capnr,
I was in a similar situation.
I used to have my listening room in a configuration where it was easy to place any loudspeaker relative to my listening sofa. But then I had to flip the position of the listening sofa 180 degrees in order to set up a projection system as well. This meant that 2 channel listening speakers had to be placed well out from the screen wall (which I'd want to do anyways - speakers tend to sound best pulled out), but that now put them partially in the way of the room opening. In other words, the bigger the speakers, the more they obstructed getting in an out of the room, blocking the entrance-way.
But I just didn't want to give up my jones for big speakers and a big sonic presentation. So I still went ahead and bought big Thiel 3.7 speakers. I figured that I'd slipped mostly in to watching movies, somewhat less music listening, so if I liked the sound of the big Thiels I'd devise a way of moving them in and out of the room easily. So in to the room for music listening...and I might be in that phase for a week, but back out when I'm more in home theater mode.
They sounded absolutely glorious in their designated position and I wanted to keep them. I went about testing and devising every possible way of moving them around under the sun: hand dolly, I built an MDF platform with castors just as you envisioned, tried castors directly in to the speaker, tried the Herbies gliders, you name it. In the end, for my purposes, nothing proved convenient or easy enough to get them in and out of the room with ease. But a part of the problem is that my listening room has a big shag rug that I love, which makes moving around on wheels more of a chore. But in any case, even doing a platform with very big castor wheels just kind of sucked.
.
Eventually I sold the big Thiels.
And I downsized slightly to the Thiel 2.7s which were just slim enough to not impede the entrance-way, and which also fit the room better aesthetically.
Still, I have the issue that I use a separate home theater system in the same room, so the L/C/R home theater speakers take the space along the screen wall. The two channel speakers sit out front of those. This also means I want to not block the large projection screen image with the two channel speakers. So I sometimes need to shift them a bit (my projection screen has a masking system that changes the image size, sometimes going really big and wide for widescreen movies).
Right now the Thiels have the Herbie gliders underneath instead of spikes, which makes them easy to shift on the carpet. And there seems to be no bad (or good) sonic consequences to using those gliders.
I then bought a pair of Joseph Audio Perspective speakers (keeping the Thiels because I love the Thiels too), which are even smaller, slimmer floorstanders but which sound as big as the Thiels. They solve the ergonomics in the room quite well, and so long as I keep them spread wide enough apart I don't have to move them very often (they are on their own outrigger support stands, which use a sort of blunt almost-spike at the bottom. I may substitute herbie gliders at some point).
That said, as I am always interested in trying new speakers, I may some day try the Devore O/96 speakers in my place, which are quite squat and wide. Though they are not deep and therefore present no problem for getting in and out of the room where they'd be placed, they are wide which means they will potentially block more of the projected image.Which means I'd have to be able to shift them easily in and out of placefor certain movies - not out of the room, just a foot or so either way.So I envision actually putting those ones on a wheeled base (because I wouldn't have to get them in and out of the room). If I ever go for that.
But the point another person brought up is certainly important. Just playing yet again with positioning of my Joseph speakers reminds me of how the sound can alter via the most minute adjustments. So ideally I want a position where I'm not moving the speakers much.
Oh, and the way I deal with having several sets of speakers:
I also have stand mounted speakers I love (Spendor and smaller Thiel monitors) and those are super easy to lift in and out of the room. I may set a pair up and listen to them for a week or two.
For the floorstanding Thiel and Joseph speakers, I use a small, convenient hand dolly. I've covered the dolly with thick felt pads (furniture moving pads) so there is no point of contact of any hard, potentially scratch inducing surfaces on the dolly. The speakers are pretty easy to roll in and out of the room with the dolly. But it's not something I want to do often, so a set of speakers will tend to end up in the room for a month or several months.
Cheers.
I was in a similar situation.
I used to have my listening room in a configuration where it was easy to place any loudspeaker relative to my listening sofa. But then I had to flip the position of the listening sofa 180 degrees in order to set up a projection system as well. This meant that 2 channel listening speakers had to be placed well out from the screen wall (which I'd want to do anyways - speakers tend to sound best pulled out), but that now put them partially in the way of the room opening. In other words, the bigger the speakers, the more they obstructed getting in an out of the room, blocking the entrance-way.
But I just didn't want to give up my jones for big speakers and a big sonic presentation. So I still went ahead and bought big Thiel 3.7 speakers. I figured that I'd slipped mostly in to watching movies, somewhat less music listening, so if I liked the sound of the big Thiels I'd devise a way of moving them in and out of the room easily. So in to the room for music listening...and I might be in that phase for a week, but back out when I'm more in home theater mode.
They sounded absolutely glorious in their designated position and I wanted to keep them. I went about testing and devising every possible way of moving them around under the sun: hand dolly, I built an MDF platform with castors just as you envisioned, tried castors directly in to the speaker, tried the Herbies gliders, you name it. In the end, for my purposes, nothing proved convenient or easy enough to get them in and out of the room with ease. But a part of the problem is that my listening room has a big shag rug that I love, which makes moving around on wheels more of a chore. But in any case, even doing a platform with very big castor wheels just kind of sucked.
.
Eventually I sold the big Thiels.
And I downsized slightly to the Thiel 2.7s which were just slim enough to not impede the entrance-way, and which also fit the room better aesthetically.
Still, I have the issue that I use a separate home theater system in the same room, so the L/C/R home theater speakers take the space along the screen wall. The two channel speakers sit out front of those. This also means I want to not block the large projection screen image with the two channel speakers. So I sometimes need to shift them a bit (my projection screen has a masking system that changes the image size, sometimes going really big and wide for widescreen movies).
Right now the Thiels have the Herbie gliders underneath instead of spikes, which makes them easy to shift on the carpet. And there seems to be no bad (or good) sonic consequences to using those gliders.
I then bought a pair of Joseph Audio Perspective speakers (keeping the Thiels because I love the Thiels too), which are even smaller, slimmer floorstanders but which sound as big as the Thiels. They solve the ergonomics in the room quite well, and so long as I keep them spread wide enough apart I don't have to move them very often (they are on their own outrigger support stands, which use a sort of blunt almost-spike at the bottom. I may substitute herbie gliders at some point).
That said, as I am always interested in trying new speakers, I may some day try the Devore O/96 speakers in my place, which are quite squat and wide. Though they are not deep and therefore present no problem for getting in and out of the room where they'd be placed, they are wide which means they will potentially block more of the projected image.Which means I'd have to be able to shift them easily in and out of placefor certain movies - not out of the room, just a foot or so either way.So I envision actually putting those ones on a wheeled base (because I wouldn't have to get them in and out of the room). If I ever go for that.
But the point another person brought up is certainly important. Just playing yet again with positioning of my Joseph speakers reminds me of how the sound can alter via the most minute adjustments. So ideally I want a position where I'm not moving the speakers much.
Oh, and the way I deal with having several sets of speakers:
I also have stand mounted speakers I love (Spendor and smaller Thiel monitors) and those are super easy to lift in and out of the room. I may set a pair up and listen to them for a week or two.
For the floorstanding Thiel and Joseph speakers, I use a small, convenient hand dolly. I've covered the dolly with thick felt pads (furniture moving pads) so there is no point of contact of any hard, potentially scratch inducing surfaces on the dolly. The speakers are pretty easy to roll in and out of the room with the dolly. But it's not something I want to do often, so a set of speakers will tend to end up in the room for a month or several months.
Cheers.