Speaker Asylum: REVIEW: Sound Anchors Speaker stands for Thiel 3.6 Speaker Stands by TA

Model:	Speaker stands for Thiel 3.6
Category:	Speaker Stands
Suggested Retail Price:	$235/pr
Description:	Speaker stands for Thiel 3.6
Manufacturer URL:	Sound Anchors
Model Picture:	View

Review by TA on April 10, 2002 at 20:03:34
IP Address: 66.28.38.188

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for the Speaker stands for Thiel 3.6

Sound Anchors' Thiel 3.6 stands are square metal bases welded from four pieces of metal. The stand rests on three or four spikes that you screw in the underside. The spike heights can be adjusted for uneven floors. The front and back edges of the speaker rest on the lowered sides of the square. You insert three metal plugs, provided with the stands, into the Thiels' spike holes, so the speaker cabinet touches the stand at those three points. Sound Anchors also makes coasters to go under the spikes to protect the floor.
I purchased a pair of Sound Anchor stands and six "Conecoasters" for my Thiel 3.6 speakers directly from the company (www.soundanchors.com). They were very pleasant to deal with. Before this, my speakers sat on bare hardwood floor.
The stands raise the speaker by about two inches. There are some differences just from the speakers sitting higher. The new ear level may affect the speaker's emphasis on different frequencies, so I won't comment on those aspects here. The soundstage was certainly taller. I like a taller soundstage (bigger is better), but I suppose putting the speakers on phone books could do some of this too.
My immediate impression: the sound smoothed out. I thought, "Why is this blurry?" After some listening, I realized that I was hearing true detail.
If you have ever adjusted your television with a home theater set-up DVD, you may find yourself turning down the sharpness. An overly sharp picture adds artifacts which busy up the picture, making it look more detailed when it's really false information around object edges. These stands brushed away a layer of artificial artifacts from the music. I could hear things more clearly at significantly lower volume. As with more detailed components, I don't need to turn up the volume trying to pick up the low-level details.
I have a small listening room, and it is the biggest handicap of my system. I've spent time repositioning the speakers and furniture, yet the soundstage misses that last inch of hanging together. I'll hear a solo piano positioned firmly in the space between and behind the speakers. But I'll also hear loose bits of color flashing from the left and right side, and the speakers make themselves known.
This problem -- and the speakers -- disappeared with the Sound Anchors. The image came together better, as it does when one pulls speakers away from the walls. I heard more bass-player-on-the-left-side-of-the-room instead of bass-player-around-the-left-speaker. More strings and wood instead of rich notes. My ears spend less time picking at boundaries around the instrument for location cues: the instruments were just fleshier. It was an improved sense of "over there."
I could see that sound was smoother because of the greater mass of the image. So maybe I had done good with speaker placement after all. I just overlooked treating the speakers themselves.
I found that I could widen the toe-in on the speakers with the center point just as focused as before. I've seen posts on Audio Asylum saying that Sound Anchors made their B&W Nautilus speakers sound brighter. One solution is to widen the toe-in, at the risk of a looser center image. I found that the stands allowed me to do just that with the Thiels while retaining the center focus.
You can feel a lot of vibration touching the stands while music is playing. I can only guess what all those vibrations right up against a floor do to speaker cabinets and sound waves. No need to guess now -- I could definitely hear what they didn't do anymore.
Some tweaks offer bigger returns than others. If you already have good cables, I would say that you'd have to spend four times as much to get as a noticeable an improvement as these stands offer. If you clearly hear differences in upgrading cables, you'll hear the improvements of these stands even more easily. Plus, the quality of your components limit what better cables add beyond a certain point. These stands have greatly raised the bar on what it would take to make me upgrade my speakers.
Thiel 3.6s already come with three spikes that you can insert into the bottom. Much of what I say here would apply to adding spikes of any kind, and I have not used the Thiel spikes for comparison. What do the Sound Anchors add? I'm still pondering two things (and would enjoy hearing feedback).
First, the base adds an extra layer between the speakers and the floor. Speaker vibrations go into a wide, heavy base before hitting the spikes and floor. But does that base work against the speaker as the bare floor did?
Second, the spikes on the stand are positioned two inches further out than the speaker. I'm not sure how that might improves vibration control. It does seem to make a firmer foundation.
TA

Product Weakness: Value added over Thiel's included spikes?
Product Strengths: Tigher, firmer soundstage. Big improvements for the cost.

Associated Equipment for this Review:
Amplifier:	N/A
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	N/A
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	N/A
Speakers:	Thiel 3.6
Cables/Interconnects:	N/A
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	N/A
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner

Product Weakness:	Value added over Thiel's included spikes?
Product Strengths:	Tigher, firmer soundstage. Big improvements for the cost.