DIY speaker stands

[John_C]

I'm in the process of building some speaker stands, I'm fed up of having my monitors on desktops.

Design is roughly speaking a 16" square blockboard bass with a 6" square hollow column made of pine. The top plate will likely be made from mdf or chipboard, whatever i find lying around.

The question I have is should I fill them all the way up with sand? I'm worried this would make it less stable compared to say half filling it. However, half filling will leave a big cavity, would that be seriously detrimental to the performance of the stand?

 

[aortizjr]

Filling them with sand as far as I understand it is more of a HiFi speaker trick. I am not sure if that will translate well to studio speakers. Much of the HiFi trickery doesn't.

Most "studio" speaker stands seem to be single pole mounts or open. I think closed boxes are considered bad since they can potentially resonate. Filled with sand would deaden that. But having it wide open would also prevent the resonance and allow the air to flow right through.

But speakers would also resonate any desk or console, which is where most nearfield studio speakers tend to sit. Mid-fields are typically mounted into the wall to prevent any rear distortion.

Anyway the theory behind MoPads and similar products is to decouple the speakers from the stand.

Personally I wouldn't sweat it, just build them open. Flat base, two 1x4's, flat top. Then put MoPad's or something similar on there. Those could be a waste as well, but they are cheap enough.. that I will buy into their marketing....

With HiFi stuff the terminology always makes me raise an eyebrow. Ie. bigger lows, more highs, etc. vs. you want accurate and revealing with no enhancements when mixing. Some say better imaging too, but HiFi speakers are supposed to be more immersive and enhance the sound, not be accurate. So improving "imaging" could be detrimental to how the speakers were designed to sound. But in the HiFi world, I could be totally wrong and I couldn't hear the difference anyway since I am not using gold wire, my receiver isn't on spiked feet to keep the electron flow smooth, my power cable wasn't hand wired with a hand weaved cover made with silver and pvc frozen in liquid nitrogen to get the atoms to align.

Sorry HiFi guys. I just find it funny how many Audiophile's I know that spend tons of money in their "Systems" and then plugin their iPod's with MP3's off iTunes as their source

 

[Wolfeman]

Hey now, nothing wrong with a bit of Hi-Fi magic, so long as it doesn't break the bank(as most Hi-Fi voodoo does).

But yeah, the Hi-Fi way to do it would be to get as much mass under that speaker as possible. The studio way to do it would be to get it too 'float' off the ground as much as possible. Hence the thins stands, Mopads, Primalux or whatever its called, etc....

 

[006]

I am planning on building some monitor stands this Thursday. I haven't decided on what design, but it's one of these two styles:

PVC pipe filled with sand. Or....

Just basic wood construction, "open" style.

Obviously either would be built to meet the needs of my monitor's size and weight (BX8a). The first one is more expensive, takes more time to make, but I don't know if the pros (if any) of using that design are good enough to warrant the cost. That design I have sourced the materials and I think it will cost ~$50 or less to make a pair. Doing it the basic wood construction more like ~$30 or so. I really would like to know if it's worth doing the first way with the sand filled PVC. Whichever one I go with, I'll try to take pics of the process and maybe make a thread or something.

FWIW I think I recall Ermz talking about sand filled stands and them being good, etc.

 

[PhilR]

I have stands made from 3 lengths of PVC tube with MDF bases and plywood tops on adjustable spikes made from wood screws. Doesn't seem to be hurting the sound so far.

 

[John_C]

I remembered ermz saying good things about sand filled stands, as well as other chiming in on how good these (http://www.ultimatesupport.com/product/MS-36B2) are

having read their manual, they say fill anything between 50% and 100% with sand, so i guess it's not too important