what is the theory behind maple stands and racks?

I had my lil' Paradigm Studio 20's on 2" thick maple with brass feet and tilted up and I can swear they sounded almost as good as my new floor standers sitting on the same tile floor with only brass footers. They were detailed and really smooth and really nice to listen to.

Because of that past experience, I am back in the market to get some platforms for my new floor standers.

I am considering 1" TerraStone from Eden Sound or 4" maple.

Synthetic fancy "plastic" vs. real wood, not sure.

Yo Guido,

I am not crazy about the idea of "plastic" platforms as wood has more of a romance to it. The advantage of the plastic is that I would only need a 1" plinth according to Eden whereas with the maple, 4" was recommended which wood really make my tower speakers TOWERS.

I have lots of Eden brass footers on my equipment and the guy is really great to work with as far as customizations go.

Goofy,
I saw a show about the Stradivarius violins and I vaguely remember what was the cause of the unique sound and how it has not been duplicated to date. Maybe it was something with the varnish? darn, now I will have to google it.

Guido,
well, the vendor says the gains in sonic performance of the 4" maple vastly outweighs any effects of the increased driver height. As a compromise, I could do 2" plinths but they recommend 4" for tile/concrete floors.

as for trying out the polymer footers, did you see the prices of those things, that would be an experiment I cannot afford!

I do believe the platforms make a difference as I had my monitors on 2" maple and they sounded better than the stereo shop setup on the mfr stands and using better components than my rig.

Guido,

Here are the maple platforms.

Actually, the maple platforms themselves are reasonable, it is the brass feet that run up the price.

For example, their 4" platforms with large brass feet are $505/pair. The retail of the brass feet separately are 8 ea at $35 = $280 so that means the two platforms are $225 total which is not bad taking into consideration the finishing and labor.

I was thinking of doing a custom setup with 3 feet, but the third would be a bolt through megafoot. Each megafoot retails for like $110 each.

Well, I could not resist, I went ahead and ordered TerraStone platforms for my speakers. There was a good case for the TS over the maple and the TS was actually more cost effective and instead of raising my towers up 5.5", the TS platforms will only be 1.5" high (1" platform and 0.5" brass radiused feet)

And the black looks nice too :)

I ordered 12" x 16" x 1" for my speakers with a 8" x 13.5" footprint, with three 0.5" radiused brass footers. $534 + shipping. About 3 weeks for delivery for custom order. Paraphrasing my received responses to my questions:

The grain structure of hardwood makes it resonant. This means sympathetic vibration at one or more frequencies within the audible spectrum. The resulting reinforcement can be benign, with a boost in the midrange.

Often this is experienced as non-problematic, or even welcome at first. Less resolving or coherent systems may sound, initially, more musical for the artificial bump in midrange fullness or warmth. But longer listening reveals the effect for what it is: coloration, inaccuracy. Where accessories and furniture are concerned, the ideal is to avoid internal resonant frequencies which result in distortion or coloration. Maple stands WILL color the sound, or even, in some cases (inferior-grade hardwood or that which is incompletely and inconsistently dried) contribute uniquely audible distortion. Also, wood is subject to environmental conditions such as humidity pressure and temperature which can also add to the effect.

TS is some "space age" polymer claimed to be more neutral and will not color reproduced sound. TS is non-porous and inert. It is completely stable and cannot absorb moisture, therefore no warping, cracking, etc. Complete dimensional stability. It does its work of dissipating mechanical energy without adding any evidence of its presence. And the TS platform can be lower than the recommended Maple 4" thickness keeping my drivers at the approximate same height.

The maple platforms would be almost twice the price.

Just an update, my TS plinths will be in hand in about 2 weeks.

Finally received my TS plinths.

They are very nice looking, even with the industrial milled finish. For twice the price you can get the nice furniture quality polished finish butI opted to go cheap.

I go away for a week so I will not be able to audition them but will be back here with my impressions.

hi,

well I got them and have them set up but I was doing two things at once as far as changes to the system so I cannot really say how the sound was specifically effected.

I recently went to a mac mini based pc audio set up and added a QuteHD dac and then a linear power supply. So I have made a lot of changes including these.

They look really nice even with the industrial finish and my system does sound pretty good with those "wow" moments so I will attribute that to the sum of the parts. These Terrastone plinths are only 1" thick compared to the 4" of maple so for my tower set up, this was much more reasonable.

sorry I cannot offer much more feedback.