Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ.

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My experience...

Posted by Dave Kingsland on June 20, 2005 at 15:12:28

In Reply to: The speaker stand conumdrum: couple, decouple or isolate? posted by postjob62 on June 19, 2005 at 06:00:34:

I love 2-way monitors, and I've always gotten the best peformance out of them by coupling them to some mass loaded stands. Most monitor speakers are light (20 lbs or less) and need firm mounting to prevent cabinet motion from muddying up the sound. If you try to decouple them from the stands, I think you will lose a bit of image focus and micro-detail in addition to bass. That's what I've noticed anyway. I use a Blu-Tak equivalent to do the job because it's more secure than spikes and doesn't damage the finish. Like Andy said, when pressed into thin dime-size dots, Blu-Tak is pretty much like glue and forms a nice solid bond.

I fill my stands with a mix of sand and shot. My stands are metal and the filling helps avoid ringing. With PVC pillars, that won't be a concern for you. But you should fill them anyway for mass loading. Adding mass will help control speaker movement and will lower the frequency of any resonances in the stand. It will also lower the natural frequency of any rocking motion.

Whether or not you spike the stand to the floor or let it float on the carpet is an open issue in my mind. Given small monitors that don't produce much bass combined with heavy, mass loaded stands (mine are ~60 lbs each not including the speaker), there shouldn't be a huge difference. I prefer to spike mine because my carpet pad is a little too soft to be stable, even with a paver under the stand. I suggest starting without spikes so you can move them around easily and once you have settled on positioning, then try spikes.

Dave

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