Are speaker stands really mandatory for bookshelves?

[Soniclife]

Can't speak to those specific klipches, but my preference is always closer to the wall and then EQing down the excess bass. Per Genelec's advice.

You get the most bass and clarity this way, imo. Given how directive klipch's are, seems particularly useful. That said, I'd still have the speakers towards the front of the cabinet to avoid reflections. Alternatively, you could get short desktop stands like isoacoustics ones.

What he said.

If you are not on the reference axis play with tilting them up or down and see if it helps. I'd also see if you can feel the cabinet resonating when playing loud, and consider some simple fix if they are.

 

[Soniclife]

If you want your speakers to wobble around you on the front-to-back axis, isoAcoustics stands are perfect. But I and several other ASR users have tried them, and the consensus seems to be that the wobbling doesn't help the sound.

They seem to help the tiny Eve's on my desk, the desk no longer resonates, it used to annoy me when typing, I could feel it throgh the keyboard.
Sound, maybe slightly better than the stack of books the stands replaced, definitly not worse.

 

[iLoveCats]

which ones (e.g.)?
I ask because -- well, I'm shoppin'.
(and contemplating DIY, too)

Sanus Steel Foundations are sturdy and fillable. Blue Tack the speakers down. Pretty hard to knock over

 

[Crazy_Nate]

I'd keep what you have- they look fine. Some people will tell you stands make a huge audible difference, but they don't. Stands are also easy to knock over if you have small animals (cats), small people (babies) or clumsy house guests.

I have stands, many pairs, but that's because I'm a HiFi nut. I like your ent centre as there's plenty of room in it for more gear.

Amen... One of my cats knocked a LS50 off a stand. It's strapped down now.

 

[Soniclife]

Amen... One of my cats knocked a LS50 off a stand. It's strapped down now.

Don't let the cat lovers catch you.

 

[SimpleTheater]

I had the same issue - really good stands cost a lot of money, anything under $200 wobble. So I created my own stands out of 1" thick MDF and iron piping and floor flanges, and other parts from Home Depot. They are heavy as hell and don't move. Also, they are ugly as sin, but they go behind an acoustically transparent screen, so no one sees them.

 

[mhardy6647]

Sanus Steel Foundations are sturdy and fillable. Blue Tack the speakers down. Pretty hard to knock over

Given your moniker, I can see where that could be an important criterion

We lost the second of our formidable (not) pair of scratch and dent animal rescue kittehs this past summer and are, for the first time in over thirty years, catless these days.

DSC_7921 (2) by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
The precision sleeping team in training for the Olympics of Torpor a few years back.

sorry for the digression & thanks!

 

[mhardy6647]

Amen... One of my cats knocked a LS50 off a stand. It's strapped down now.

Don't let the cat lovers catch you.

ahh, the perils of ambiguous antecedents.

 

[Crazy_Nate]

Don't worry, all involved parties are ok. The LS50 AND the cat

Our cats are too squirrelly to strap down, that should be obvious

 

[Mnyb]

which ones (e.g.)?
I ask because -- well, I'm shoppin'.
(and contemplating DIY, too)

Sorry i bought them 15 years ago for my surround channels did not remeber the brand .

 

[DonH56]

Sorry i bought them 15 years ago for my surround channels did not remeber the brand .

Of cats?

(Sorry, cat jokes do die, but it takes nine times as long as normal jokes...)

 

[TomB19]

I 3d printed a pair of speaker stands to lift a pair of MB-OW1 off my computer desk. With the stands, they sounded great. Without the stands, they sounded great. The difference was noticeable but that was a different acoustic situation than you have. My situation was the same as having a speaker firing down a wall surface.

By the way, the stands were filled with air. 5% infill. 2 perimeters. 0.2mm layer height. Thrifty printing.

I gave them to a friend and don't have time to go through my files to find pics. They were just big "I" shape, though.

You might improve things minutely by moving the speakers so the baffle is flush with the edge of the surface they rest on. You may also experiment with some tiny, stick-on, feet to isolate the speakers from the stand. I doubt either change will be noticeable but it would take 15 seconds to try.

Personally, I'd leave it the way it is. Aesthetics are almost as important as sound for a livingroom system, IMO.

 

[Koeitje]

I do suspect that the speakers, unless they are somehow isolated, are making that cabinet resonate. I've noticed this effect in using my KEF LS50s on a couple of desktops and then moving them to stands.

That's just because the LS50's aren't very solid. I can drive my speakers to very high loudness levels without me feeling any resonance in the cabinet. So it really depends on the speakers.

(I still have them on stands to get them in the right position).

 

[Dialectic]

That's just because the LS50's aren't very solid. I can drive my speakers to very high loudness levels without me feeling any resonance in the cabinet. So it really depends on the speakers.

(I still have them on stands to get them in the right position).

Terribly sorry, but this is bullshit. The KEF LS50s are extremely solid--probably pointlessly so from a sonic perspective.

The sound emanating from loudspeaker drivers and ports, and the motive force of the drivers, can cause the surface that loudspeakers are placed on to resonate. This is especially true of a big, ringy piece of wood on top of a home entertainment cabinet or a relatively thin piece of metal on top of a mixing console.

Decoupling the loudspeaker from a big ringy surface with sorbothane or specialized (and likely overpriced) feet can help with the transfer of mechanical force to the surface. Mechanical decoupling doesn't help with sound from the loudspeakers causing the surface to resonate, and that is the biggest problem.

Here's a good article by Ethan Winer on decoupling products and their questionable or nonexistent sonic benefits.

https://ethanwiner.com/speaker_isolation.htm

What generally works best in my experience experimenting and measuring the effects of speaker coupling/decoupling is coupling loudspeakers (with fasteners or hard gobs of blue tack, which is, contrary to popular audiophool belief, a coupling material) to something that doesn't ring, like a pair of heavy stands filled with sand, and to get stuff that does ring as far away from the loudspeakers as possible.

I've measured the effect in my own room of getting big pieces of furniture with large wood surfaces away from my speakers. The measured differences are large enough to be audible.

 

[Midwest Blade]

If the cabinet is solid and not resonating all should be okay, you can also decouple the speakers with pads of various materials. I use stands with my bookshelf speakers as their placement does not work with my AV cabinet and it is somewhat resonant.

 

[Koeitje]

Terribly sorry, but this is bullshit. The KEF LS50s are extremely solid--probably pointlessly so from a sonic perspective.

The sound emanating from loudspeaker drivers and ports, and the motive force of the drivers, can cause the surface that loudspeakers are placed on to resonate. This is especially true of a big, ringy piece of wood on top of a home entertainment cabinet or a relatively thin piece of metal on top of a mixing console.

Decoupling the loudspeaker from a big ringy surface with sorbothane or specialized (and likely overpriced) feet can help with the transfer of mechanical force to the surface. Mechanical decoupling doesn't help with sound from the loudspeakers causing the surface to resonate, and that is the biggest problem.

Here's a good article by Ethan Winer on decoupling products and their questionable or nonexistent sonic benefits.

https://ethanwiner.com/speaker_isolation.htm

What generally works best in my experience experimenting and measuring the effects of speaker coupling/decoupling is coupling loudspeakers (with fasteners or hard gobs of blue tack, which is, contrary to popular audiophool belief, a coupling material) to something that doesn't ring, like a pair of heavy stands filled with sand, and to get stuff that does ring as far away from the loudspeakers as possible.

I've measured the effect in my own room of getting big pieces of furniture with large wood surfaces away from my speakers. The measured differences are large enough to be audible.

The soundwaves might have an effect yes, but I doubt that is the case of an LS50s (doesn't go low enough). I'll move my speakers to my glass table (literally a loose glass plate inside a frame) and see if I can get it to resonate. Hopefully I have time this weekend. Low frequencies can make stuff resonate, but it has nothing to do with a loudspeaker being positioned directly on a surface (unless the cabinet isn't solid).

I also don't have spikes between my stands (filled) and the speakers or the floor.

 

[Ron Texas]

Personally, I did not get good results putting my LS50's on a 36" high storage unit. YMMV. NB, some near field monitors are designed to be placed on a mixing console.

 

[Berwhale]

My centre speaker sits on a cabinet...

The speaker is on a fairly thick and heavy glass shelf (8mm I think) and some bits of Sorbothane that I had lying around from when I had a full rack of separates...

 

[tmtomh]

My experience:

I do hear different bass performance using stands vs putting speakers on an entertainment center cabinet, and having them on the cabinet has resulted in inferior bass performance. However, I always have attributed that mostly to the decreased flexibility a cabinet provides when it comes to how close or far from the wall you can place the speaker - so not a direct result of the cabinet vs stand surface or mass itself.

I do wonder, though, if the cabinet's top surface makes for an additional resonant surface for the low frequencies and therefore adds to bass problems. And this is somewhat related to the distance-from-the-wall issue because even moving the speakers backward or forward on the cabinet results in the cabinet's top being reflective in front of or behind the drivers (or both).

RE distance of speakers from the wall, regardless of whether they're on stands or a cabinet, I think Genelec's advice (which I have seen elsewhere too) is sensible but also of somewhat limited use for many of us because not a lot of people have rooms large enough where they can comfortably place the speakers more than 2.2 meters - over 7 feet - from the front wall and still have enough length in the room for a comfortable listening position to be located far enough from the back wall to avoid creating problems there.

So for most of us, Genelec's advice boils down to, "Don't put your speakers more than 1 meter/40 inches from the front wall." That's good advice, to be sure - but all of my speaker-placement tinkering, in three different living spaces over the past 25 years, has been within that recommended 5cm to 1M range. And within that range I've found lots of variations and tradeoffs. In general I've round that speakers a little further from the front wall (closer to 1 meter) create a couple of additional or more pronounced bass modes I have to deal with, but in return they seem to project a deeper and generally more precise soundstage, along with better overall bass energy, than when I have them closer to the front wall (for example 30cm/1 foot).

I have found, though, that whenever I try to move speakers further into the room - into that 1-2.2M range - the results are inferior. And I found that for years before I ever even stumbled on the Genelec et all advice.

 

[flaviowolff]

That genelec advice is well documented here: https://sonicscoop.com/2017/12/14/the-1-speaker-placement-tip-speaker-manuals-get-completely-wrong/