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Why Four Feet?

V

Vinny

pfm Member
Having been prompted to take a look at the Fyne Audio website, the same question that has bugged me for almost ever comes up again.....

Can someone explain to me why the overwhelming majority of kit, not least speakers and speaker stands, is routinely sold with 4 spikes or feet? Why not the infinitely more logical 3? The shape of the base or stand matters not, pretty much always it can as easily have 3 or any other number of feet, but why almost exclusively 4?

My floor-standers came with flat bases and it never occurred to me, well over 20 years ago, to fit anything but 3 spikes to each speaker.
 
Because a quadropod format means that you can be sold more foo feet for your kit than if it had a tripod format.
 
And there speaks one non-engineer......................... and one realist I suspect

3 points define a plane, and only one plane - try rocking anything with 3 feet............................
 
Vinny said:
Why not the infinitely more logical 3? The shape of the base or stand matters not, pretty much always it can as easily have 3 or any other number of feet, but why almost exclusively 4?
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Good question. I always use 3 feet for kit here, positioned with regard to weight distribution of each item. I was always taught 'can't rock a tripod.'

That's for electronics though. There has been the odd centre column/three leg stand for small speakers, and Boenicke Audio effectively have 3 point contact with their SwingBase, but can't think of too many others.
 
is it not that more often than not, a speaker´s depth and width are not always similar and the adjacent sides of the right angled triangle formed by the feet are very long and in such cases the height and weight of the object come into play via the 2 corners which are footless - almost as if all the weight were in said corners and it keels over when things are not horizontal. I can´t explain it any better but I´ve definitely been there on more than one occasion. This doesn´t happen with 4 feet. 3 feet are more stable in a static way but 4 are better in a dynamic way. So if you are moving your speakers to try and find the hotspot 4 are better but once there, 3 are better if no-one knocks them
 
Neat
Chris said:
is it not that more often than not, a speaker´s depth and width are not always similar and the adjacent sides of the right angled triangle formed by the feet are very long and in such cases the height and weight of the object come into play via the 2 corners which are footless - almost as if all the weight were in said corners and it keels over when things are not horizontal. I can´t explain it any better but I´ve definitely been there on more than one occasion. This doesn´t happen with 4 feet. 3 feet are more stable in a static way but 4 are better in a dynamic way. So if you are moving your speakers to try and find the hotspot 4 are better but once there, 3 are better if no-one knocks them
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Neat solution: http://boenicke-audio.ch/w8_c/

And of course token 'd'oh!' moment, the 47Labs amp sitting beside me as I type has 3 feet.
 
I was told long ago that you can only ever have 3 points of surface contact, the 4th will always be out, even if it’s only by tiny fraction of a mm. Hence Linns 3 point cartridge mounting etc.
However, if you accidentally lean on a corner of a 3 legged turntable, it will flip up, whereas a 4 legged one won’t.
So there’s more than one type of stability I guess.
 
Not sure of their weight, but the speakers here are 960mm tall x 430 x 300 and they have been fine on 3 spike for a very long while. They take a considerable whack to move them off the spikes - I doubt very much that they are more unstable in that respect than anything on 4 spikes. Nothing that could conceivably be likely to ever be put on top of them would over-balance them.

Surely the point is to have as stable a base as possible during normal use, not to try to cater for all contingencies?
 
Chris said:
Eureka ! A tripod is no good if your object is at all top-heavy and drivers are heavier than an empty box.
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That is a matter of where the centre of mass is and how it moves if the stand moves/tips - you could put a very large weight at the top of a broad-based tripod and it would be very stable. So long as the centre of mass stays within the footprint of a tripod, it will return to the upright position (as would a stand with 4 feet, generally speaking)
 
Beobloke said:
Because four is more stable.
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4 is less stable

Attempting to stabilise 4 feet is much more difficult, a one year old can sit something on 3 feet.

Unless you take pleasure in sitting on the corners of your equipment or stands/speakers, choose 3.
 
Ragaman said:
4 is less stable

Attempting to stabilise 4 feet is much more difficult, a one year old can sit something on 3 feet.

Unless you take pleasure in sitting on the corners of your equipment or stands/speakers, choose 3.
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You’re confusing stability with ease of setting up level.
 
Whaleblue said:
You’re confusing stability with ease of setting up level.
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Not really, you are confounding stability and centre of mass issues. Level also has very little to do with it.
There is also a very important proviso in the last sentence.

In any normal domestic set-up, four supports makes no sense at all.
 
I have had speakers with three spikes (Rega Ela)... they’re not particularly stable, pretty sketchy with young kids and excitable pets. This wasn’t a worry with the Linn Keilidhs that replaced them.

I do think it works on turntables in that you seem to get less vibration transferred upwards from the surface they’re sat on, I have no scientific backup for this, just experience from comparing Rega (three feet) and Pro-Ject (four feet) decks and having noticeable feedback on the Pro-Ject deck... put any force on the rear corner of a rega deck though and the opposite front corner will lift. So it’s swings and roundabouts, for feet/spikes offers better stability, three offers better isolation. I’d rather have four spikes on speakers which have a high centre of gravity.
 
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