Speaker Stand Conundrum

F1nut

Ok, it's almost universally accepted that using spikes to couple floor standing speakers to the floor is of great benefit and when it comes to speakers stands, adding mass (shot/sand) and using spikes to couple the stands to the floor is also of benefit. So, why do many say it's best to decouple the speakers from the stand? Would it not be of greater benefit to couple, as in bolt, the speakers to the stand making it one unit?

Thoughts?

polkfarmboy

I am in the camp of the bolt down to one unit. My electrostats suffer more so than most otherspeakers from inertia problems, the cabs need to be heavy and suffer if not using spikes. If bookshelfs are secured to the stand then it would seem benificial by my way of thinking as vibration would be absorbed through the unit as a whole.

F1nut

Check out these stands, http://app.audiogon.com/listings/stands-langerton-speaker-stands-2-0-heavy-duty-stands-hand-made-in-germany-2015-02-01-accessories-92307-apple-valley-ca

In the last picture the speakers seem to be resting on feet, perhaps rubber?

Also, check out the tube amp on the left in that last pic......way cool.

headrott

I think the idea behind decoupling the speakers from the stands is to make them less prone to vibrations transferred to the floor, caused by the speaker cabinets themselves vibrating (which is essentially what the speaker stand spikes are doing as well). Less vibration transferred to the floor leads to less vibration to the rest of your system, as well as less vibration transferred back to the speaker cabinets.

By decoupling the speakers from the stands (rubber pads, etc.) and the stands from the floors (spikes) there is less surface area of the speakers contacting the stands to transfer the energy from the vibrating speaker cabinets. Also, there is less tranasfer of enrgy from the stands to the floor because of the spikes. We all know, less vibration equals greater clarity, detail imaging, etc.

Ideally, if you could have the speakers levitating in mid-air, it would be ideal. Then, only mid-air sound wave vibrations could affect your system with their vibrations.

I am not sure if I was clear in stating what I mean, but hopefully you get the point.

westmassguy

I'm all for direct coupling of the speakers to the stands, and the stands to the floor. I would also add, the stand should be as ridged as possible, with added mass, and out-riggers front and back, to compensate for the speaker's woofer movement. Pressure on the front and rear spikes is inversely proportional to the direction the woofer is moving. More mass, and out-riggers will mitigate this.

tonyb

I would imagine vibrations Jess. If the speaker is bolted down to the stand, vibrations will easily pass to the speaker. De-coupled.....for the same reason you do on the gear in your stand, isolate it.

The weight of the stand acts like a concrete floor does for bigger spiked floorstanders. Bigger speakers have more weight to them too so vibrations when they are decoupled from the floor by way of the spikes should be a non issue.

F1nut

Bigger speakers have more weight to them too so vibrations when they are decoupled from the floor by way of the spikes should be a non issue.

Generally speaking, spikes couple the speaker to the floor.

http://www.genesisloudspeakers.com/whitepaper/Genesis_Loudspeaker_Coupling_Decoupling.pdf

tonyb

Right...darn...lol scratch the "de".

tonyb

Another thought, big speakers produce more vibrations by way of increased bass response. A bookie on stands is going to leave that role to a dedicated sub most the time. All in all, I think it's a weight issue and vibration issue....unless your making those cinder block speakers I saw in another thread.

treitz3

Jesse, I have actually asked this question to the horse's mouth. Mr. Gary Kohl himself. (He's the owner of Genesis and the author of the linked article, for those who don't know)

Great question BTW. I'm looking forward to this question being answered as well for my own benefit. Thanks for asking!

Tom

F1nut

All in all, I think it's a weight issue and vibration issue....

I agree and that's why I'm thinking the added weight of the stands assuming they are mass loaded as they should be would be a benefit resulting in deeper, tighter bass as well as greater clarity in the mid-range.

EndersShadow

Yup it's interesting Jesse. I will say I don't know the answer. I think it could be one of those that varies based in the application...

I've not gotten to it though as I'm technically cheating with the spikes I have (meniscus group buy), since they don't pierce the carpet and as such don't couple the slab and speaker together.

I've seen lots of folks lately buying these babies for their near field speakers...

http://www.isoacoustics.com/index.php

gce

I use stands for my 703's with spikes and filled with sand. My thought is if you get any vibration after that the rubber pads between the stand and speaker will take care of it. If you bolt the speaker to the stand then there's no secondary dampening.

Jhayman

I use blue Tac to couple my speakers to my Sand filled stands and use spikes with disks on a 80lb slab of Granite with slim felt pads on the bottom to stop from scratching the floors..
I found adding the Granite slabs helped with tighter bass and increased midrange and imaging.

F1nut

So, after the game tonight I emptied the 25 lbs. of lead shot out of one of my Skylan speaker stands replacing it with about 40 lbs. of screened, washed and dried playground sand. Although the sand seemed dry I decided yesterday to bake it in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees to be sure. Kind of a PITA, but you know.......

I did this for two reasons, the shot only filled the bottom 6 inches of the twin columns and if I tapped on them any higher they sounded hollow. I could also feel the columns vibrating towards the top especially with heavy bass. The other reason is I wanted more mass. I thought about filling them all the way up with shot, but figured that would result in at least 300 lbs. per stand, which seemed like too much weight for the 1 inch thick MDF base. That and I wouldn't be able to move them without using a hand truck.

The now sand filled columns are completely dead when tapped and no longer vibrate, a step in the right direction for sure. I need to buy another bag of sand to do the second stand, then I will contemplate whether I want to couple the speakers to the stands or leave them decoupled.

F1nut

Jamie, looking good there. Question for you, did you try them decoupled first?

F1nut

I've seen lots of folks lately buying these babies for their near field speakers...

http://www.isoacoustics.com/index.php

Thanks for the link Dan, I haven't seen those before. An interesting design, but far to short for my needs. They definitely believe in decoupling.

headrott

F1nut wrote: »

Bigger speakers have more weight to them too so vibrations when they are decoupled from the floor by way of the spikes should be a non issue.

Generally speaking, spikes couple the speaker to the floor.

http://www.genesisloudspeakers.com/whitepaper/Genesis_Loudspeaker_Coupling_Decoupling.pdf

They do couple the speaker to the floor, but do it with the least amount of surface area possible. I am not sure it is by design to purposely couple the speaker to the floor, but since the speakers and stands have to be placed upon something, those somethings with the least amount of surface area contact is what is trying to be accomplished. It is the speaker weight that couples the speakers to the stands, and to the floor. My thoughts are it is a side effect, more than on purpose. It seems to me that decoupling is as important as coupling. I may be wrong in my thoughts.

Reading back my reply above, I put decouple in place of couple in a couple spots where is should be coupled. Should not reply at 2:00 A.M. (oh wait ); sorry guys for the confusion.

westmassguy

F1nut wrote: »

Bigger speakers have more weight to them too so vibrations when they are decoupled from the floor by way of the spikes should be a non issue.

Generally speaking, spikes couple the speaker to the floor.

http://www.genesisloudspeakers.com/whitepaper/Genesis_Loudspeaker_Coupling_Decoupling.pdf

A very interesting read. Makes me want to install a bass-brace on my spiked 2As,
The spikes take care of the vertical movement, and the brace would mitigate any horizontal movement.

steveinaz

I like "hard" de-coupling for the stands, but prefer soft de-coupling between the speaker bottom and stand. Just a personal preference.

treitz3

Hello, Jesse. I just heard back from Gary and this is what he had to say;

Gary L. Koh Owner/CEO, Genesis Advanced Technologies wrote:

It really depends on the design of the speaker stand. In many cases, the stand isn't massive enough and well-coupled enough to be regarded as part of the Earth, and isn't light enough that you would couple it to the speaker and make it part of the speaker. In both cases, it then the interaction of the stand makes vector forces extremely complex. As the center of gravity of the stand would be below the speaker, the stand actually rocks in the opposite direction of the speaker. Then, couplers, decouplers, sand, etc. change this interaction and all bets are off. I'll try to get a diagram done and post later.

I'll update you when he gets back to my inquiry.

Tom

smglbrth

Very interesting reading. One would wonder what Polk's reasoning was for **** their old Monitor line to the stands. Maybe the stand is heavy enough? Maybe the backward cant of the speakers helps? Could the above reasons also be why the 10's had shorter stands than the 7's? Or..., was it all because of lawyers who warned Polk that the speakers could rattle off the stands and someone could get injured? Interesting...

Jhayman

F1nut wrote: »

Jamie, looking good there. Question for you, did you try them decoupled first?

Thanks Jesse, I Love the sound of these speakers with the VTL Compact 100's
The only other thing I tried was just using the shipping crates as stands while I was looking for proper stands they sounded fine to me.
I've since moved my system upstairs so the sound is different, hard to compare but I prefer it upstairs.
I use the blue Tac to secure the speaker to the stand for safety concerns as these are quite expensive, handmade in Italy, so shipping would be crazy for repairs or what not.

Jhayman

F1nut

The upstairs rig looks very nice and I like the stands much better than the crates.

F1nut

A little update. So, I filled the other stand with sand and got everything set back up. Ok, this resulted in improved clarity, that is until I put some volume to it then the sound became etched. As the speakers have semi-hard rubber feet already on them I was really scratching my head if I should go to a full coupling or try to de-couple them further. After getting some feedback from Gary of Genesis (thanks Tom) and another gentleman at the WBF I added some soft foam discs I had laying around under the rubber feet. Ah, much smoother at higher volume levels and still nice at lower levels. Going against what seemed logical to me it is clear to me now that I should forget the coupling idea and experiment with other de-coupling devices.

headrott

That was my thought Jesse. Glad things are improving.

BlueFox

I saw this on another forum.

I use Herbies Big Fat Dots between my M40.1s and Skylan stands. Definitely helped. I have the axis crossing in front of my listening position. It makes a difference give the wide baffle of the speaker.

msg

F1nut wrote: »

A little update. So, I filled the other stand with sand and got everything set back up. Ok, this resulted in improved clarity, that is until I put some volume to it then the sound became etched. As the speakers have semi-hard rubber feet already on them I was really scratching my head if I should go to a full coupling or try to de-couple them further. After getting some feedback from Gary of Genesis (thanks Tom) and another gentleman at the WBF I added some soft foam discs I had laying around under the rubber feet. Ah, much smoother at higher volume levels and still nice at lower levels. Going against what seemed logical to me it is clear to me now that I should forget the coupling idea and experiment with other de-coupling devices.

Revisiting this thread bookmarked a while back, now that I'm playing with speaker stands. The Pangeas I just recently built came with soft foam disks. I thought this would be a bad thing and also used harder rubber feet. So, harder material is coupling, and softer material is isolating and decoupling?

westmassguy

msg wrote: »

F1nut wrote: »

A little update. So, I filled the other stand with sand and got everything set back up. Ok, this resulted in improved clarity, that is until I put some volume to it then the sound became etched. As the speakers have semi-hard rubber feet already on them I was really scratching my head if I should go to a full coupling or try to de-couple them further. After getting some feedback from Gary of Genesis (thanks Tom) and another gentleman at the WBF I added some soft foam discs I had laying around under the rubber feet. Ah, much smoother at higher volume levels and still nice at lower levels. Going against what seemed logical to me it is clear to me now that I should forget the coupling idea and experiment with other de-coupling devices.

Revisiting this thread bookmarked a while back, now that I'm playing with speaker stands. The Pangeas I just recently built came with soft foam disks. I thought this would be a bad thing and also used harder rubber feet. So, harder material is coupling, and softer material is isolating and decoupling?

Scott, you're going to start another debate on that one.

msg

Hehe, yeah, I better watch my language. Those are some bad words around here.