Raising Speakers

I'm with Woodman: Stone and hockey pucks. Years ago, when microvibration was first being recognized as a significant issue, hockey pucks were quite in vogue. Apparently the "vulcanite" hard rubber from which they are made is extremely non-resonant. I used to have four of them under my TT and they worked quite well.

will

If you can't rais the speakers,
Lower the seat :^)

cinder blocks work great. They are cheap, mechanically dead, and heavy. Buy a couple of the 2 inch thick "bricks" used as step stones in a garden store, and sandwich a piece of rubber matting between them to couple them together. I've seen this used in several Mastering studios under ATC's, B&W Nautilus 801's, and others. It can look pretty cool too.

...i also have a low-standing speakers and i realy was trying to make different experiments but my possibilities are realy limited. currently they stand on the wide black thick 1 and 3/4" plexi-glass platforms firmly screwed to the bottom so my little boy will not be able to push them. This platform is placed on five #4 vibrapods and speakers are loaded with 50lB of the lead shots inside each load compartment. Thus the speakers are lifted by almost two inches. First I was thinking to screw the speakers to the floor but than I changed my mind and decided to arrange the platforms. Arround the ball feet on which speakers are standing I placed self-adhesive felt stripes that I bought in local car-wash.
The speaker screw-down mounting is complicated and made of the custom parts which are a pair of circular boards with screw-down 2" holes and eight holes for the thin screws with flat hat. One of such board is screwed onto the plexiglass platform and the other is to the bottom-center of the speaker and 2" thick bolt is screwed between them. To make a firm contact I simply rotate a speaker clockwise with its ball feet and there it stays firmly on the platform and isolated from the hardwood floor at the same time!
I had even a chance to compare the firmly screwed speaker against free-standing and simply standing with no platform and vibra-pods and realized that this construction is realy a great tweak to child-proof, sonics and listening position at the same time.

I also needed to raise my speakers (Thiel CS2.2's) in my previous listening room. For quite a while, I attempted to solve the problem by tilting the speakers as Twl suggests. However, whether actual or psychological, I became increasingly bothered by the sensation that I was now "looking down" into the soundstage, as if I was sitting in the balcony - a perspective that does not correctly apply to most of the music I listen to. Going ahead and raising the whole speaker off the floor flat (several inches in my case) proved much more satisfactory in the long run. (This was a slightly too small room in reality for these speakers, so the bass held up OK, but if I had been able to sit the ideal distance from the speakers, I wouldn't have needed to raise them this much; I actually wound up using small stepstools to accomplish the task.)

In my new room (where I can listen from the correct distance), if I decide to raise them just a little, I may turn to the Sound Anchors dedicated stands. These can be custom ordered for most floorstanders with dimensions provided, but Sound Anchors makes several standard models for popular speakers (including discontinued models such as my Thiels, but I'm not sure about the Hales). These stands mass-load the speaker's base, and provide a wider footprint for increased stability and rigidity, while raising the speakers a couple of inches at the same time. The research I did on these suggested that many users feel this product improves the sound; Thiel themselves liked the results, and offered the stands as a factory option, as do some other makers.

As usual, Twl and Dekay are right. However, I am not familiar with the Hales speakers (no web site either I guess) and there may be one caveat. If the speakers are designed with the bass slightly forward of the midrange which is slightly forward of the tweeter, they are already adjusted so the signals arrive in phase. By "slightly forward", I mean that the bass is physically closer to the listener than the midrange which is, in turn, physically closer than the tweeter). Tilting them may reduce the predesigned phase correction and may offset the sonic advantages of aiming them at your ears. If the front of the speakers are flat with the speakers equidistant to the listener, you may pick up two advantages by tilting so it is an additive benefit.

Simple enough to find out. Use some dimes, quarters and double stacked quarters under your front cones to see if it helps -- you may also "unscrew" the front cones for some more height (leave enough thread for a solid connection though). If that sounds good, play around with different cone sizes for a more solid connection. Don't forget that pucks can also be used to raise the speakers. They can sound quite good on carpet and will also offer more height (carpet + pad thickness plus puck thickness) -- probably 3/4" to one inch for the standard 1/2" thick puck. Good luck!

Okay don't laugh.
I own a pair of Rev 3s myself. I love "em. But, I'm 6'4" and sit in a rather large rocking chair to listen. Here's what I've done. Four hockey pucks on the floor supporting a concrete paving block 12" square and about 2" thick. Not only Have I raised the Hales up, but the bass got tighter as well. And of course my investment in all that is small.
Good Luck

Agree with TWL: A very "slight" adjustment to the angle will raise/lower the image quite a bit. I even do this with stand mount speakers (adjust the stand spikes to raise the front a tad, which gives a more spacious sound in my setup).

A while back there was a similar discussion here. I think the consensus was not to use granit but marble (rough unpolished side up). It was said that the granit 'rings'. You might want to search for it in the forums.

I would like to recommend a slightly different method for you. If you raise just the front of the speaker very slightly, so as to create a small backward tilt, the drivers will be angled to aim at your ears with very little elevation. Usually, a slightly longer set of adjustable spikes on the front will handle this. You see, a small angle at the speaker creates a much larger height change at the listening chair. Also, since you only have to raise the front a little, you may retain the floor boundary reinforcement for your bass response, which you would probably lose when placing your speakers on stands.

Check out Goodwins Highend http://www.goodwinshighend.com/ they can custom make speaker stands for you. Their stands have both casters and spikes so you can move the speakers around and spike them down when you find the perfect position. I don't know the exact height of the stands but the spikes will lift the casters off the floor so it must be at least a couple of inches.

If you want to use platform one cheap solution is to use stepping stones. They are 2" thick and come in different sizes and materials. They look nice and very stable.