Speaker Stands

[CycleCoach]

I have been playing around with a totally fresh idea - well it's fresh to me and I can't find any evidence on Google of it. I think it will take me at least 6 months to get a decent prototype made but I am quite excited about it. Who would have thought I would have got the speaker stand bug ? Stu has a lot to answer for

You will have to get it patented if this is a never thought of idea and it works.

I got to the stage in my experiments that I realised anything was worth trying because sometimes some out of the box thinking would work. Lots of stuff didn't mind you or a combination of design ideas were working against each other.

I now consider everything to be an extension of the speaker driver and so important to get right. The start is the driver itself but the way it is coupled to (or decoupled from) the enclosure makes a big difference. Then you have the enclosure itself which has a big bearing on any speakers outcome - material, construction, shape, design. I learned BIG lessons with my crappy chipboard efforts, it wasn't until the steel sphere came along that I realised exactly how crappy they were (but I always knew they were crap on some level ).

Then you have to consider how the enclosure is attached to the stand, unless you have built floorstanders in which case you have a load of other things to worry about . Coupling or decoupling between speaker and stand ? If I had drivers rigidly attached to their enclosure I would go for isolation to limit the stands sonic contribution.

Then there is the stand itself, so many things to think about. Material, shape, design, construction, weight. Light open frame stands look like they are a winner with cubes and I can go along with that. I do think if there is some isolation before we get to the stand then they become less important.

Isolating the stand from the floor with tubes worked wonders for me. My suspended timber floor was acting like a very crap extension of my speaker muddying everything. Then the whole room has to be thought about but we are already in obsessive audio mental health territory here and it is time for the straight jacket and padded room.

It is clear to me that anything vibrating apart from the driver's cone is a bad thing. The best way I could stop that was to sink that vibration into something that 'soaked it up'. What made things easier was the upward firing mid bass. I ended adhering a length of heavy brass bar directly on the magnet on the rear of the driver with a plate attached to the other end of the bar. The bottom of the spherical speaker enclosure is filled with sand. The brass bar extends into the sand by a few inches. This sand is the sink for the vibrations. At the other end my driver is isolated from the enclosure.

The result was hardly any vibration getting tk the steel sphere and along with the inner tube between speaker and floor, no vibration entering the floor. Totally blew my mind which is probably why I have had to take a rest from all this whilst my brain recovers. Slightly off topic this last bit but took the stand out of the equation in many respects.

[NSNO2021]

Stu big thanks for the above. If you recall, when I remodeled my old Cubix I started from the standpoint of decoupling the 5 drivers from the cabinet using constrained layer damping. This has resulted in the driver's being affixed to the cabinet by a pliable very strong adhesive tape, thus eliminating the traditional method of screws or bolts etc.
This came about from from asking myself questions about how best to try isolate the driver's from the cabinet. I know I am often too curious, my head is full of "what if" thoughts and it seems to me you are even more curious than I am. The rod and sand experiment is right out there but until someone tries it and reports back it remains a "what if".
My latest idea, if successful, breaks with the normal speaker/stand convention and I think it would work with a large range of designs. But it's got to be sonically better and more affordable than the current speaker platforms or sprung feet and also easy on the eye and that's the challenge but I like challenges so I will keep chipping away and report back as and when.

[Docfoster]

I have been playing around with a totally fresh idea - well it's fresh to me and I can't find any evidence on Google of it. I think it will take me at least 6 months to get a decent prototype made but I am quite excited about it. Who would have thought I would have got the speaker stand bug ? Stu has a lot to answer for

You will have to get it patented if this is a never thought of idea and it works.

I got to the stage in my experiments that I realised anything was worth trying because sometimes some out of the box thinking would work. Lots of stuff didn't mind you or a combination of design ideas were working against each other.

I now consider everything to be an extension of the speaker driver and so important to get right. The start is the driver itself but the way it is coupled to (or decoupled from) the enclosure makes a big difference. Then you have the enclosure itself which has a big bearing on any speakers outcome - material, construction, shape, design. I learned BIG lessons with my crappy chipboard efforts, it wasn't until the steel sphere came along that I realised exactly how crappy they were (but I always knew they were crap on some level ).

Then you have to consider how the enclosure is attached to the stand, unless you have built floorstanders in which case you have a load of other things to worry about . Coupling or decoupling between speaker and stand ? If I had drivers rigidly attached to their enclosure I would go for isolation to limit the stands sonic contribution.

Then there is the stand itself, so many things to think about. Material, shape, design, construction, weight. Light open frame stands look like they are a winner with cubes and I can go along with that. I do think if there is some isolation before we get to the stand then they become less important.

Isolating the stand from the floor with tubes worked wonders for me. My suspended timber floor was acting like a very crap extension of my speaker muddying everything. Then the whole room has to be thought about but we are already in obsessive audio mental health territory here and it is time for the straight jacket and padded room.

It is clear to me that anything vibrating apart from the driver's cone is a bad thing. The best way I could stop that was to sink that vibration into something that 'soaked it up'. What made things easier was the upward firing mid bass. I ended adhering a length of heavy brass bar directly on the magnet on the rear of the driver with a plate attached to the other end of the bar. The bottom of the spherical speaker enclosure is filled with sand. The brass bar extends into the sand by a few inches. This sand is the sink for the vibrations. At the other end my driver is isolated from the enclosure.

The result was hardly any vibration getting tk the steel sphere and along with the inner tube between speaker and floor, no vibration entering the floor. Totally blew my mind which is probably why I have had to take a rest from all this whilst my brain recovers. Slightly off topic this last bit but took the stand out of the equation in many respects.

I love this.
It is the complete opposite of the route I have taken. I've gone for coupling. To hell with spikes. Call that a coupling...? I screw everything together. Driver to cabinet, cabinet to stand, stand to concrete floor, or if not available, to a large concrete slab. And I like the results.
But in general I just love doing things properly, or rather to some extreme. "Otherwise what's the point?" I think to myself. If coupling is good, then use a screw. If decoupling is good, then use an innertube. So I love Stu's approach. Genius. I will definitely try this. Thanks Stu.

[karatestu]

I have been playing around with a totally fresh idea - well it's fresh to me and I can't find any evidence on Google of it. I think it will take me at least 6 months to get a decent prototype made but I am quite excited about it. Who would have thought I would have got the speaker stand bug ? Stu has a lot to answer for

You will have to get it patented if this is a never thought of idea and it works.

I got to the stage in my experiments that I realised anything was worth trying because sometimes some out of the box thinking would work. Lots of stuff didn't mind you or a combination of design ideas were working against each other.

I now consider everything to be an extension of the speaker driver and so important to get right. The start is the driver itself but the way it is coupled to (or decoupled from) the enclosure makes a big difference. Then you have the enclosure itself which has a big bearing on any speakers outcome - material, construction, shape, design. I learned BIG lessons with my crappy chipboard efforts, it wasn't until the steel sphere came along that I realised exactly how crappy they were (but I always knew they were crap on some level ).

Then you have to consider how the enclosure is attached to the stand, unless you have built floorstanders in which case you have a load of other things to worry about . Coupling or decoupling between speaker and stand ? If I had drivers rigidly attached to their enclosure I would go for isolation to limit the stands sonic contribution.

Then there is the stand itself, so many things to think about. Material, shape, design, construction, weight. Light open frame stands look like they are a winner with cubes and I can go along with that. I do think if there is some isolation before we get to the stand then they become less important.

Isolating the stand from the floor with tubes worked wonders for me. My suspended timber floor was acting like a very crap extension of my speaker muddying everything. Then the whole room has to be thought about but we are already in obsessive audio mental health territory here and it is time for the straight jacket and padded room.

It is clear to me that anything vibrating apart from the driver's cone is a bad thing. The best way I could stop that was to sink that vibration into something that 'soaked it up'. What made things easier was the upward firing mid bass. I ended adhering a length of heavy brass bar directly on the magnet on the rear of the driver with a plate attached to the other end of the bar. The bottom of the spherical speaker enclosure is filled with sand. The brass bar extends into the sand by a few inches. This sand is the sink for the vibrations. At the other end my driver is isolated from the enclosure.

The result was hardly any vibration getting tk the steel sphere and along with the inner tube between speaker and floor, no vibration entering the floor. Totally blew my mind which is probably why I have had to take a rest from all this whilst my brain recovers. Slightly off topic this last bit but took the stand out of the equation in many respects.

I love this.
It is the complete opposite of the route I have taken. I've gone for coupling. To hell with spikes. Call that a coupling...? I screw everything together. Driver to cabinet, cabinet to stand, stand to concrete floor, or if not available, to a large concrete slab. And I like the results.
But in general I just love doing things properly, or rather to some extreme. "Otherwise what's the point?" I think to myself. If coupling is good, then use a screw. If decoupling is good, then use an innertube. So I love Stu's approach. Genius. I will definitely try this. Thanks Stu.

Hi Doc. Thanks for the kind words.

This isolation thang went against everything I thought I knew - everything heavy, unable to move and bolted down to something very heavy and massive.

The inner tube started all this going against the grain as it were. Isolates down to it's resonant frequency which is lower than my mid bass can produce. This cleaned the sound up massively. So, I couldn't leave it there which led to isolating the driver from the enclosure and sink the drivers vibration into sand inside the enclosure. Kef made a speaker with isolated drivers, Wharfedale and others have made sand filled baffles/ enclosures. My opposing driver bipolar experiments indicated that a very rigid connection (7cm diameter round brass bar) between the two drivers magnets brought the best result ie increased cancellation of vibration. I have not heard of anyone doing what I have done which is many ideas rolled into one.

If I was going to go any further it would be to use something very rigid and light for enclosure and stand. A sphere made out of 2mm thick carbon fibre would be the way I would go. The shape and material would give it the strength needed and it would be very light which I believe is a good thing. My stand is a 20cm length of pvc drainpipe attached to a round 35cm diameter wooden plate so very light. The 3mm steel sphere with sand in is heavy but I can't do anything about that unless using carbon fibre.

I have never heard such a clean, detailed sound . At first you think you have lost the bass but it's just that all the bloat has been removed. A play of Portishead Dummy was all that was required to prove what distortion is added by enclosures, stands and floors. It was a fuck me moment.

[Geoffkait]

Yes, I realize this thread is somewhat old but I thought I’d jump in anyway with a few comments. One is that now we know springs are also good for speakers, in view of the mechanical feedback issue for large speakers and subs. We also know mass-on-spring systems work both ways, up and down, so they shed vibrations of the speaker cabinet as well as reduce transmission of vibration from floor to the speakers.

My other comment has to do with cones used under speakers or components. Very hard materials like tempered steel and high grade ceramics transfer energy out of the system better than softer materials like aluminum, brass and carbon fiber.

[Fretless]

Best I have found for under my speakers are silicone hemispheres.

[CN211276]

I don't think there is one solution for all applications. In my set up I have found that oak stands and Iso Pucks work very well. Certainly better than the previous heavy metal stands blu tac set up. The bass is a lot tidier and better defined. I believe that less energy is being transferred back to the speaker.

[CN211276]

https://www.gearpatrol.com/audio/isolat ... -speakers/

Came across this article. I can vouch for the positive impact they have supporting speakers but would question if they would have an effect under amplifiers.

[Fretless]

I have recently mounted cheap Oehlbach silicone feet under a streaming PC, they cancelled out an audible hum produced by the spinning HDD and cooling fans.

Not sure if this improved the SQ but it removed an irritation. I do think that audio equipment with moving parts (TT, CDP) should really be as vibration -free as possible.



My speakers are also fitted with silicone hemisphere feet which are definitely beneficial to the sound.

[antonio66]

These Hudson Hifi Bigfoot silicone feet under a massive marble slab do wonders for transmitted vibrations on a suspended wooden floor. The humble TT here is literally solid-as-a-rock!

Careful observers will also spot rubber washing-machine feet under the CD/DVD player on the floor.