Heavy speakers: How to be able to reposition?

One way is to place them on a small mat or carpet. The you slide the mat /rug/ carpet.

You can hire movers.

You can also get a set of furnisher movers or sliders. You lever up an edge of the speaker and place a slider at each corner, then you can slide the speaker around. 

Use of sliders seconded. Herbie's sells similar threaded glides that may fit your speakers, too.

+1 Herbie’s Gliders.  These get consistently high marks by users, which IME is relatively rare for “tweak” products.  Plus they’re only like $150 for a set of eight, which is a pittance compared to other effective products out there, and I believe they offer a 60-day trial so why the hell not?

https://herbiesaudiolab.com/products/threaded-stud-glider

+2 for Herbies gliders. Used them on some 150lb speakers and very easy to move around. 

Thanks folks! I think those will be just the ticket. The Matrix 800's have spikes so these will be perfect. Bookmarked!

Happy listening.

You can go to gym and bulk yourself up a-bit

Another vote for Herbie's super gliders. Work great and not super expensive.

I used the Herbies gliders to position my GE Triton Reference speakers.  At over 110 pounds each, it was a no brainer.  Very easy to move and position and very easy to make very slight positioning adjustments using them.

I used to own a huge pair of Merlin 4s that were tall and over 200#.  Unless you're moving them across the room, I'd just lean them a little and walk them on the corners a few inches at a time.  

@musicfan2349  Hi. I too have the B&W Matrix 800s. They are my main speakers for my listening room. But when I do move them I just walk them on the bases. One corner at a time. I don’t use the spikes because they are on my hardwood floor. 

Or just get furniture sliders from Amazon and use them until you have them correctly positioned, then take them out. A set made for both hard floor and carpet are alway good to have around the house to move other stuff. Mine have a fulcrum to slip under heavy object to lift high enough to put the sliders under. 

All good solutions!

But… I realized there were more considerations than just moving around the room after I ordered a pair of Aeris speakers for my lake house!  After I thought about it a bit - I realized there were going to be a lot of other issues to cope with:  getting them into the house, unpacking them, uncoupling them from the floor over the crawl space, and when I sold them packing them securely, getting them out of the house to a safe shipper, etc, etc… 

The Aeris is one of the best sounding speakers <$100 000 - and I realized that no matter how great they sounded, or what a great deal I had made for them - unless I was prepared to spend a lot more money coping with their size and weight (which I wasn’t) - I was better off with smaller speakers with a big sound.  So, I got the Calibres instead - still very much the same sound - without all those issues.

There are a lot of smaller speakers which sound as good as most of the greats that are much easier to manage (eg. LRS+ modded, LX521.4 which is in manageable pieces, Harbeths, etc, etc).

When we are young and bench press 300 lbs we might be able to cope with all of that.  But… “that ain’t me.”

Sometimes it makes sense to compromise our specs to achieve about the same sound in a more practical manner.

@bassdude Those are all good points. The 800s come in five specially built Danish wood cabinets. And I haven’t even started in on the rest of the gear! The thing is here, this gear all belonged to my pop. Would I have chosen it? No, likely not. It took me four months to find a house with 8’ ceilings for my Acoustats. 

But it’s all in my care for now so I’m going to enjoy it as soon as I can. 

Happy listening. 

Real 4" swivel rubber wheels work fine! Harbor Freight here you come!

A pneumatic tire sturdy hand truck. Period. Nothing works as well or as quickly and easily once you learn how to use it. Keep a clean utility blanket around to not scratch anything and you’re done. I’ve moved very heavy stuff to set up concert systems for decades, and have had a hand truck at home seemingly forever. Dollys require lifting things onto and off of them...not recommended.

I installed 2" swivel rubber wheels on my large heavy speakers and I can easily move the speakers into position, or out of the way to use different speakers. I cannot detect a difference in music using those wheels vs spikes on the speakers, which surprised me.

It's probably easier to move your chair...or knock down a wall.

You may have thought of this or already have one, but if not a Bosch GLM20 Blaze laser measuring tool makes speaker alignment very accurate and you don't need a second person person to hold the tape.  Measures to a millimeter (1/25th of an inch).  About $70 on Amazon.

Regards,

barts

@ghdprentice - that's what I did; they don't cost much at all, and I've used them with both my very heavy standmounts and my large, tall bookcases.... 

I also used furniture gliders to move my 230lb speakers until I found the best spot to spike them.

ozzy

One of my systems uses Wilson Maxx 2s which weigh over 400 lbs. each. The speaker bases are threaded for spikes, but the threading also takes heavy duty commercial casters which helped set up a lot - and while you could (somehow) jack them straight up and swap to spikes, I decided to just lock the casters in place and I doubt whether spiking would improve sound anyway.

FWIW, these speakers are set up with vernier adjustment of the rake angle of the top module (tweeter and two mids) and we set them up using a laser range finder with me sitting in the listening seat, and I have had zero urge to move them (although I did apply markers with carpet tape in case I ever did want to mess about with them.

Hi @musicfan2349 - I just came across your post and was thinking, if you hadn’t yet got those sliders, and your listening space is planned to be hard-floored, that you could use the placement plinths I designed for my 85kg apiece speakers. They work really well for fine tuning speaker placement. In the case of your bw matrix, they would be jacked from the front and rear, with the plinths slid in from the side for greater stability, seeing your speakers are deeper than they are wide : ) You can see these at -

I don’t buy speakers that my wife can’t lift. 

Perhaps @rocray has the best response.  I cannot tell you what to do, but do share 25+ years of radiology, shooting x-rays on patients with spine damage and post surgery, provides revenue stream for everyone:  PT, surgery, radiology, orthopedic, lab, nursing, etc.  

Most spine damage is permanent and not correctable regardless of what the super surgeon tells you.  It usually leads to slow decline and affects other parts of the body as misalignment of one part skews load on others.  It's usually a one-way track. 

Carefully consider your actions.  We in medicine call it job security.  Be well.

@celtic66 

+1 Excellent advice, which to me says, use your brain not your back. If you use your brain there is always a way to move any heavy objects without damaging your back. 

@kevn - An ingenious idea! I've considered investing in a set of those hand-jacks as they'd be handy for many things really. But for my purposes here, I think simple furniture sliders will suffice. 

@celtic66 - Your post made me laugh for you see, my pop was a radiologist. As I was dismantling and crating everything up, I kept looking upward and asking aloud "Gee, pop didja HAVE to get everything that was heaviest in class!?". Because along with the Matrix 800s there was also a Mark Levinson, ML No. 335, Jadis Defy 7, VPI TNT IV, Sota Saphhire, Accuphase DP90 and DC 91 Jadis RC JP80, several heavy power supplies/filters and enough in heavy cabling to wire up the Battersea Power Station. Oh and let's not forget the 2,300 LPs... So where were YOU when pop making his choices!? 🤣🤣🤣

I figure the hardest part of setting the 800's up will be standing them up. My sister helped me lay them down onto some cardboard for disassembly. That was only mildly terrifying. I'll use some sliders to get them into place and move them about to tweak. Then after I find their home, I'll carefully tilt them while my wife slips their spikes into their feet. 

Anyway, thanks again for the laugh.

Happy listening.