Advice on Design & Build of Hifi Speaker Stands

[Finnian Dawson]

Hello All,

I am coming close to finishing a hifi rack (as shown in below rough sketchup model). This rack is made from American White Oak, dowel joinery, and finished with Danish Oil and a finishing wax. I will post photos of the finished product soon.

rack.JPG

I now wish to kick-off the design of a pair of speaker stands to add to my setup. They will support bookshelf style speakers which are very similar to the following (Rosewood colour):


Dynaudio-Focus-140-Rosewood.jpg
Any ideas, tips, hints or opinions?


Thanks!
Finnian

[Carl Beckett]

I helped a friend build a couple some time ago. They were very simple: A flat base (we put small blocks on each corner as feet to help stability on uneven floors). Then a tapered square column which was just but joined together (we didnt try to miter or anything fancy). Then the top was a flat board (bottom edge tapered to thin it out a little) at a slight angle to aim the speakers slightly 'up', with a hole in the middle so the wire could be routed through the hollow column.

Very simple to make, and they looked great (we used cherry). He filled some socks with sand (plastic bag inside a sock), and put these inside the column to give some weight to it all. Then I think eventually he put the speakers down with small round velcro stickons.

[Huck Schwee]

Make sure you add a lot of weight to it. From an audio standpoint, that is going to be one of the most important aspects of this build. From a woodworking standpoint, it needs to be pretty

[Eric DeSilva]

I personally am in favor of very rigid, very heavy speaker stands spiked to the floor. Everyone can be their own judge, but I've heard my speakers on lousy stands and on good stands, and the difference is not subtle. In this context, good stands means heavy and spiked. The stands I personally use each have four square steel tubes with 1/8" walls that are welded to 1/4" top and bottom plates. They are spiked to the floor, the speakers are blu-tacked to the stands, and there are four holes in the top plate allowing the hollow columns to be filled with dry playground sand. Each weighs on the order of 125 lbs; the speakers add probably another 25.

Were I building stands myself and limiting myself to wood, I would first consider the feasibility of creating a column that essentially matched the speaker and made the speaker look, for all intents and purposes, like a floorstander. I'm guessing building a rosewood veneer column and matching the finish of your speakers might not be the easiest project, however. In the absence of doing that, I might think about a column that was maybe 75% of the footprint of the speaker, with a top and bottom plate, arranged so that I could put something in it to increase the weight of the stand--sand or lead or something else nonresonant. I would probably use some threaded inserts to spike it to the floor. I would design it so that the tweeters were level with my ears when I'm where I would typically be to listen to the system. Since matching the rosewood might be difficult, I might opt to ebonize the column, or use something like india ink to make it black.

[Pat Barry]

Back to the spike idea, Eric, how much power are you pumping thru your speakers anyway? Peak / RMS? Are you spiking all your speakers, I mean sub, main, surround, center channel, etc.? Is that for everyday listening or special circumstances like Frankenstein, 1812 Overture or When the Levee Breaks?

[Eric DeSilva]

My "serious" stereos are all comprised of two speakers each, no subs, no multi-channel; most of what I listen to was recorded as two-channel, and I find electronic processing and a multiplicity of speakers detracts from my experience rather than adding to it. While I'd guess I've got about 1 KW per channel feeding the speakers in smaller set up, the "big" rig only has 100 W per channel feeding my floor standing speakers (although they are vertically bi-amped, so there is 100 W for each of the high and low drivers). Everything is RMS; to the extent that power ratings are relevant to anything in high end audio, which is questionable, peak power ratings are silly. The particular brand of speakers I like--Proacs--tend to be a difficult load to drive (the impedance of the little ones dips as low as 2 ohms), which means they like an amp with a lot of stored energy--either big solid state or tube amplification. Don't get the wrong impression though--part of the reason that there is 1 KW driving the little guys is that I happened to have a pair of ARC D240s sitting around, and they were already bridged to mono. Both sets of speakers are spiked at the manufacturer's recommendation. I do not tend to listen at particularly high volumes, although I will note that a lot of the perception of "loud" has to do with the level of distortion--my stereo can be generating more dBs SPL than others, but most folks won't perceive it as being louder because there is less distortion.

Before someone tells me "you just haven't heard a good multichannel system," I had a home theater rig once (Theta digital gear, ARC amps, Martin Logan speakers) that was meticulously set up and calibrated, but I learned I don't really care that much about video. Even then, the fronts and surrounds were spiked at the manufacturer's recommendation (the center wasn't equipped for spikes). Most of the other speakers I've owned over the years, with the exception of some Infinity Kappa 8s, were sold with the manufacturer recommending spikes or high quality stands that used spikes. Whether you spike mid-fi speakers or not is probably irrelevant given all the other sonic compromises that go into Sony or Yamaha or Bose or whatever. But once you get into the realm of high end audio, you won't find any speakers that don't come with spikes or with the recommendation of stands that should be spiked. But, at the end of the day, you ought to trust your ears. I've heard my speakers on good stands and without good stands and the difference isn't subtle. If you can't hear a difference, then you don't need 'em. Simple.

[Finnian Dawson]

My "serious" stereos are all comprised of two speakers each, no subs, no multi-channel; most of what I listen to was recorded as two-channel, and I find electronic processing and a multiplicity of speakers detracts from my experience rather than adding to it. While I'd guess I've got about 1 KW per channel feeding the speakers in smaller set up, the "big" rig only has 100 W per channel feeding my floor standing speakers (although they are vertically bi-amped, so there is 100 W for each of the high and low drivers). Everything is RMS; to the extent that power ratings are relevant to anything in high end audio, which is questionable, peak power ratings are silly. The particular brand of speakers I like--Proacs--tend to be a difficult load to drive (the impedance of the little ones dips as low as 2 ohms), which means they like an amp with a lot of stored energy--either big solid state or tube amplification. Don't get the wrong impression though--part of the reason that there is 1 KW driving the little guys is that I happened to have a pair of ARC D240s sitting around, and they were already bridged to mono. Both sets of speakers are spiked at the manufacturer's recommendation. I do not tend to listen at particularly high volumes, although I will note that a lot of the perception of "loud" has to do with the level of distortion--my stereo can be generating more dBs SPL than others, but most folks won't perceive it as being louder because there is less distortion.

Before someone tells me "you just haven't heard a good multichannel system," I had a home theater rig once (Theta digital gear, ARC amps, Martin Logan speakers) that was meticulously set up and calibrated, but I learned I don't really care that much about video. Even then, the fronts and surrounds were spiked at the manufacturer's recommendation (the center wasn't equipped for spikes). Most of the other speakers I've owned over the years, with the exception of some Infinity Kappa 8s, were sold with the manufacturer recommending spikes or high quality stands that used spikes. Whether you spike mid-fi speakers or not is probably irrelevant given all the other sonic compromises that go into Sony or Yamaha or Bose or whatever. But once you get into the realm of high end audio, you won't find any speakers that don't come with spikes or with the recommendation of stands that should be spiked. But, at the end of the day, you ought to trust your ears. I've heard my speakers on good stands and without good stands and the difference isn't subtle. If you can't hear a difference, then you don't need 'em. Simple.

I will be using spikes too. Will most probably use beech for the build, and dowel the complete structure, with sand inside - will fill the columns as suggested by Carl earlier -

[brian c miller]

This isn't really sexy but I've used a chunk of PVC pipe filles with lead / sand and wooden caps. The whole thing is sandwiched together with some threaded rod. I used oak for the ends and just painted to tube flat black.

Here's some more detail.

http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/stubby_e.html


BCM

[Mark Burnette]

^^ Just what I was going to suggest. I made a set for my mother that had walnut top & bottom with 4" flat black painted PVC column. I used a circle-cutting trammel on the router to plow the groove. The threaded rod went into a T-nut in the base and a coupler nut at the top, just below the top plate. I did this so I could use a counter-sunk normal bolt to attach the top & get everything as aligned and tight as I wanted, rather than as dictated by 2 T-nuts.

Options: 4" square PVC fence post covers. Wrap column in flex veneer, fabric, leather, rope lights--whatever floats your boat

I noticed this week that Home Depot carries 2-foot lengths of 6" PVC sewer extensions (about $15). Now that would be a beefy column if filled with sand or lead!

[Eric DeSilva]

How does paint on PVC hold up?

[Ben Hatcher]

My experience with painted PVC is that it holds paint better than wood.