Building stands for Harbeth 40.2's

haven’t checked in for a few days on this thread, lotsa new comments

my 2 cents owning or having owned multiple sets 40’s, super 5’s and c7’s over the years ... with pretty much all available makes of stands under one set or another --

1) the tontragers are pretty light gauge (surprisingly light, as i experienced them) wood compared to the resonant woods ones which uses a much denser hardwood, you can pick up a tt stand for the mon 40 with one hand and toss it across the room with minimal effort -- i also didn’t care for the small extended top posts of the tt’s with the massive 40’s as i felt the coupling is somewhat tenuous even with some blue-tack or equivalent, and especially so when moving or initially positioning the speaker...

2) tontragers also do not have threading for spikes or casters in their feet - they are meant to go on solid flooring or onto a ceramic slab if the floor is soft - i did not like that, as my listening room is carpeted... in fact i especially like my resonant woods model as it has properly threaded legs and in them i put threaded locking casters so as to be able to easily move and position the speakers as needed

3) resonant woods offers different styles of stands, some have the ’artful’ curved legs and others are more vertical and less ’styled’ - mine have just plain vertical posts, and in a dark finish under the tiger ebony speakers they are unobtrusive

4) i have also used media filled skylans, there are quite nice, made with medium weight composite wood -- as well as sound anchors (i really like them for their solidity but they are massively heavy to move)... have also used top of line target mr stands which are also metal, slightly lighter than the sound anchors but very well made -- the skylans are the only ones of all i have used that give you a fully solid platform on which the speaker is placed, so does not allow the bottom panel of the speaker to ’resonate’ in some open air as some purists feel is important (in my experience this aspect is insignificant sonically with any of the harbeth models i have had)

Yogi or Whipsaw- should I use some form of protection on the top of the extended tenon ? I don't want to damage the bottom of the speaker.

Maybe some form of protective coating or thin rubber top ?

I used nothing, and there were no marks on the relatively light Maple finish 30/1 when i sold them.

I'm having a pair made...probably ordering tomorrow.

I'm doing the extended tenons on top...but the bottoms we'll be flat with heavy duty spikes. I have a thicker rug that they will sit on.

I'm also going to build them out of Tiger Maple which will match my audio stand.

Thanks for all the input.

@krelldog

I understand why you may want to sub-in spikes for placement on a carpet or rug .

FWIW, the bottom tenons serve as replacements for spikes. The TT manual recommends that you place their stands on a slate platform (or equivalent material)

The resonant woods have round rubber pads separating the speaker from the base  - never compared them to TT I just took my dealers word that they were as good and less expensive - he could have sold me anything really cause I trust him.