anyone ditch their metal speaker stands?

More so than mere height, orientation of tweeter matters. FOr example sometimes lower stands with slight upward tilt might work best to let the floor work best to reinforce bass, not smear the soundstage and still have proper exposure to the tweeter at the listening position, which may be direct exposure or not. Each case is a little different. DO whatever works best.

AN example in my case are my Triangle Titus XL speakers in my wife's sunroom. The isolating Isoacoustic stands I am using there now set up as shown in my corresponding system picture finally solved the problem in that room in all regards better than the high quality ear level metal Dynaudio stands I have tried in the past. THose work well as shown also in the other system picture with my Dynaudios in my office.

I owned a pair of the 300ti speakers. Wish I hadn’t sold them. I believe the sonic difference you experienced could likely be due to the height difference than to stand construction. I assume based on your description that the speakers were placed closer to floor and against the wall which would change the bass and lower mid range response. That said, I use bluetack to solidify my speakers to my metal stands. I have 3 stands of different heights, 16-24”, all filled. Currently using the 16” ones with my Esoteric MG-10s on a carpeted and padded concrete floor. Tweeter are somewhat lower than my ear height.

I think the most important consideration is the speaker height. As long as the tweeter is at or slightly above ear level, when seated, all is good. Right now I have my new monitors on some wooden saddle back bar stools with some Herbie's Tenderfeet to isolate the speakers and everything sounds really nice.
No smearing, great focus, nice soundstage, nothing amiss.

I'm going for the Timbernation wood stands for aesthetic reasons as well as better stability and isolation as the bar stools look out of place.

All the best,
Nonoise

Long ago I was setting up a monitor on metal Target stands
I had just bought and filled with 30 lbs of birdshot.
A friend of mine was there at the time, he listened to a few
record sides, got up and put the speakers on the box they came in.
I had to agree they did sound better his way.

Do whatever sounds best in your case. Nothing else really matters.

I think that a good maple (or similarly dense wood) would work as well supporting a speaker as it does supporting gear. Tomorrow I'm going to order some maple speaker stands from Chris over at timbermation.com.

The rack he made for me all those years ago is as inert as can be. He has various speaker stand examples on his site that should suit any taste. The one I'm going for are the ones that look like a wood version of some metal stands out there (the ones with the 'H' shaped base. Rather nice looking and knowing Chris, dead silent.

The nice thing about wood is no need to fill it with sand, lead shot, or kitty litter to deaden any adverse effects that the metal stand should have from the beginning.

All the best,
Nonoise

I diched my dedicated metal Sound Anchors for Aerial 10t and replaced them with trivial MDF pannel. It lowered speakers to my listening level and I've got better sense of the sweet spot.