Homemade Speaker Stands

Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 5:30 pm

If i were to make my own speaker stands, what kind of wood would you recommend?

thanks

Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 6:59 pm

Concrete?

Not being a smart-ass... well yeah I am, but in a serious way...

If you're looking for mass, walnut or iron wood.

If you really wanna go "whole-hog", build a plywood or mdf frame, fill it solid with concrete. Be sure to vibrate it with something like a sander, to get all the air bubbles out. Let it sit for a couple of weeks to set for hardness...

Then you cover the plywood with walnut veneer.

Max

Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 5:26 am

You can also use lead shot or sand to fill them.

The main thing you want to do is to damp out any resonances.

We built a pair of speaker stands out of steel and then filled them with sand. They worked great and the person that did the welding did a beautiful job. The total cost for the steel and the welding was well under $100 each. We no longer use the stands and I gave them to a friend for his studio and he is still using them. I have seen stands made out of wood, metal and plastics or a combination of all of them.

Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 11:10 am

saw a post somewhere a while back with instructions for making highly effetive monitor stands out of pvc pipe filled with sand. anyone else read this or remember where i saw it?
-matt

Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 11:23 am

PVC stands are nice and easy to make. All you need is a 3" of 4" DWV pipe, and two toilet flanges, a couple sheets of wood about 1' x 1', and some wood screws. Screw the wood sheets to the toilet flanges to make the top and bottom, stick the pipe in the bottom flange, fill, and cap it off with the top flange. I have a pair that are filled with lead and covered with a nice black fabric. Very nice and very cheap stands.

Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 12:58 pm

wont sand vibrate? or rattle?

Is there anything wrong with just building some out of wood only? I also intend to use those Auralex isolator pads under the monitors, if that makes any difference to the stand itself.

Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 2:24 pm

Quote:

wont sand vibrate? or rattle?

No. It settles. Gravity does it's work, anchoring it to the floor. It "couples" it to the floor. When sand settles...and has nowhere else to drain, it becomes very compressed. Sand (along with gravel) is used under the foundations of buildings! And sand is cheap. And the weight helps it from tipping over.

I personaly would not use "isolators". I try to couple the stands to the floor, and couple the speakers to the stand. You want the full energy of the speaker cone pushing air away from the speaker cabinet.
For an extreme example of why...imagine a speaker suspended by strings...better yet, imagine a handgun suspended from strings, and it automaticly fires..pow! ...force of the bullet pushes the gun back, resulting in an inaccurate shot and a slower bullet.
Now imagine that gun anchored to a concrete pedestal. When fired, it will have better aim, ant travel farther....the energy is not transferred back to the gun housing, it's all bullet.
That was extreme. But when "shooting" Wink

for speaker accuracy, and the necessary subtlies involved, you want the speaker driver to have as much control over what it wants to do, therefore, an im-mobile cabinet, coupled to a heavy base, coupled on a heavy floor.

=RR=

Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 2:59 pm

Exactly, RR.

Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 8:23 pm

I needed a couple of pieces to isolate my monitors from my desk. I found a pair of trapezoid shaped wall sconces at Lowes for $16. They are 6"X4"X4" tall...perfect for my needs. Hollow inside, the bottom (which would be against the wall if used as intended) was open. I filled with sand, put a piece of 1/4" plywood on the bottom, caulked to prevent sand leaks, and put those little silicon bumpers at all four corners top and bottom. So, my monitors sit on four silicon bumpers, on a box of sand, on four more bumpers, before touching the desk. For about $20 total, I liked this better than Mopads or something. If I get bigger monitors eventually, I can get another pair of these, and put two under each. Just got to look around and be creative I think.

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