Chas,
I recently purchased new speakers (Audiokinesis Planetarium Betas) to replace my SoundLabs. Now, the Planetariums are superb, but I found that I was missing some of the height dimension in the soundstage. The solution was to raise the main speakers to change the relative angle at my listeningposition. Initially, I tried a stopgap of stacked books just to see if it would do what I wanted. Big difference, in the positive sense. Then I remembered my old amp stands, which I had custom made from 4" lyptus (even denser than maple). That did it. In addition to solving the soundstage problem, midbass tightened up considerably. You can see these in my system photo if you care to have a look. The best part? The guy who did them charged me a total of $300 for both stands, far less than Mapleshade's equivalents would have been.
Speaking of Mapleshade, you'll also notice in the system pic that I'm a big fan of their Samson racks. However, I fully agree that Pierre goes way overboard with some of his claims.
I recently purchased new speakers (Audiokinesis Planetarium Betas) to replace my SoundLabs. Now, the Planetariums are superb, but I found that I was missing some of the height dimension in the soundstage. The solution was to raise the main speakers to change the relative angle at my listeningposition. Initially, I tried a stopgap of stacked books just to see if it would do what I wanted. Big difference, in the positive sense. Then I remembered my old amp stands, which I had custom made from 4" lyptus (even denser than maple). That did it. In addition to solving the soundstage problem, midbass tightened up considerably. You can see these in my system photo if you care to have a look. The best part? The guy who did them charged me a total of $300 for both stands, far less than Mapleshade's equivalents would have been.
Speaking of Mapleshade, you'll also notice in the system pic that I'm a big fan of their Samson racks. However, I fully agree that Pierre goes way overboard with some of his claims.