once told me that in these thin walled speakers, the cab is supposed to be free to vibrate. If that’s true, are the panels more free on an open frame stand. Possibly the base panel, possibly - I’m not sure.

If you mean the BBC-type thin walled cabinets then no the cabinets are not designed to audibly vibrate in the sense of singing along to the sound from the drivers. What the design approach is intended to do is exchange a worsening in low frequency resonant behaviour in order to get a better suppression of resonances at higher frequencies while maintaining a cabinet light enough to lug around studios and cheap and straightforward enough to manufacture given the typical materials and technology used 50 years ago. Low frequency resonances are less audible and less intrusive than higher frequency ones so the exchange is a wise one. However, cabinet materials and manufacturing have moved on in the last 50 years leading to the design approach no longer being directly relevant to high quality cabinets but only retro designs from the likes of Harbeth, Spendor, and similar.

Moving the location of the speakers in the room will change the sound. Swapping stands is unlikely to significantly change the sound from any audible speaker cabinet resonances but it might change the sound from the floor, walls and ceiling depending on the compliance of the floor. It is unlikely to radiate audible sound itself unless particularly incompetently designed.