What's with the short speaker stands?

I think I'm with you Branislav. Just seems less than ideal when image height is below your ears, like you're above the stage...I'm more inclined to be looking slightly up at the performers, rather than down.

With most floorstanders it may be economics...shorter speakers = less wood = lower cost. Like they think most people will not think that through before they buy or will not care all that much maybe, I dunno.

The ubiquitous short stands also seem to be more in line with that whole 'lifestyle/unobtrusive/WAF-friendly' kind of thing, too. But you can always get higher stands and make the change, with the smallish floorstanders it's harder.

Mapman,

"It all depends. Sometimes it turns out worthwhile to go outside the box, especially in more challenging or atypical rooms accordingly".

Agreed, as your own experiences no doubt show and it does indeed depend on an array of factors, but I'm just saying that sometimes that box you find yourself having to go outside of can, on occasion, come to include the one the stand-mount speaker makers can put you in, as I think the OP is suggesting. But, of course, like you might suggest, it may not always be as simple a solution as just raising the stands and further experimenting with things like vertical tilt or toe-in vs speaker height may be needed for a given, unique set of dispersion characteristics in a given, unique room...with your ears always having the final say, naturally.

Cheers!

Branislav,

My advice is that you can buy your favored monitors and experiment for as long as needed after break-in with any makeshift or temporary means of support and placement for the speakers until you arrive at an ideal height vs (whatever) for your room. Then you can look among those stand manufacturers that can custom make to your dimensions.

For that purpose I chose GWiz Products which, despite the impression of the name, delivered to me an excellent quality, solid wood product at a fair price. Their website lets you enter your dimensions and it calculates your cost instantly, very cool in my view. A variety of styles and finishes. There are other such companies you can Google.