Marble to place speakers on?

Kevint: Do you mean placing the marble between the floor and the stands? I have found a general belief in the forums that stands need to match the type of floor that they are used on. Heavy massive stands for floors that have very little give (such as slab floors) and rigid but lighter stands for floors that have more spring or give to them. I have used both types of stands on a floor (heavy plaster cement type material) that has very little give to it and found the first type of stand to offer superior sound. I started off with light rigid stands and did try placing marble between the floor (resting on top of the carpet and rug) and the bottom spikes of the stands. This setup made the system sound thin and bright. I tried it out with two different amps (ss and tube) and two sets of speakers (Castle Isis and Renaud Twins). I did not try spiking the marble to the floor though. I also tried the marble between the top plate of the stand and the speaker with a substance similar to Blue Tack as coupling on both sides of the marble (I did not try spikes). This setup sounded better than the first go round, but not good to my ear. Now that I have heavy massive stands I may give both setups another try. I still wonder if spiking the marble to the floor would be an improvement, but just do not have the materials available to try it out, plus the spikes would have to be affixed to the marble for safety and stability issues. Also the marble that I used is only 1" thick and I beleive that it is called shystic (sp) marble which is not at all pure in its makeup. If you try any of the combinations out I will be interested in the results that you achieve. The marble that I used was given to my wife's girlfriend for her patio. I have another 4' piece of the marble, but need to have it cut to size (we just want a pastry board cut from it and the remaining portion will be enough to try on the new stands and speakers). If it doesn't work I will just place my wife's orchids on the pieces. I doubt if I will get around to it anytime soon though.

Kevint, I have monitors and carpet and was having trouble levelling them so I bought 2 13"x13" floor tiles. I would be worried about raising your monitors too much because of the vertical position vis-a-vis your ears. I found that the sound is tighter and toeing in or out is easy. I also placed 10lb weights on the top of the monitors to kill some of the resonances. Cheers.

I had a problem in my den system with my Alon V loudspeakers. I was losing all sorts of bass between about 50-70 cycles. This gave a very "un-dynamic" (if there is such a word) presentation, and also offered the impression that the upper bass was bosted. I tried everything to solve the problem. Room placement first, then acoustic treatments including ASC Tube Traps; nothing helped. My dealer finally suggested that the bass might be getting sucked out due to the flexing of the wood floors, and thought that I might try reinforcing the flooring to help offer a more stable platform for the speakers. This was nearly impossible without major renovation, as the den is on the 2nd floor of my home. So as an alternative, the dealer suggested that I try some heavy marble slabs under the speakers. As some of you have found, not only is it hard to locate, but marble can also be quite costly to have custom cut. Now, I don't mind the expense, but only if the results justify the cost. so here is what I tried FIRST. I went to my local Home Depot and purchased to CONCRETE slabs from their outdoor garden department. The slabs measure 18" x 18" x 2" and come a few colors too! Best of all, they were only about 4 buck each! I luged them home, set them up, and viola! My MIA midbass was much improved! The midbass suckout went from being about 7db down to about 2 db down, but best of all, in actual listening, I noticed NO problem in the midbass after intalling the concrete slabs. I actualy wound up painting the slabs black and just keeping them. They might not be elegant, but for less than 10 bucks they get the job done. The only other advice I might ad is to carefully examine the slabs before you purchase them to make sure the surfaces are flat; there is great variety in the quality control of these garden products, and if the surface is not perfectly flat, the slab might not lay perfectly flat on your flooring. Oh yeah, I also covered the bottom of the slabs with felt to help protect my hardwood floors. Sorry to ramble, but I hope this helps. Regards. Robert.

Due to two little ones, my monitors are sitting alone on top of a massive oak chest made of one inch slabs of oak. Monitors are at the right height and out of traffic (stands would get knocked over at some point) but they are obviously a bit too close to the wall. So, I want to tweak them as they are very detailed under the right conditions. Appreciating all the suggestions.

Kevint: spike the monitors on the slabs?