Speaker stands...do they make a difference?

Does it matter if there's any overhang?

 

The Raal did help. That fatigue however was after many hours of listening and at a pretty decent volume level. I don't want to paint an inaccurate picture of the NrT tweeters. I owned them for roughly 3 years and that was the first time my ears were bothered. The Raals were hard for me to like at first, but I have to admit that after a month + with them they really are more detailed yet less "in your face" and I am not sure how they accomplish that!

Bass has been wonderful with the S2. Really all the talk is about the custom Raal when the 2's are mentioned but that custom Sea's woofer may actually be as good or better in terms of how the speakers sounds overall. Have you had a chance to listen to them?

 

I have not had the opportunity to listen to the Ascend line, just read up on them after reading one of your previous posts. I regard Seas of Norway, to be among the premier speaker manufactures on the planet. Without ever hearing your Ascend's, I was very impressed as to their ability to hit 40Hz in such a small bookshelf cabinet. In comparing them to my Peachtree/Era D5's, I would term them D'5 on "steroids".

I thoroughly understand why you use them without a sub for critical listening as it is not an easy matter to set up a sub without adding bloated coloration. If you have something that that is really that well engineered, why muck it up with an unnecessary sub? The open E string on a bass guitar is just a bit over 40-CPS, you are definitely covered. My D5's go to down to 50-CPS, I use them in my bedroom with a 20-WPC Peachtree Music Box, with the addition of a small Martin Logan 75W 8"sub at a low volume, just to add that extra little bit on the bottom.

Just a note, while you Nova is rated at 85-WPC, Peachtree rates its power into a 6-ohm load (the D5's are 6-ohm), your Ascend's are 8-ohm speakers, so your Nova could deliver just under 65-WPC into the Ascend's.

I believe that your Ascend's could easily power a room 4-5 times the size of your listening space. It's not picking on the NrT's, but with 4-watts, your S2's would put out about 90dB at 2-meters, with room reflections. That would equate to a 2-hour sensible listening session. However, musical program material is not going to be 4-watts at a steady level, so we could go with a 4-hour maximum recommended listening level.

If your center octave band is 500-CPS, then you would want to decrease your exposure about 18% at 8-KHz. No fault to your NrT's.

On top of that, tweeters in real life are like lasers, with a lot of their energy beaming directly on axis right to your ears.

Your hearing fatigue was not unexpected. While I realize my next statement might account for audio blasphemy, after a few hours of listening, throw a small hand towel over the top of your speaker so that the front of the towel just covers your tweeter, your ears will thank you!

After an extended listening session (like you, I do prefer a bit of volume), when using the A7's as mains, I will unplug my JBL super tweeters, it makes my ears happy (they have twice the miles on them as yours). You'll want to look forward to a long audiophile road ahead, tires you can change out, ears, not so much...

 

No kidding? Not sure why, but 27" is more than the max that KEF recommends I the manual. 27" puts the tweeter at ear level when slouching in my room (which I usually am).

 

Give Noel at Skylan a call. He will make custom stands, be it the height, the top plate, the base or all three. Great guy to work with.

 

I take it you mean the speaker overhanging the top plate. You'd want as much of the speaker as possible on the top plate, but a little overhang is ok.

 

I certainly would not want the plate any bigger than the speaker base. Not that I've seen any that big, but.....

As long as it seems to give enough of a footprint to keep the speaker stable, that's all I'm looking for. And it better be fairly thick and hefty.

 

Thanks for that. I picked up some speakers yesterday and got some stands that were ex demo so I got them cheap. Nearly done my back in carrying them a few blocks to the car . There's quite a bit of overhang so I might take them back and exchange them.

 

I would not worry about overhang, unless you feel the stability is an issue.

 

I put some blutac under the speakers, the stands are very heavy so there's no issue with stability.

 

What are a good pair of stands for epos epic2's that don't cost as much as the speakers lol?

 

You should be fine then. I've always used blu tack with good results.

 

I use Solid Tech Stands and the extruded aluminum tubing is filled with black aquarium sand for weight and deadening. I do feel they make a discernible difference than with stands that are lighter materials and are not/cannot be filled. I also use blutac at each corner of the speaker between speaker bottom and stand top.

 

Speaker stands with really made a difference - as you can see from all the posts it's created....

The solution I'd suggest for anyone on a budget would be strong and sturdy stands for around the $120 mark (with as much mass as possible, so steel rather than aluminium) placed on 2" thick marble (off cuts from your local kitchen suppliers - from where they cut out a space for the washing basin - they'll chamfer the edges for you too if you ask nicely) in squares that allow the base of the stands to be moved around for toe-in etc without falling off... place four pea sized blobs of Blu-tac on the bottom four corners of your bookshelf speakers and press them firmly onto the stands (if you have the option of purchasing hollow stands within the budget you can fill them with silver sand to 'tune' the bass response)....

Second only to a quality budget speaker cable and interconnects for the source components - speaker stands will transform the performance of your system....

 

I use Sound Anchors. Like the Skylan company, they will make them in custom sizes. They are shipped fully assembled - all welded - and filled with some very fine black powder, not sand. They screw the stands to a sheet of plywood and put them in a box. Very high quality but not inexpensive.

 

The 2 most important things about stands,
getting the right tweeter height and "inertness".
I have or have had Sound Anchors, Sanus Ultimate Foundations and Skylan.
They are all very good with Sound Anchors the most expensive.
I think Skylan are the best bang for the buck plus what others have said is that Noel is a great guy and will custom configure what you want.
I would also look at accessories4less they have or at least used to have stands for really good prices.
Like anything it's a matter of balance.

 

Balance of account?

 

Yup
I wouldn't spend $900 on stands for $1500 speakers or any speakers for that matter.
But that's just me.

 

The good thing about a nice pair of stands is you can use them for your next upgrade. I originally bought Sound Anchors for my Paradigm MiniMonitors and then used them when I upgraded to JM Reynaud Twins. A good pair of stands will last you all your life.

 

I think I'm going to return the ones I got on the weekend and get a pair that are 150mm higher. The speakers are at the sides of my desk and the centre of the speaker comes up to my shoulder. Iv'e been testing my seating height and find when I'm at ear level with the speaker the sound is better (Probably an obvious thing but I've never used stands before) . Plus, the one's I'm looking at have better coverage for the speaker to sit on, the covering of these one's have been bothering me.

 

I'm about to to buy a pair of Wharfdale 10.2 and was thinking maybe I can just use my old McIntosh ML-1C floorstander speakers as speaker stands for the Wharfs. Can I just plop the bookshelf speakers on top of the floorstanding cabinets? Is this a good idea? I'm wondering if I need to worry about isolation.

 

As experimentation is free it is rarely a bad idea to try out. I'm not so sure what your concern might be as regards "isolation". When I said "Floor Standing Speakers make the best speaker stands" the point was that floor-standing speakers essentially incorporate the stand into the speaker's design. Thus, no additional furniture is needed.

 

It is madness! I have a mortgage!!!

 

That's the beauty of them.

 

Generally speaking, it's not a good idea. However, if the Mac speakers bring the Wharfdale tweeters exactly to ear height, are spiked and you add isolation between the base speaker and the monitor, I suppose it could work.