Building stands for Harbeth 40.2's

@whipsaw

agree with you - alan shaw can be a tricky dude... in spite of the harbeths being excellent speakers... he is the business mind and owner behind the brand, and as an expert capitalist, you can count on him to say what serves his commercial interests... ’oh why yes, any old amplifier will do - just make sure you have bought the best harbeth you can afford’ 🤣

Think this way -- if the stands have dramatic impact to the speaker performance and he ignored it unduly, would he be successfully designed so many good speakers and have good reputation for that?

Lots ideas about good stand discussed here, including the expensive TT design lack of theoretical back and experimental evidence at all.  So please show the theories and measurement data to prove it that they are not snake oil.

The selection of a speaker stand must fulfil only two core criteria: raising the tweeter so that, ideally, the tweeter is level with your ear (very few users do this and hence very few users achieve the full sonic potential) and protecting the speaker from toppling over. With those criteria met, there is a very wide latitude on materials, shape size and colour.

This is ludicrous assertion by Shaw. How a speaker stand interacts with the floor can, depending on other variables, produce clearly audible differences.

The quote is reminiscent of when, years ago, Shaw was famously agnostic about amplifiers:

Whatever amp you've got will work just great with Harbeth. Anything British, made after about 1980, fully serviced will be great. End of story.
 

Shaw designs excellent speakers, but at least some of his related views should be taken with a large grain of salt.

From HUG, by Alan Shaw, Designer, owner, Harbeth Audio UK:

Mar 7, 2023

Quite honestly, you are over reading the design, shape and styling of the stands. From our perspective as the speaker designers, the stand you show is just one of an infinite number of possible designs, all of which would almost certainly achieve good results.

During the design of the M40 I recall that I used IKEA tables, which had a flat top and four legs without the cross bars at the top or bottom.

The selection of a speaker stand must fulfil only two core criteria: raising the tweeter so that, ideally, the tweeter is level with your ear (very few users do this and hence very few users achieve the full sonic potential) and protecting the speaker from toppling over. With those criteria met, there is a very wide latitude on materials, shape size and colour.

One advantage of our relationship with Hifi Racks - very useful for the Bristol show last week - is the ease with which they can make longer legs for our stands. For example, we had never exhibited the M30 to a room full of mixed standing and seated folk before, and we calculated that we would need a few more cms. height, which they cheerfully obliged.

Beech is excellent for speaker stands and that’s what Tonträger mainly uses. 

@bassdude , I have stuck 3M carpet tape to just about anything you can think of. It will not damage a modern polyester finish at all. It will leave a residue that is easily removed with brake cleaning fluid. The most common problem with carpet tape is that it will not stick to some surfaces that is when I switch to 3M high strength mounting tape. That can be a b-tch to get off.

@mijostyn 

You may want to be careful with the carpet tape - it may damage the finish on your Harbeths - which could be an issue if you ever plan to sell them to upgrade.  It is almost impossible to remove from hardwood.

I used sound anchor stands for my Harbeth SHL5+ and the bass sounded significantly better than the ton trager stand copies I made.  

I liked the appearance of the ton trager knock offs but the solid, massive sound anchors delivered the tightest, deepest bass.  i had them spiked through carpet to concrete floor.  I discovered sound anchors at a local dealer where all of their speakers had excellent bass because of them, I was sold.  

1- if you do have the tragers made- definitely pay attention to stand height.  to my ears harbeth speakers sound best when they are lower than typical.  it reinforces the bass and gives the tweeters a softer more natural blend- just an inch or two below ear height. ideally you should experiment before committing to the height. 

2- without question use iso dots to decouple the speaker to stand.  very critical for lossy cabinet speakers. 

soft sorbothane made for peaky bass, medium firm dots made the best most balanced bass and hard silicone rubber dots seemed to drain the bass,  experiement,    

Who believes that one brand of stand mount Speakers

Performs best with metal and another with wood? 

The resonant woods have round rubber pads separating the speaker from the base  - never compared them to TT I just took my dealers word that they were as good and less expensive - he could have sold me anything really cause I trust him.

@krelldog

I understand why you may want to sub-in spikes for placement on a carpet or rug .

FWIW, the bottom tenons serve as replacements for spikes. The TT manual recommends that you place their stands on a slate platform (or equivalent material)

I'm having a pair made...probably ordering tomorrow.

I'm doing the extended tenons on top...but the bottoms we'll be flat with heavy duty spikes. I have a thicker rug that they will sit on.

I'm also going to build them out of Tiger Maple which will match my audio stand.

Thanks for all the input.

Yogi or Whipsaw- should I use some form of protection on the top of the extended tenon ? I don't want to damage the bottom of the speaker.

Maybe some form of protective coating or thin rubber top ?

I used nothing, and there were no marks on the relatively light Maple finish 30/1 when i sold them.

haven’t checked in for a few days on this thread, lotsa new comments

my 2 cents owning or having owned multiple sets 40’s, super 5’s and c7’s over the years ... with pretty much all available makes of stands under one set or another --

1) the tontragers are pretty light gauge (surprisingly light, as i experienced them) wood compared to the resonant woods ones which uses a much denser hardwood, you can pick up a tt stand for the mon 40 with one hand and toss it across the room with minimal effort -- i also didn’t care for the small extended top posts of the tt’s with the massive 40’s as i felt the coupling is somewhat tenuous even with some blue-tack or equivalent, and especially so when moving or initially positioning the speaker...

2) tontragers also do not have threading for spikes or casters in their feet - they are meant to go on solid flooring or onto a ceramic slab if the floor is soft - i did not like that, as my listening room is carpeted... in fact i especially like my resonant woods model as it has properly threaded legs and in them i put threaded locking casters so as to be able to easily move and position the speakers as needed

3) resonant woods offers different styles of stands, some have the ’artful’ curved legs and others are more vertical and less ’styled’ - mine have just plain vertical posts, and in a dark finish under the tiger ebony speakers they are unobtrusive

4) i have also used media filled skylans, there are quite nice, made with medium weight composite wood -- as well as sound anchors (i really like them for their solidity but they are massively heavy to move)... have also used top of line target mr stands which are also metal, slightly lighter than the sound anchors but very well made -- the skylans are the only ones of all i have used that give you a fully solid platform on which the speaker is placed, so does not allow the bottom panel of the speaker to ’resonate’ in some open air as some purists feel is important (in my experience this aspect is insignificant sonically with any of the harbeth models i have had)

I don’t use anything. But I have used these when I had my other speakers on steel stands!

Yogi or Whipsaw- should I use some form of protection on the top of the extended tenon ? I don't want to damage the bottom of the speaker.

Maybe some form of protective coating or thin rubber top ?

If I were making a TT clone, I'd lose the extended tenon, keeping the whole surface flat and use some Iso-Pucks in its place.  You'll get some form of isolation from the stand that way.

All the best,
Nonoise

You guys rock …Thank You

The measurements are!

H= 1"

D= 1"

W= 3/4"

Does anyone have the dimension of the extended tenon on the TonTragers ?

I’ll take a stab from memory alone: ~20mm high and 20mm wide

BTW- Does anyone have the dimension of the extended tenon on the TonTragers ?

Or maybe a link to specific dimensions.

I have the general numbers of height/width/depth. I'm specifically looking for the height/width of the extended tenon on top.

Thanks

One non sound advantage is being able to get your fingers under the speaker to lift or place-this is in reference to the TonTrager design.

So TonTrager has the extended tenon on the top. For lack of a better term "decouples" the speaker from the stand...or something of that nature.

Resonant Woods just has a flat surface where the speaker sits on top of the stand.

I'm trying to determine if the extended tenon is needed for optimum sound ?

Thoughts ?

+1 for Resonant Woods - these are what my Harbeth dealer provided with my 30.2s

I took the floor models so got a discount cause they had a bit of dust, but I think they are $1200 new/direct from RW?

@jeffseight 

The Gig Harbor Audio stuff has a cool factor for sure.  I suspect I noticed a repurposed bowling alley in some of the furniture.  
Unfortunately, similar to the SA stands I mentioned earlier in this thread, those Gig Harbor stands would probably be too rigid for Harbeths that apparently sound best on thin wooden stands that, according to one Harbeth owner,

“allow the speakers to "float" on the four points of contact, which turns the entire cabinet into a musical instrument…The Tontragers suspend the speakers in the air, allowing them to really sing”

School humans? Haha

today is women's day dude, limit it to schoolboys :)

Reminds me of schoolgirls

if insulting me does help, please have at it.

If you take at as an insult that I am pointing out the absurdity of your claim, that’s on you.

There are many characterizations of the TonTragers, including negative ones, that would not be hyperbolic. "Boring" would be an example. But "hideous"?

Please.

@whipsaw obviously you can't let this go, not sure how to help you :(

if insulting me does help, please have at it. 

"form follows function" absolutely. I agree with that.

With all 3 series of the Harbeth SHL5’s that I owned I used Something Solid XF speaker stands. They sounded great with all of the 5’s.

https://www.decoaudio.com/deco_audio_speaker_stands.html

Since these are metal they are not a DIY project but they cost around $500 and they sounded almost as good as the Ton-Trager's. 

"the TonTraegers look hideous"

...

Also, my opinion is not hyperbolic.

🤣🤣🤣

Grissle,

RE Beauty. No discount for ugly is there? 

I bought the Dynaudio 20's for my standpoints.

Reasons:

1. Most stable design I have seen. Tip overs can really ruin your day

 so I prioritized this.

2. Cable Management system reduces odds of day tripping.

3. Designed to hold 15-20 lbs of sand in each stand. Adds to stability and vibration control.

4. Each stand comes with 4 adjustable spikes.

MSRP is $500. My friend Dan Harmon at Dedicated Audio made a special

purchase and sold me mine for $350. Dan gets a  "highly recommended"

from me. 

They may not win any "design" awards but form follows function in my book.

Gig Harbor Audio makes/sells stands for the Graham Products they sell.

I would call Eric/owner and have a discussion. His run around $1,000.

Beautiful? I will let you decide.

@whipsaw 

I am not sure there is anything I can add. I said it all, the value (let's not call it value but substance/significance) of my comment was that there is a massive void of aesthetics in audio gear and equipment and furniture. Which is clearly seen with this speaker stand. If you don't see any point in my comment, that's fine. 

Also, my opinion is not hyperbolic. On the one hand design is a matter of taste, on the other hand it's very objective. There are many ways to evaluate if something has aesthetic value and the fact that a lot of members of a group find it attractive is interesting but does not make it a visually good design.

We can move on. 

@grislybutter 

Yes, of course it was implied that it was your opinion. The question that I was attempting to get at is what value you might possibly add to a conversion by calling a design that a high percentage of Harbeth owners happen to find attractive, "hideous"?

I mean, why not either keep your hyperbolic opinion to yourself, or tone it down?

@whipsaw

so I could have added "IMHO" or to my caveman taste or anything like that. But I thought it's implied, if X says: "roses smell terrible" he means "to him", not to the 8 billion residents of the Planet 

And yes, I am compelled to express that many audiophiles on this forum have a very different taste than I do. I am horrified by speaker stand design and the furniture people surround their 50-100K equipment with.

I started this thread.

For the record I think the TonTrager stands are beautiful

To each his own.

But if they’re not to your liking, you felt compelled, at least in this instance, to assert that they’re "hideous"?!

😂

@donvito that's what I find pleasing to look at. To each his own.

@grislybutter

Something like this?  

1.  
2. 177861-166623

@yogiboy

you are right. My apologies. What was I thinking. 

Entering my opinion about looks on an anonymous forum?

Here is a constructive angle: if you are to build stands that you will look at all day, make them pretty.

@akg_ca 

Thank you. To be clear, I was happy with the TonTragers, and do believe that they are well-designed to compliment Harbeth speakers. My pedantry stems primarily from my experiences with isolation devices under speakers, which, when properly designed, do decouple the speakers from the floor. And yes, in my view, and more than a few others, the difference is meaningful.

Interestingly, I engaged in a related experiment with my 30.1/TonTrager combo before I moved on to my current system. I was able to purchase a discounted pair of Townsend Podiums, and tried them. The Podiums are considered by some to be the best of the various speaker isolation options, albeit at a steep price.

Well, my experience was not good, but I do not blame the Townsend product at all. In my view, it was the lack of hard coupling between the 30.1 and TonTragers that caused the failed experiment. Also, consider that there can be a perceived lack of bass impact with such decoupling, and given that the bass of the 30.1 is limited to begin with, that was in issue.

For further perspective, I tried – and kept – Isoacoustic Gaias under my FinkTeam KIM speakers, and consider the improvement to be substantial. The Gaias are probably the most widely used speaker isolation devices, and some high-end companies now supply them as standard equipment.

Note that I am not arguing that the Gaias are in some way superior to the Townsend Podiums (except in terms of value). But my KIMs, which are also stand-mounted, are hard-coupled, and as the stands are metal, the Gais can be screwed directly into them, providing further, crucial hard-coupling.

Finally, as you pointed out above, the BBC type speakers are designed to resonate, so even if hard-coupling could be achieved, I am not certain to what extent they would benefit from feet that are designed to both isolate and provide vibration control.

@krelldog 

To your query on how to post pics

Sign up ( it’s free for basic use);

uoload the pics

They now have a unique web hyperlink

copy hyperlink into your post m and voila

@whipsaw 

I appreciate your comment …. I guess that NO speaker is decoupled from their speaker stands .

If I highlight below the TT narrative explaining the purpose of extended tenons in my prior post, maybe that is a better synopsis for the readers. (Y/N)?

• The upper tenons absorb cabinet resonances.
• The lower tenons serve to decouple external influences

I used TonTrager with my 30.1, and they were excellent. They also looked very attractive (the photos posted is not a good one to judge by).

But let's be clear about something: the speakers are not decoupled from the stands.

TTs explained in their website pic and a sample pic of my cloned stands following.