Stands for your Harbeths

[tricka]

Hi Jeff
thanks for the reply - you used a great analogy to explain your speaker choice. Or as we say here - "horses for courses".
It's interesting but I like you have heard many different speakers and alot are or have been more "audiophile" but very few give me the musicality of the Harbeth's...abit like revisiting ESL57's driven by a tube amp.
Aren't the Leben's great? A friend reported great things with his 99db Hornings and the CX300.
I recently decoupled with Auralex Gramma's - work well but hideously ugly. I'll try the puck tweak.
Cheers
Andrew

[Stephen PG]

I've made a start on some diy stands for my shl5s





Thanks to T.W. for the idea.

[Jmohd]

Hi Stephen PG,

How do you accurately mark-out and drill the holes?

[Stephen PG]

I use this dowel set from Bosch.

[T.W.]

I use this dowel set from Bosch.

A note: Drill into the end grain first - the drill will move! Mark each connection with tape and write a number on it. Then it doesn't matter if the holes are exactly on the right place, but the marked pair will fit.

I have recently build another lower pair for my M40s.

[Stephen PG]

A note: Drill into the end grain first - the drill will move! Mark each connection with tape and write a number on it. Then it doesn't matter if the holes are exactly on the right place, but the marked pair will fit.

I have recently build another lower pair for my M40s.

T.W.

Absolutely right, there is also another reason for drilling the end grain first; it's quite hard to see the marks left by the alignment tool in the grain!

As for the drill moving, I bet you weren't using one of these drill bits?

[David Schalkwyk]

There must be an answer to this in the forum somewhere, so forgive me for repeating the question. Can anyone tell me which Skylan stands to get for 1) the Compact 7 and 2) the HP3?

Thanks

David

[skylan]

Hi David,

The Compact -7. requires 20" (510) stands.

The P-3. requires 26" (660) stands.

Also,

HL-5. requires 18" (460) stands

M-40.1 requires around 14" (350) stands.

Height is with feet fitted.

Regards,
Noel.

[Stephen PG]

Finished, well sort of, as finished as these thing ever are!



I'll properly match the stands to the speakers when my own pair arrives.

I'm using some rubber "bump-stops" between the speaker and stand, which are too "squidgy" so the speakers don't feel solidly mounted on the stands, earlier in the thread T.W. mentioned these:

These bumpers are from my local Hifi dealer - 5? each. A mix of rubber and graphite.

But countless fruitless searches later and I've come up blank, if you happen to read this T.W., an internet address for the place you bought them would be very useful.

[T.W.]

But countless fruitless searches later and I've come up blank, if you happen to read this T.W., an internet address for the place you bought them would be very useful.

I bought it here:
http://www.uni-hifi-hannover.de
Go to "Kontakt" to see the contact information. I'm sure they speak english there.
If you have any trouble feel free to send me a private mail.

I use 8 bumpers per stand (top and bottom).
Note: This makes the stands about 4cm higher (2 x 2cm).

TW

[tmallin]

Hi David,

The Compact -7. requires 20" (510) stands.

The P-3. requires 26" (660) stands.

Also,

HL-5. requires 18" (460) stands

M-40.1 requires around 14" (350) stands.

Height is with feet fitted.

Regards,
Noel.

With my M40s, I have used stands from 11" to 24" in height. In my room, with my M40s and the room's strong bass standing waves, I've found that "higher is better" as long as you have a chair that can get your ears up high enough to be even with the tweeter. With the speakers higher, the bass evens out a bit and the overall presentation is bigger, more open, and more three-dimensional sounding. I have a Steelcase Leap chair with a pneumatic lift. With the chair at full-up extension, I can sit comfortably with my ears high enough to use a 24" stand.

I also have found that, with my concrete floor under the carpet of this room, extremely rigid stands spiked through the carpet down to the concrete do not perform as well as stands with a bit more "give." Greater rigidity just unnaturally etches the highs.

The best speaker stands I've found for the M40s--and I've used everything from plastic milk crates to wooden stools to Sound Anchor, Skylan, and custom-fabricated fiberglass and have experimented with various ways of interfacing the stand to the speakers and the floor--are a pair of Allison 24" counter stools with square wooden tops that are slightly smaller than the M40 footprint. I got these at Target for about $50 the pair. While this exact stool no longer seems to be available, something very similar looking is here:

http://www.barstools.com/counter-hei...toolsetof2.cfm

I use a single layer of terrycloth toweling as an interface between the bottom of the speakers and the top of the stool and let the stand legs sit atop the carpet. Given the weight of the speakers, the stand legs make impressions in the carpet, but there is still a small amount of "give" between the stand and the floor. And while the stand is quite sturdy, it is not the ultimate in rigidity. This arrangement is the best sounding I've heard with my M40s in this room.

[kukakunga]

I'd like to share some recent changes and results with you guys. I have SHL5's on solid cherry 4 post stands, each post is 4x4 inches and there is no platform on top. When I first got my Harbeths I put a thick tile on the stands to act as a base, the tile was applied to the stand with blu-tak and the speaker to the tile with blue tak as well. I've lived with this for over a year and the sound is very good. A few nights ago I decided to take the tile bases off the stands and mount the speakers directly onto the four post using some little plastic floor protectors with felts on them.
The difference in sound was quite apparent right away and the way it was apparent made sense to me. The Harbeth cabinet is made to dissipate considerable energy from its panels, one just has to walk around the speaker and touch it to realize this is a distinct feature of the design and one can really sense the immediacy this creates. I think the bottom panel being on a large, flat surface inhibits the way the speaker dissipates energy, or at least the effects of transfering that energy to another panel, the stand, is less predictable and could cause some response anomalies. The sound on the open stand now has more bass, more "wood" in the sound, better image, and seems to have more volume given the speaker is less damped, the speaker seems to breath better and has more life. So, to me, open frame stands seem to give the best performance based on my experience.

[John Geisen]

Is it possible to post a photo or drawing of this?

[Ron Herbster]

With my 40s and now with my 40.1s I have always used Skylan stands. After switching to the 40.1 I cut the posts to make an overall height of 14".
I also found that by using a towel between the speaker and stand muffled the sound and I have gotten excellent results by incorporating Star Sound devices in with my Skylans.
I am using the coupling discs on the floor and 4 2" threaded Audio Points for stand feet. I countersunk 3 brass thread inserts into the top of both stands, 2 in the front corners and 1 in the middle back and screwed in coupling discs to these inserts. The speakers are sitting on 3 .2AP.7D Audio Points which are resting on the coupling discs. The posts are filled with Star Sounds micro bearing steel fill.

[kukakunga]

I will post some pics of my system as soon as I can so you guys can get a look.

[skylan]

Comments from Moray James

Speaker stand mass loading alternative materials...

I was fortunate enough to be visiting Noel Nolan of Skylan stands several weeks ago and he was working on some alternate ideas for damping both speaker and rack columns. Noel has had numerous requests from customers looking for possible alternatives for sand and kitty litter used in mass loading/damping. We listened to a series of speaker stands the columns damped with a number of different weight high density open cell foam blocks. The blocks of foam are cut oversized and run the length of the Polymer column. Noel had devised a clever insertion device which wrapped the foam plug compressing it thus permitting the entire block of foam to be totally inserted into the column and the jig removed. This insured that the oversized foam block makes perfect smooth contact with the column walls. I actually tried to insert one of the large blocks of foam into a column by hand after suggesting that the jig was probably not necessary. Well after skinning my hand badly and not being able to get the foam placed even half way down the column I had to admit that Noel's clever jig was exactly what was required.

We auditioned the foam damped speaker stands against a reference set of Noel's stands and were both surprised as to the impact of the open cell foam. No the foam is not up to reference standard but when compared to the same stand with empty columns there was a noticeable improvement. Next we moved on to the foam inserted into Noel's MDF rack columns. Here was a big surprise because the improvement was more apparent than we had found with the Polymer columns. This turned out to be as a result to the stiffness of the MDF compared to the Polymer column material. After a few hours of listening we began to discuss possible alternates to sand and kitty litter for customers who have a difficult time locating either of these products. After a pint of Guinness the idea of Rice as a mass loading material came up. Off we went to the food store and bought a 20 Kg bag of discount rice. Turns out that the 20 Kg bag was perfect to fill all eight columns of the stands holding up Noel's Harbeth HL5's. The result was vastly superior to the foam damped stands and surprisingly good compared to the reference sand damped stands which include specially damped tops and bases.

While the rice filled stands are not quite as efficient in terms of damping as is sand fill Noel was aware that many Harbeth owners find that full column sand damping makes for just a bit too much bass energy. Half filling is a pain to do and this is exactly what prompted Noel to recommend filling the stands with kitty litter. After some time though many found that even filling half way with kitty litter there was still a bit too much bass energy. So it was we next compared a set of four post stands, one set half filled with kitty litter and the other entirely filled with rice. This was an interesting comparison as the rice filled stands sounded clearer and cleaner with more controlled and articulate bass than that obtained with the half filled kitty liter stands. The rice stands actually weighed more than the kitty litter stands. While the rice is not as effective in damping due to particle friction (compared to either kitty litter or sand) the added volume results in increased mass which worked out to be an almost perfect combination. The especially nice part of all this is that the rice (we uses long grain just incase you were wondering) is inexpensive and easy to obtain all over the world at any food store. Combine the fact that you don't have to pre measure anything as with half filling with sand or kitty litter you just buy a 20 Kg bag of rice and fill all four columns up to the top and you are done. The rice is especially easy and clean to work with and there is no surface scratches as can happen with sand plus any spillage is picked up a jiffy.

Stand / Speaker interface experiments...

Fast forward to today, after allowing the rice in the test stands to fully settle into place for a few weeks we decided to experiment with speaker / stand interfaces. The Skylan stand comes fitted with Polyurethane tabs (four small disks, one at each corner of the stand top plate). The magnetic disks are about a centimeter in diameter and approximately 3 mm thick, just high enough to clear the Polyurethane pads. We listened to a selection of tracks of various kinds of music with the speakers seated upon the stock Polyurethane tabs. This was our reference sound. Next we placed the loudspeakers (Noel's Harbeth HL5's) up on three small ceramic disk magnets. The choice of material here was for several reasons, the small ceramic disk magnets are easy to find (most folks need only look on the fridge door) and also because they are very hard, being a sintered ceramic material. We placed a layer of electricians PVC tape on each side of the magnet disks to provide a small compression interface between the cabinet and the stand surface (Scotch tape would likely do as well). The three disks were positioned with two at the front corners of the stand top plate and the third disk in the centre of the rear of the stand top plate. This results in a tripod configuration and is very stable but more importantly results in a significant increase in the mass per disk that would otherwise be obtained using four disks.

The result was an immediate improvement in bass weight and control along with improved focus of sound stage. Voices and instruments now had a clearer place within the sound stage. We next moved the two front magnet disks to the top of the metal threaded inserts (the ones the column rods screw into) on the top plate and left the central disk at the rear of the top plate as before. The idea here was to increase the hard coupling of the speaker to the stand (top plate, coupling rod, base plate, spikes and floor). Placing the magnetic disks onto the column rod inserts couples more energy to the stand via the threaded rod. This also couples more energy into the column damping material. This position resulted in further improvements in bass articulation as well as dynamics. Spatial cues were clearer and the sound stage opened up even further than was noticed with the previous disk position. As with all things your personal taste, likes and dislikes will come into play. I think that you may find experimenting with these ideas could result in enhancing the level of your listening enjoyment. I hope that this posting has been of interest and use. Best regards Moray James.

[garmtz]

Great post! In my experiments, using cones with the point down directly onto the stand and using the one cone at the front, not at the back (most energy is in the front and coupling through a single point is more effective), proves very effective, especially in making the sound less 'heavy'/slow and more transparent.

[Hagto]

Anyone who knows the stands used here?

[jim123]

Those stands are "Guizu" stands from China.

http://www.guizu.com.cn/production/c...atid=7&prid=64

[Hagto]

Those stands are "Guizu" stands from China.

http://www.guizu.com.cn/production/c...atid=7&prid=64

Thank You very much!