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speaker stands--general considerations

Of the myriad audiophile topics that come up here, I haven't noticed any real discussion recently of speaker stands.  What gives?  Does everyone own floorstanders?

I mean, there's plenty of room for disagreement, errr, discussion.  Optimal height?  Material of manufacture: metal (which), wood, other?  Single material or mix?  Design: single upright, multiple uprights, open top or top plate?  Over-engineered and heavy, or minimalistic and light-weight?  Interface between the monitor and the stand: high-tech gizmo, cork, nothing at all, Blu-tack, other?  Mass loading--yes or no?  If yes, kiln-dried sand or kitty litter, or lead buckshot?  Brands?  Best?  Best bang for the buck?
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Showing 2 responses by ctsooner

ctsooner
2,480 posts
 
Call ME crazy, but why buy a stand mounted speaker that takes up a footprint and needs to be further out in the room that a properly designed floor stander?  I've always felt this way.  Vandersteen started the baffleless floor stander in his model 2 as all speaker were using large baffles.  Now days, we have plenty of great choices at all price levels that are able to get a floor standing speaker to do on top what the stand mounted speaker does, PLUS they are much more full range or close enough.

My wife even said she loved the look of my Treo's (now Quatro's) than the monitors she saw with me.  JMHO...
ctsooner
2,480 posts
 
Guys, I have to disagree with some of what you are saying IRT floor standing speakers.  I own Vandersteen's and the Treo on up have been designed to be placed close to the back wall and still give you a great stage etc...  I have Quatro's with the 11 band bass EQ, so I just dial in the bass to be smooth in my room.  It works exceptionally well and my wife loves how the speaker look in the room.  

I don't miss anything as I've had then into the room, but put them back as I'm not losing anything putting up close to the wall.  I'd must rather have what I have than miss the lower octaves.  

If you need to install a sub into the system, that means two in order to do bass properly and it's very difficult to integrate a sub into most system, plus that takes up way more space than a floor stander that was designed to be coherent from the lower octaves up. 

Many folks just think a stand mounted speaker does things that the floor stander can't, but that was in the past, not the present.  
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