Rubber Mulch!

[A Surfer]

I mean yeah I suppose. Although of course it's inevitably going to end up in the landfill, if it not dumped on some roadside or another.

Yes, this is the point. It seems that generally people consider the short term and don't even consider what may happen after they are no longer using the product. These things are dangerous for their entire lifespan.

 

[scrubb]

"There is no level of exposure to lead that is known to be without harmful effects."

Yes, it's hard to believe they were selling all those lead miniatures at hobby shops even into the 1980's.

We can thank geochemist Clair Patterson for bringing awareness to the dangers of lead and its pervasive presence in the modern environment. And he discovered it accidentally while trying to determine the age of the Earth. I highly recommend watching the episode "The Clean Room" from the Neil Degrasse Tyson series Cosmos a Spacetime Odyssey. It goes into detail about Patterson's experiments and later steadfast determination to bring awareness to the fact that we needed to eliminate our use lead in things like paint and gasoline.

 

[SteveC]

For many years now I've used kitty litter. Relatively inexpensive and does a great job.

 

[Count Arthur]

I used aquarium sand.

 

[DavidEdwinAston]

For many years now I've used kitty litter. Relatively inexpensive and does a great job.

Don't the cats pee up your stands?

 

[Doenerkunde]

I used birdsand from the supermarket to fill up 50$ stamped steel barstools and use them as speaker stands. Worked really well and handling was easy using a small funnel.

 

[raceskier]

Here's another alternative. I found these long narrow ziploc bags on ebay. My steel speaker stands have a hole in the top plate that allows access to the interior of the square tube central column. I inserted the bag, filled it with sand using a funnel, sealed the ziploc and dropped the bag down the tube. the bag conforms to the interior of the tube. I believe I used 3 per stand.

 

[Esprit]

I used both hunting pellets and river sand (used in construction).

 

[mcochris]

Rubber mulch might be useful for vibration control — for example, by placing a turntable on a platform suspended in a tightly enclosed bed of mulch. This could help isolate the turntable from external vibrations.

 

[Jim Creek]

I decided no fill is needed in the stands. They arrived from Parts Express last night. I assembled them in about an hour. So far I like them.

 

[A Surfer]

Wouldn't a stand have to be rubbish to actually audibly contribute to the sound? I get that the vibration is a real thing, and certainly measureable, but for it to actually introduce audible artifacts?

 

[Timcognito]

Wouldn't a stand have to be rubbish to actually audibly contribute to the sound? I get that the vibration is a real thing, and certainly measureable, but for it to actually introduce audible artifacts?

Yeah that's true but having the center of mass up high with a heavy speaker is not good for stability if someone accidentally bumps into it or where I live earthquakes.

 

[A Surfer]

Yeah that's true but having the center of mass up high with a heavy speaker is not good for stability if someone accidentally bumps into it or where I live earthquakes.

Now that seems reasonable.

 

[Roy_D]

Wouldn't a stand have to be rubbish to actually audibly contribute to the sound? I get that the vibration is a real thing, and certainly measureable, but for it to actually introduce audible artifacts?

I suppose that depends. A quiet room has a background noiselevel of 20-30db. The sound of a pin dropping is less than 5. Is the pin dropping inaudible?

 

[A Surfer]

I suppose that depends. A quiet room has a background noiselevel of 20-30db. The sound of a pin dropping is less than 5. Is the pin dropping inaudible?

I imagine in many circumstances the pin drop would be completely inaudible. Certainly if there was adequate masking sound levels competing with the pin drop.

So practically speaking, we listen to music with speakers so presumably the sound of the music would mask any extremely small contribution of vibration.

 

[Godataloss]

I use depleted uranium in mine

 

[Esprit]

A quiet room has a background noiselevel of 20-30db.

Very quiet.

 

[Roy_D]

I imagine in many circumstances the pin drop would be completely inaudible. Certainly if there was adequate masking sound levels competing with the pin drop.

So practically speaking, we listen to music with speakers so presumably the sound of the music would mask any extremely small contribution of vibration.

By that reasoning the waveforms that make up music itself is under threat of becoming an inauditability.
Cabinet resonances are a thing. Stands are also made of matter like cabinets and will have resonances.
But I guess YMMV.

 

[ZolaIII]

A tube of thermal resistant silicone in each from botum side. Fill it in and let it dry it will add wait and dump them down. It's neither expensive nor present health or safety hazard. Easy to use and dosent spill.

 

[A Surfer]

By that reasoning the waveforms that make up music itself is under threat of becoming an inauditability.
Cabinet resonances are a thing. Stands are also made of matter like cabinets and will have resonances.
But I guess YMMV.

I'm not saying that my perspective is fact. Saying that, I have never encountered any blind listening tests where people have demonstrated that they can detect any audible difference caused by vibration in playback audio equipment. There might actually be such evidence, but I certainly haven't see any.