I've been reading through old threads on advice for speaker stands, and I've learned that those that you can fill offer the best sound. This has steered me away from buying the Sanus natural foundation stands I was previously considering. I've purchased some Monitor Audio Bronze 2 speakers, and I've narrowed down my choices to Atacama Moseco 6 vs Skylan SP27. Does anyone have specific experience or advice regarding these two choices? I greatly appreciate it!
IME, speaker stand materials, sand-filled, spiked feet, metal or wood, etc....did not make much difference. What did make a difference was speaker placement, speaker height and toe-in...sweet spot location is essential.
No personal experience with Atacama, but have seen many positive owner comments. I have Skylan stands and highly recommend them. Proper stands make a marked improvement, I'm not sure why they didn't for dogpile. In case you were not aware of this company...... Lautsprecherständer, Boxenständer by Liedtke Metalldesign
It's been my experience that when a bookshelf speaker needs a particular type of stand to sound its best, the manufacturer usually makes a complementary stand that they sell to you for double the price of third party stands.
Depends on the individual speaker. I still have a pair of small standmounts from one British manufacturer: first demo'd at dealer on some huge, solid, filled cast offs from an oil rig and they sounded fantastic; at home on a pair of lightweight, open frame stands they were rubbish and the bass had run away. Oddly the manufacturer recommends heavy stands... I bought a pair of heavier weight stands and did not look back. And then you have the likes of the Linn Kann, which work really well on open frame stands, as they were designed to. Check the manufacturer's recommendations.
No experience with those particular models, but spending ~$300 on stands for ~$400 speakers seems a bit ridiculous IMHO. I'd check locally for a used set of speaker stands. I picked up a nice set of heavy B&W stands that way. If you're forced to buy new, I'd agree that fillable stands are probably a good idea. I just wouldn't spend too much on them.
Good stands are not cheap and cheap stands are not good. Unfortunately, too many discount the importance of a good stand.
I've found recently that packing the hollow tube(s) of my speaker stands with memory foam, rather than lead shot made a marked difference in reducing any sort of ringing and bass really tightened up too.
Yeah, I discovered that by accident, I didn't have enough lead shot to fill my new speaker stands, I had just replaced a day bed's 4" thick memory foam pad, and as I walked past it in the garages my mind went...hmmm.... I took a broom handle and packed that heave foam in, and it really does wonders.
Were your stands completely full of shot? I've been using a mix of lead shot and sand filled to the top. The two pair of metal stands do not ring now and the Skylan stands never did, but require mass.
I've tried various things over the years, extra fine shot, premium dried sand, cat litter, other things alone or in various combinations, but the memory foam has impressed me the most, you need a big enough tube diameter to be able to ram it in with some sort of stick or rod, but boy it does something fairly special. I'm impressed enough that going forward that will be the first thing I try using over all others. But yes, you won't get tremendous mass if that is your goal.
I'm not sure more or less is a matter of better, but one time I partially knocked over a stand which I had used 4 BIG square slabs of blu tack to hold the speakers on, and although they were fairly large speakers the did not become uncoupled from the stand thanks to the blu tack, no damage, without it it could've been a total loss for the woofer as they are brittle polymer graphite.
Blu-Tak or white poster tack works fine. It usually comes in packages of 4 "bars", which you can divide in half for two speakers.
I've seen some rickety looking cheap stands out there, but for the most part, I think speaker stands follow the same scheme of overpricing that a lot of audiophile accessories do. Hence why I recommended picking up stands used. If I couldn't find anything used and or inexpensive that met my needs I'd simply make my own stands out of cinder blocks and patio stones. If OP doesn't live in an isolated area, shouldn't be too hard to find used stands. If lucky, the previous owner probably already went through trouble of filling them up with sand or shot.
I like your idea of cinder blocks and stone. I have never tried this method but have often thought it seemed like a good cheap solution.
