To Couple or Decouple Bookshelf Speakers to Stands?


Just bought my first pair of bookshelf speakers (Focal Aria 906) and stands - have filled the stands with sand. Should I use sorbothane pads to decouple the Focals OR Bluetack them to the top base of the stands?  I've asked 3 friends and received 3 different answers.......
dadgad4

Showing 2 responses by twoleftears

Instead of arguing about coupling/decoupling, let's talk about the speaker/stand interface, where the bottom of the speaker cabinet comes into some kind of contact with a plate or 3 or 4 leg-tops.

There are multiple options that I've read about.

Cones--of various materials--pointing up, pointing down.

Sorbothene pads, harder transparent plastic buffers, Herbies dots, etc.

Blu-tac.

Isoacoustics Oreas.

Little bits of exotic woods.

And the list goes on.

Some manufacturers even provided holes to screw the speaker to the stand.  This and Blu-tac may be more for safety reasons than acoustic reasons.  But perhaps not.

And while we're on the subject, consider mass-loading of floor-standers.  For a while there, there were a bunch of models that had a cavity in the bottom for you to fill with your favorite kitty litter or steel shot.  How much different is that than connecting speaker and (filled) stand as tightly as possible?