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speaker stands--general considerations

Of the myriad audiophile topics that come up here, I haven't noticed any real discussion recently of speaker stands.  What gives?  Does everyone own floorstanders?

I mean, there's plenty of room for disagreement, errr, discussion.  Optimal height?  Material of manufacture: metal (which), wood, other?  Single material or mix?  Design: single upright, multiple uprights, open top or top plate?  Over-engineered and heavy, or minimalistic and light-weight?  Interface between the monitor and the stand: high-tech gizmo, cork, nothing at all, Blu-tack, other?  Mass loading--yes or no?  If yes, kiln-dried sand or kitty litter, or lead buckshot?  Brands?  Best?  Best bang for the buck?
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Showing 2 responses by turnbowm

turnbowm
353 posts
 
Lots of choices when it comes to speaker stands. For my Kef LS50s, I chose 24" Skylan and filled the vertical columns with sand and used Blu-Tack between speaker and stand. Have hardwood floors over slab and use spikes w/spike cups.

As a general rule, stand height should place tweeters at ear level with mass loading of stands for stability and vibration/resonance control. IMHO, speaker cones should move but NOT their enclosures
turnbowm
353 posts
 

ctsooner2,291 posts05-13-2020 3:49pm"Call ME crazy, but why buy a stand mounted speaker that takes up a footprint and needs to be further out in the room that a properly designed floor stander?  I've always felt this way.  Vandersteen started the baffleless floor stander in his model 2 as all speaker were using large baffles.  Now days, we have plenty of great choices at all price levels that are able to get a floor standing speaker to do on top what the stand mounted speaker does, PLUS they are much more full range or close enough...."

The location of floor-standing speakers in a room is always a  compromise between imaging and bass performance. With stand-mounts and subwoofers, the monitors can be located for best imaging and the subs for best bass performance.

FWIW, I had Vandersteen 2CEs for many years but, after moving, found that they just didn't work well in a small listening space. The Vandies need space for the various drivers to blend properly. The Kef LS50s don't have that problem because of the coincident/coaxial driver design. A sub was required, however,to fill out the bottom end.

Nice system by the way. I'm sure the Quatros are very pleasing to the ears. 
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