Lovan equipment and speaker stand owners...


Have you ever tried filling your stands with lead shot, sand, silicone or other substance? Have you replaced the stock threaded steel cones with something else? Have you replaced the shelves? If so, let me know the results of your tweak. Many thanks.
blueswan
I used to have Lovan Affiniti 2400 stands and filled each stand with about 23 pounds of steel shot. I think it worked very well. I will probably never own another pair of monitors without filling the stands. The only trouble I had was getting the shot out once I sold the stands.
I have a pair of Lovan Imperial 2900 speakers stands that I really like. They are 29" tall and filled with steel shot, which made them very heavy and deadened any resonances. When I tap on it, it thuds, sounds more like a rock than metal. The previous post which mentioned them tough to fill is pretty accurate. There's only a small hole, so putting 20 pounds of shot into each stand took some time even with a homemade funnel.
I've got the Sovereign racks w/35lbs. of lead shot per tier. The legs are easy to fill but the square tube framing is tricky. I made the mistake of using black duct tape to seal the holes. It was great for 3yrs and then the adhesive of one of the pieces on one of the top tiers melted off. Luckily for me, none of the shot made it into any of the components' vents. I'm going to try self-tapping screws to prevent it from happening again.

B.T.W., filling the frames is a must to prevent them from "ringing" - simply tap along the side of the frames w/your fingernail to hear what I mean. It amazes me that the designers of such a great rack never thought of this!
OK...
Filling the lovans is a great tweek.. It does however make them weigh a ton!! I use a fine silicone/glass powder that is more dense than sand.. I do not like lead shot due to the fact that it does not completely fill the tubes there is still air between the shot... A fine grain sand or non soluable substance is the way to go...
To further enhance the lovan shelves.. I have bought extra shelves and put vibrapods between the bases This is a great isolation tweek... I do however, like the factory steel spikes.. and the hardware...
As far as shelf modification.. i have fabricated shelves out of 1/2 inch mdf and contoured them to match the factory shelves for my monoblocks... This was a nice improvement but labor intensive.. and painting them requires an expert or alot of patience with wetsanding and repainting...
You can check out my setup at this agon address
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?vopin&1022936456&view
Good luck...
Joe