Center channel on stand

[heboil]

I have had my center channel on a box I made years ago to get my center to the proper height. I have recently pulled my mains out into my room more than I had in the past, and the soundstage has improved. I am thinking about replacing my box stand with a speaker stand. Will this more open stand design give my center channel performance improvements?

And the stand I have in mind:

Thanks.

 

[TheZebraKilledDarwin]

How far is your seating position away from LR?
How far are LR apart?

 

[DVDdoug]

Will this more open stand design give my center channel performance improvements?

No. There's nothing "magical" about speaker stands other than positioning & aiming speakers.

 

[jcarys]

I'm guessing that your box doesn't resonate with the speaker. If it does, then the stand would help a bit. Centers usually don't interact with room boundaries, so moving it out shouldn't do much either. If there's any difference, it's going to be quite subtle, and will probably disappear entirely once you've updated your room correction tuning.

 

[heboil]

How far is your seating position away from LR?
How far are LR apart?

About 8ft from the center, 9ft from the mains.

 

[heboil]

I'm guessing that your box doesn't resonate with the speaker. If it does, then the stand would help a bit. Centers usually don't interact with room boundaries, so moving it out shouldn't do much either. If there's any difference, it's going to be quite subtle, and will probably disappear entirely once you've updated your room correction tuning.

Thanks. I keep reading about not putting bookshelves on furniture or in a bookshelf, so I was wondering if the same applied to the center. It is likely the resonance you refer to. I built the box with some cross-bracing and packed it with roxul to try and deaden it, but it wasn't done with science... just a suspicion that it was the right thing to do.

 

[TheZebraKilledDarwin]

About 8ft from the center, 9ft from the mains.

How far are LR apart from each other?

 

[heboil]

About 9ft from each other.

 

[TheZebraKilledDarwin]

Speakers are placed very well for LR without C. At the current listening distance ever tried it without the dedicated center?

 

[jcarys]

Thanks. I keep reading about not putting bookshelves on furniture or in a bookshelf, so I was wondering if the same applied to the center. It is likely the resonance you refer to. I built the box with some cross-bracing and packed it with roxul to try and deaden it, but it wasn't done with science... just a suspicion that it was the right thing to do.

Bookshelf speakers are more likely to be compromised because the speaker is usually entirely surrounded by the bookshelf, and often not placed at the front edge. So you've got a good chance that one of those sides is going to interact with the speaker. You've narrowed it down to just one from below. I would test your setup a little more to see if there are any issues.

First simple test is with your hand. Turn off all the other speakers and play something loud on your center. Can you feel vibrations with your hand on the box? A little bit is probably OK, a lot is not. Second test would be with your ears. Play a few simpler sounds - human voice talking or singing, a violin or piano - and test if you can hear anything that sounds unnatural. If so, a proper stand would help. A cheaper suggestion would to try isolating the speaker with a vibration pad and see if it changes anything.

Honestly, your bracing technique is probably perfectly fine. The biggest benefit I've ever found from stands is just getting the speaker you want at the correct height or angle.