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A huge topic of debate? EXPENSIVE SPEAKER STANDS!

Puddingbuks

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It's like a mercedes with cheap after market rims. So get the originals.
 

ahofer

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OP
wrigglycheese

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Those look much nicer than the ones I mentioned for not too much more. Also Amazon US has them for the same number but in US dollars.

Thank you Sir if they work out I will feel quite hapy to have grabbed a good deal on them - I mean HALF PRICE LIKE NEW! My fingers are crossed. I think ALL my fingers are crossed as this is all quite the gamble LOL

And all for quiet listening! I'll be quite up close and personal with my speakers as well. Probably 4-5 feet away.
 

LearningToSmile

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I'm kind of torn about stands - I own a pair of these:
https://www.gear4music.com/Recording-and-Computers/Studio-Monitor-Speaker-Stand-Single/1T8G
they are absolute GARBAGE, which is not unexpected given the price - wonky, unstable, poorly fitting, etc. The opposite of what a stand should be. But... for the life of me I can't hear anything negative I could blame the stands on. Even when I crank things up. The speakers don't move on them either. When I got them and moved the speakers from the desk to the stands all I heard was improvement thanks to no desk reflections and proper distance.

Eventually I'll buy or make a better pair of stands, for aesthetics if nothing else(though I do actually like the single thin column stands more than most), and I wonder if I'll hear a difference then.
 

Mnyb

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I also gone the way of finding stand with rather thick tubes that i can fill with sand and also use soft feets under the speaker I have a tall pair of apollo stands for rear channels, sand filled.
 

leonroy

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Somebody save me - I jest, DO NOT tell me what I want to hear, tell me what you really think. Should I buy decent speaker stands or should I spend a fortune on the 'recommended official' stands.

I recommend expensive speaker stands. Heavier the better.

Here's what I use - they weigh 100kg each. I wish they weighed more, I'm sure it'd improve the sound quality... ;)

mKzt642.jpg
 

Fahzz

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leonroy: Did you polish that speaker or is that how it looks out of the box?

To the OP: maybe look at Pangea stands at audio advisor or or amazon. reasonably priced and functional.
 
OP
wrigglycheese

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echopraxia

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Stands do not significantly change the sound quality, unless the stand either has some significant resonance or rattling issue (unlikely unless it's seriously defective), or the top plate is sized incorrectly to comic proportions. Stands that are too large with some 'ledge' (like what @leonroy shows above) is in theory at risk of causing some reflection/diffraction effects that change the sound, but I doubtful that it would be audible unless the 'stand' is the size of a dinner table or office desk :)

So when considering paying more for high quality stands, make sure you're getting your money's worth in the following dimensions:
  1. Solidity and stability (e.g. imagine bumping into it, what happens?)
  2. Nonfunctional build quality / fit-and-finish / subjective aesthetics
[1] After owning a few $100 - $200 pairs of stands, I bought the K&M 26795 stands for my Genelec speakers (which I got for about $450 USD/pair shipped via Thomann), and was very pleasantly surprised by the HUGE difference in stability. Every speaker stand I owned prior felt precariously unstable if you ever tested what happens if you gently push on the top (it would rock back and forth), whereas the K&M 26795 stands are ridiculously solid as if stone pillars were growing out from the floor. This is due to their large and heavy cast iron base plate (17.5kg 450mm^2 =~ 38.6lbs 19"^2).

[2] But, let's not forget though that aesthetics are indeed an important factor. I am of the mindset that we should not compromise sound quality for aesthetics, but when it comes to speaker stands it's not likely going to change the sound quality at all. So there is nothing wrong with paying a little more to improve the aesthetics of a furniture-like addition to your home, which speakers are.
 
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OP
wrigglycheese

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Stands do not significantly change the sound quality, unless the stand either has some significant resonance or rattling issue (unlikely unless it's seriously defective), or the top plate is sized incorrectly to comic proportions. Stands that are too large with some 'ledge' (like what @leonroy shows above) is in theory at risk of causing some reflection/diffraction effects that change the sound, but I doubtful that it would be audible unless the 'stand' is the size of a dinner table or office desk :)

So when considering paying more for high quality stands, make sure you're getting your money's worth in the following dimensions:
  • Nonfunctional build quality / fit-and-finish / subjective aesthetics [1]
  • Solidity and stability (e.g. imagine bumping into it, what happens?)
After owning a few $100 - $200 pairs of stands, I bought the K&M 26795 stands for my Genelec speakers (which I got for about $450 USD/pair shipped via Thomann), and was very pleasantly surprised by the HUGE difference in stability. Every speaker stand I owned prior felt precariously unstable if you ever tested what happens if you gently push on the top (it would rock back and forth), whereas the K&M 26795 stands are ridiculously solid as if stone pillars were growing out from the floor. This is due to their large and heavy cast iron base plate (17.5kg 450mm^2 =~ 38.6lbs 19"^2).

[1] But, let's not forget though that aesthetics are indeed an important factor. I am of the mindset that we should not compromise sound quality for aesthetics, but when it comes to speaker stands it's not likely going to change the sound quality at all. So there is nothing wrong with paying a little more to improve the aesthetics of a furniture-like addition to your home, which speakers are.

Legend - thank you Sir
 

paulraphael

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Years ago, under the influence of lore that said stands were hugely important, I had the idea of sidestepping the high price tags by building my own. The idea was to make them out of big chunks of threaded / flanged iron pipe bolted to plywood. I designed the things and then called plumbing supply shops to price them out. Turns out they would have been the most expensive stands imaginable. Who knew that custom cut and threaded 3" pipe was a luxury item?

So I just got tower speakers.
 

echopraxia

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Years ago, under the influence of lore that said stands were hugely important, I had the idea of sidestepping the high price tags by building my own. The idea was to make them out of big chunks of threaded / flanged iron pipe bolted to plywood. I designed the things and then called plumbing supply shops to price them out. Turns out they would have been the most expensive stands imaginable. Who knew that custom cut and threaded 3" pipe was a luxury item?

So I just got tower speakers.
Yeah that's another good point that is often forgotten: Sometimes the price of high quality stands (like those designed specifically for a particular bookshelf speaker) plus the price of the bookshelf speakers will cost almost as much as tower speakers from the same manufacturer/brand!

In such cases, the tower speakers are almost always the better buy (better power and sometimes sound quality, more stability since the single-piece speaker is its own stand, sometimes better aesthetics, etc.) However it does not look like this is the case with Q Acoustics at least, so OP is safe there -- their tower speaker offering costs 2x as much as the bookshelves and stands combo, despite adding only a single extra bass driver per tower versus the bookshelves.

The only real advantages to bookshelf speakers on stands is that they're easier to transport (you can pack up the speakers separately from the less fragile stands), that they sometimes (as in this case with Q Acoustics) enable a better performance/price ratio, and that in some cases you may find the availability of adjustable-height stands enables a more ideal vertical positioning that sounds better than towers would if the height of your listening position is abnormal and therefore doesn’t align well with the fixed tweeter height of a particular set of towers (however most bookshelf speaker stands aren’t adjustable height anyway — especially the nicer looking ones).

Edit — For completeness, of course another obvious advantage of bookshelf speakers is the ability to use them without stands at all when the space doesn’t accommodate stands, e.g. many desktop setups. I currently have my Genelec’s just sitting on my desk directly with no stands (just the included “iso pod” feet), and after calibration they sound great, and the clean compact (relatively) look is worth it to me currently. I must admit that when I put them on stands, they do sound a bit better (but there’s no avoiding this and this sound vs space tradeoff is just an individual choice people will have to make), but thanks to Genelec’s calibration software the difference is much smaller than what most people will experience who don’t calibrate (or poorly calibrate via e.g. stuff like Audessy’s bad defaults).
 
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Tom C

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Sand can be bad if it gets into your speaker drivers. I bought a pair of used floor standers that had a cavity in the bottom which the previous owner filled with sand. Although the sand was removed, the residual is still there. When I moved last fall, some of it came out into the factory carton during transport, and could easily have gotten into the speakers or scratched the finish. I vacuumed all I could out of the cavity, but I’m sure there’s still some left in the deep recesses.
I think it’s better to use the inert filler, or lead shot. Lead shot is kind of expensive, I suppose because it’s heavy to ship. But I personally wouldn’t use sand.
 

Koeitje

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Great tip thank you. Stable and with some good pads underneath the speaker (feet)? Like rubber or foam pads? Resonance exists right so SOME truth to decoupling? In fact is decoupling the most underrated aspect?

Oh and from what you're saying I should make sure the flat area of the stand the speaker sits on IS NOT BIGGER than the speaker?
I kept the plastic foil underneath my Revel M106's and use bluetack :D. Might buy the original stands if I get a good deal on them.
 
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