YouTube video "The shocking SOUND DIFFERENCE Between Speaker Stands"

[sejarzo]

I used Google to find 32 inch high speaker stands the other day, so I believe that's why YouTube suggested this video for me. All in all, I'm not surprised that speaker stands that are acoustically dead show fewer resonances when subjected to frequency sweeps--would anybody not expect that?

What I find bizarre is the variability in the 1/48 octave traces for his $8500 pair Focal pro monitors in what appears to be a relatively well treated studio, regardless of speaker stand.

He does make the point that 1/48 smoothing is not representative of how our ears work, but then proceeds to show the "huge" difference around 180 Hz--which is obviously a huge null at the microphone position.

That being said, look at the response variation below 400 Hz. It's all over the place.

Here's how $300 KEF Q150s measure in my room, which has some DIY absorbers on the front and back walls.

I have to wonder about what this guy actually hears in his studio from those Focals.

Here's the link to the video.

 

[kemmler3D]

Damn, what did he treat that studio with, glass and marble?

 

[coonmanx]

The best speaker stand that money can buy... $5 a pop. And I don't hear any weird resonances either...

 

[coonmanx]

BTW, I built those speakers as well. Used the Celestion Ditton 110 cabinets along with a 2 way kit from Willy's Hi Fi in England.

 

[radix]

Whatever he is using, it looks thin. 1", maybe 2"? That's not going to do much at all below 500 - 1k.

 

[Blumlein 88]

The best speaker stand that money can buy... $5 a pop. And I don't hear any weird resonances either...View attachment 276074

I can guarantee there is a resonance with your stands. Whether it much effects the speaker or not is another matter.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Not surprised at the blocks. They both do nearly no damping, and couple the speaker vibration into the floor very effectively. The other stands couple to the floor less well by being less solid and do some damping. I would like to have seen them do more than one sweep as noise in lower frequencies can be an issue from run to run. Also at higher frequencies where results were less consistent, I noticed they stood in different positions each time. This is enough to slightly effect results.

 

[sejarzo]

I realize now that I pasted in the wrong image of my Q150's response. Here they are with the Y axis more in line with the scale of the measurements shown in the video.

That being said, I think this makes it all the more obvious for newbs in the hobby that room interactions impact $8500 speakers in a supposedly professional studio just as much as $300 speakers in a basement home theater room with some amateur attempts at room treatment.

 

[coonmanx]

I can guarantee there is a resonance with your stands. Whether it much effects the speaker or not is another matter.

Since this is ASR I would just like to say "Prove it". LOL. You can not guarantee anything without actual proof.

It is possible that there might be some slight resonance but it is definitely not audible so that pretty much means that it is meaningless anyhow.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Since this is ASR I would just like to say "Prove it". LOL. You can not guarantee anything without actual proof.

It is possible that there might be some slight resonance but it is definitely not audible so that pretty much means that it is meaningless anyhow.

I can guarantee an enclosed space has a resonate frequency. We don't need to reinvent the wheel so to speak. As I said audibility is another matter. A better stand might be to invert the bucket and fill it with sand. Sand is pretty cheap. Get play sand from where you got the orange speaker stand.

 

[ZolaIII]

One word silicone.
In more words:

Comparison of vibration isolators with silicone to anti-vibration products made of natural rubber compounds - vibro.gr

antivibration-systems.com

And don't use small and thin pads (pack's) that cost a lot.
I started using egg seaters for the purpose. As bigger, thicker and cheep while having honeycomb structure which should also help. They aren't the most convenient or plesent thing to use because their ergonomic shape for your ass for what they are made makes them tinner on one side then other. Which you can use either to make speakers tilted up or down, depending how you turn them but not flat. Other than that I wouldn't use them with tall speakers or better say any kind of towers. They are not most esthetically pleasing tho not ugly, it's a mat with cover after all.
Edit: it's a good thing that guys room is horrible for the purpose, bad thing is I had to watch that video, almost cried on YouTube plaque.

 

[radix]

Speaking of stuff the stand, that's what the Sound Anchor stands in the video do. This is why when they tap them, they do not resonate.

Studio Monitor Stands for PhantomFocus™ ADJ-PF — Sound Anchors

Studio Monitor Stands for PhantomFocus™ ADJ-PF is a top of the line two bolt speaker platform that prevents the speaker from moving. Its aluminum composition prevents energy being spread to the non resonant stand and will result in the cleanest acoustics and sound quality.

www.soundanchors.com

The ADJ-PF stands are equipped with special two bolt speaker platform support arms to ensure that the speaker does not move. The bases and the uprights are filled and damped from the factory. The speaker platforms are made of 1/4" thick aluminum. This reduces the amount of energy that gets transferred into the stand. ADJ-PF Stands offer a very solid, stable, non-resonant support for the speakers while isolating them from the console, each other and the floor which gives you a cleaner, more detailed and accurate sound.

 

[OldHvyMec]

This is something you should try and it is very inexpensive.

Beard the stands, the longer and wider the beard the more bass you will create. One of the simplest ways to increase bass is to widen or lengthen
the baffle. Cardboard will work. It needs to be touching the bottom of the speaker, BUT it doesn't have to reach the floor. That space underneath the speaker
is critical. It also lets the leakage by the baffle below the bottom of the speaker act as an adjustable dampener, without losing the tweeter's sweet spot.

You can easily take your measurements. Then dress up the beard however you want. DECOUPLE the bottom of the stands but couple the speaker to the stand.
Fill the stand with cutters sand and add dry sawdust. I like cedar.

The usual problem exist of distortion from the point of first reflection, a wide baffle has it's benefits for bass, not so much for mids and highs. BUT there are no drivers
in the beard to be distorted, there is one less problem not having to deal with.

Fruit for thought, Ay?

 

[Mtbf]

I have three pairs of stands. The first is a pair of somewhat older Dynaudio stands, of which both the top and bottom plates are relatively thick and double-layered, with a layer of damping material sandwiched in between. The second are my very sturdy König & Meyer stands, built like a tank, be it with (to my eyes) a bit too large feet. My most recent purchase is a pair of Monoprice stands, the ones with the four rectangular metal columns. I chose these because I needed a pair of 28-inch stands for optimum tweeter height, tweeter height was too low with the 24-inch Dynaudio's.

I partially filled the columns of the Monoprice stands, because if I tapped the columns they sounded like Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells.

If I gently stump the top of the bookshelf speaker with part of the palm of my hand with the speaker standing on one of the Dynaudio or K&M stands, I hear nothing, the combination of speaker plus stand is dead silent. But if I stump the top of the speaker when it’s standing on the Monoprice stand I hear a quite loud low frequency resonance with a reverb, caused by resonance of the bottom plate, (as to be expected) not influenced by the fillings of the columns. I measured the frequency but forgot what it was. I’m not yet certain whether this resonance influences the low frequency performance of the speaker, but this seams almost inevitable. The thickness of the bottom plate of the Monoprice stand is too thin to avoid a resonance like this, and thus it functions as a soundboard. Moreover, this simple test shows the effectiveness of the sandwich construction of the Dynaudio stands. The base of the K&M is made of cast aluminium and simply is unable to resonate. Anyway, I certainly don’t like this resonance, but I‘m going to solve this problem one way or the other.

Incidentally, pity the guys in the video didn't end up repeating the first measurement, with the speakers on the concrete blocks. Would have been nice to see whether the measurement was sufficiently repeatable after putting the speakers back, given their (extensive) efforts to put the speakers back in exactly the same position.

 

[MattHooper]

Not surprised at the blocks. They both do nearly no damping, and couple the speaker vibration into the floor very effectively. The other stands couple to the floor less well by being less solid and do some damping. I would like to have seen them do more than one sweep as noise in lower frequencies can be an issue from run to run. Also at higher frequencies where results were less consistent, I noticed they stood in different positions each time. This is enough to slightly effect results.

I'm surprised by your analysis. I thought the point of sitting speakers on hard mass like stone was to either couple the speakers to a higher mass/less vibrating
surface, which is one reason some audiophiles with speakers on wood floors have introduced granite bases between the speaker and the floor.
In that video there's feet of cement blocks between the floor and the speaker. But you are saying the rock will just transmit all the vibration to the floor anyway and that's the basic source of the poor measurements? (As opposed to the fella in the video diagnosing it as ringing from the blocks).

 

[Blumlein 88]

I'm surprised by your analysis. I thought the point of sitting speakers on hard mass like stone was to either couple the speakers to a higher mass/less vibrating
surface, which is one reason some audiophiles with speakers on wood floors have introduced granite bases between the speaker and the floor.
In that video there's feet of cement blocks between the floor and the speaker. But you are saying the rock will just transmit all the vibration to the floor anyway and that's the basic source of the poor measurements? (As opposed to the fella in the video diagnosing it as ringing from the blocks).

Both. See in the measurements they had some anomalies at higher frequencies. Ringing in the blocks maybe. Coupling solidly to the floor means the floor becomes part of the surface to radiate lower frequencies. Depending upon the floor that can muddy things up or if it were a concrete floor might be fine. It was never tested other than listening, but I knew someone who used the solid blocks for some stands. He only needed I think three of them. Had some Spicas which are short. He wanted to cover them in some velvet. He ended up wrapping them each in a sort of a sock tied at the back. He swore it made it sound better. Maybe it was damping a bit or ringing and decoupling each block a bit. Who knows without measuring things. Maybe it just looked nicer and he felt better.

 

[Bleib]

Use these to decouple the loudspeaker from what it stands on..

Sonic Design dämpkuddar 4-12 kg, 4-pack

En högtalarfots uppgifter är att få högtalaren att stå så still som...

www.brl.se

 

[asr_jon]

This is something you should try and it is very inexpensive.

Beard the stands, the longer and wider the beard the more bass you will create. One of the simplest ways to increase bass is to widen or lengthen
the baffle. Cardboard will work. It needs to be touching the bottom of the speaker, BUT it doesn't have to reach the floor. That space underneath the speaker
is critical. It also lets the leakage by the baffle below the bottom of the speaker act as an adjustable dampener, without losing the tweeter's sweet spot.

You can easily take your measurements. Then dress up the beard however you want. DECOUPLE the bottom of the stands but couple the speaker to the stand.
Fill the stand with cutters sand and add dry sawdust. I like cedar.

The usual problem exist of distortion from the point of first reflection, a wide baffle has it's benefits for bass, not so much for mids and highs. BUT there are no drivers
in the beard to be distorted, there is one less problem not having to deal with.

Fruit for thought, Ay?

I have a ton of spare 40mmx210mm spare cypress planks which I can sand and make nice, from a fence I'm building and I also have some B&W 606's with no proper stands.

Is there a good stand I could build from these? I like the idea of making a box and making it really heavy (dry sand is readily available and cheap) then carefully screwing the speakers down into it (from underneath i.e. the cypress, obviously not puncturing the cabinet (would it make any real difference?)

Environmental factors include 3 year old twins, so a heavy base is attractive for stability purposes. Also a polished timber planked floor - real solid hardwood planks laid over chipboard over joists. What feet should the stand have?

Also, another nutty idea... I have a few excess bags of premix concrete. What about just moulding some concrete bases to sit on the floor inside some MDF which I have (yes, obvioulsly MDF will need to be sealed inside due to water). If the conc is like 20KGs surely the speakers at moderate volume aren't going to resonate anything no? I have some veneer doors that I've replaced with new ones due to damage. This means I have some nice instand veneer to stick to the outside of the MDF.

Thoughts?

 

[dasdoing]

The best speaker stand that money can buy... $5 a pop. And I don't hear any weird resonances either...View attachment 276074

here is mine. no resonance either lol

 

[krabapple]

Someone here please review this using a good crapola-meter. (I fell asleep about halfway through.)