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In Reply to: Wow! posted by John K on August 05, 2001 at 06:51:56:
John: If you like the sound of your stands the way that they are setup and will be moving to a place with "like" floors, you may just want to leave them intact, wrap them in something (in order to protect the finish) and have someone help you move them. Removing the shot from my stands took days (due to the small opening) and I used tiny kitchen skewers to keep the material flowing. Removing the sand and shot mixture was even more difficult for some reason. I have plaster sub floors in the living room where I listen to the "fave" system and all lead shot had a "hard" sound to it that I did not care for, sand and shot sounded very weird and created peaks and valleys in the response not unlike that of placing cones under equipment, but there was no easy method of tuning it (as I did not have the energy or patience to try different ratios and placement of the two materials). I have a friend with cement slab floors and tile who uses all shot and it sounds very good in his particular setup and I feel that the right choice depends on the floor construction itself as well as the rest of the system and you personal taste. Generally it seems that very solid floors do well with massive (heavy) spiked stands and that less solid floors do better with more lightly filled stands (also bottom spiked). However there are certain speaker (cabinet) designs that will blow this theory all to hell, such as the Coincident models that allow a great deal of cabinet vibration in the design (this construction has a name, but I keep forgetting what it is). These are not my original thoughts, but are theories that I picked up from researching this subject both here and in the A'Gon forums and being off work and at home the past year and a half, decided to run through them in order to improve my setup (cheap tweaks that require quite a bit of time and patience). I had forgotten about the Kitty Litter fill (mentioned in this thread) and will probably try it next in the cheap Anaconda stands that we use in the spare bed/computer room (which has a plywood floor with carpet). I also use a Studio Tech equipment rack with Neuance shelving (which I have yet to fill). It is isolated in a hallway closet and receives very little air born vibration (so no ringing), but I need to experiment with "light" fills on it, though it sounds very good as is. I had the Studio Tech rack (which is a bolt together model with upturned spikes for each shelf) mig welded into a one piece frame by my auto mechanic (he did not even charge me). This is something that can also be done to cheaper bolt together speaker stands as well (depending on the metal used) by anyone who has access to a mig welder. I did not bother to repaint it as it is installed in a closet, but this would be the final touch for speaker stands receiving this treatment as the welding does muck up the finish. One piece racks and stands are generally much more expensive than bolt together models and the welding only takes 5 minutes or so and significantly improves the transfer of vibration.
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Thanks for the detailed response. You display the kind of thoughtfullness and tenacity to system problems that I wish I put toward mine.Looks like there are no simple answers to resonance issues. If I recall the hole in my stands is about an inch in diameter, so I'm thinking the shot should drain out relatively easily. However, I am moving the stands to a similar type floor. Since the outcome of differnet filling appears uncertain I think what I'll do, following your suggestion, is see if I can move the stands without killing myself.
It should not be too difficult with such a large opening, but then you will have the hassle of handling and dealing with the lead itself and I doubt that the stands themselves add that much weight. I used to move the lighter Anaconda stands quite a bit (toe them in for late night listening in the near field), but rarely do this to the heavy Target stands (even though they are only filled with Silica). Just be sure to remove the bottom spikes before transporting them and good luck with the move.
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