Filling speaker Stands?

Whoa! What! Glubson finally blew a head gasket. Oh, well, that’s the way it goes sometimes. Of course he’s far under 60. He’s 15.

geoffkait,

Not blowing anything. Just reminding you of who you are. Know your limits. They are very low. Your contributions to any of these threads are virtually non-existent. Your random chatter is distracting people who would like to learn something here. Your manners are deplorable. I would like to find a positive thing to mention, but you are not giving any opportunity with your posts.

Thanks for the keen psychoanalysis, Mr. Clean Slate. Can I suggest a long cold shower? And maybe cut back a little bit on the Viagra.

Maybe if GK could be induced to inserting a phone receiver up his nether regions he could be teleported to a parallel universe where his Mickey Mouse compendium of physics actually work.

Mickey Mouse is a nice character with numerous virtues. He is also a fine gentleman who is, if I remember correctly, turning 90 this year. Which brings me back to elizabeth’s recommendation not to use lead because of toddlers. Has nothing to do with sound, but a lot to do with this thread. Unless you are sure you will never have a child visiting, do not do it.

Well....I am the OP of this thread. There have been many suggestions as to how to fill stands with small openings, what that fill should be, and to what level of fullness should be. I have learned a lot based on the experiences of many.My take on all of the responses......the only way to find the best solution for me is to try different approaches. Of course, filling speaker stands isn't as simple as trying other options such as just switching interconnect cables and the like.
The forums here often stray from the original question or comment of the original poster. I have read many posts that did so and, sometimes, I read something I didn't know that would be in there but provided valuable information for me.I know this audio hobby is VERY subjective. Everybody has different equipment, musical tastes, and EARS. That's what makes this so interesting. Criticizing others for their opinions may just be a bit outside of what the forums try to achieve.But, we're all human and want express ourselves in whatever manner.Thanks to all.

Very Well Said, OP!

jrpnde,

Thanks for this thread. It was informative to read different solutions and thoughts. Hopefully, you got your answer. Enjoy.

@glupson - My sincere apologies re Mickey, I should not have besmirched his impeccable gentlemanly  reputation by association with GK.

A fun and good tweak but take my advice and stuff a large plastic bag into the stands to hold the shot.. Believe me if a stand should fall over you won't like it..

I use sand in my Solid-Tech columns, and it does the job quite nicely, although it is for my component rack, not speaker bases.

jrpnde OP
Well....I am the OP of this thread. There have been many suggestions as to how to fill stands with small openings, what that fill should be, and to what level of fullness should be. I have learned a lot based on the experiences of many.My take on all of the responses......the only way to find the best solution for me is to try different approaches. Of course, filling speaker stands isn’t as simple as trying other options such as just switching interconnect cables and the like.

>>>>>Eggs ackley! Which is why you cannot AB the various possible solutions, at least not very easily. It’s not that easy to AB one, if you ask me. How can you be sure? People generally pick the one that seems like a good idea and don’t look back. Furthermore, dry sand acts as much as a damper as adding mass. It’s the same idea as the sand-filled iso stands of yore from Bright Star. In addition, like my, ah hem, new iso stand, glass microbeads are much more efficient in their isolating action than sand ever thought of being. It’s along the lines of why woodpeckers are able to withstand tremendous negative g forces without sustaining massive head wounds.

Plus, as I already opined, isolating the speakers would be the preferred solution anyway.

My suggestion is 2 pot expandable PU foam with Pebbles or/both light weight filler diatomaceous earth, micro spears rock wool mix ... https://www.homedepot.com/p/12-oz-Fill-and-Seal-Expanding-Foam-Sealant-2-Pack-217272/203459971 and https://boatcraft.com.au/Shop/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=37
By this way you have total control over weight density
https://www.compositesworld.com/articles/microspheres-fillers-filled-with-possibilities 

You need to dampen vibrations and that means more than just adding mass. Sorbothane is the only material I know of which actually converts the mechanical energy to heat, thereby getting it out of the system quickly. I recommend 1/4 inch self stick  sorb , of the densest form, 70 duro. Use small pieces of sorb eg. No more than 1 inch across and cover with 4 layers of electrical tape, so as to make this a constrained damping set-up. You can stick these all over your speaker, I place them on the front, and thus hide them with the grill. The effects are amazing. The big companies are only slowly moving this way. Search constrained damping and you will find a lot of speakers doing variations of this. Grado and Sennheiser are using similar damping on their phones, although with Senn it appears to be only with their top.models.

I use uncooked rice.  Your situation of a small opening will require that you find rice with a small grain size.   Advantages:  availability; low cost; moderate weight; non-toxic; non-magnetic; minimal settling and compression.   Rice provides some mass, along with excellent vibration dampening.

Use fine sand and tamp it down well.

Why? Deadens vibration and adds mass.

Lead has no advantages (and some setbacks). And... it can be toxic.

I also suggest decoupling the speakers from the stands. Sorbothane works, but you can even use four big globs of Blu-Tack (or museum putty, which is the same thing at 1/3 the price) near the corners.

This is perfect advice, though tamping down the sand is a bit extreme, especially if is dry. 

Thanks to all offering advice. Seems that everyone has had experiences with all types of fill as to fill material and level of fill. With my current stand configuration I only have 2 options for a fill material.....sand or rice (if the grain size is small enough). Only one 1/4" threaded hole for access. So the tamping down of sand really isn't possible. I do use Sorbothane on the top plate between between it and the speakers. When I purchased these Sanus stands (which weren't very expensive) I did not consider the option to improve performance by filling upright supports to subdue the ringing of those by tapping on them. Maybe, with my setup, it wouldn't make any noticeable improvement. Only after buying the stands did I read about the benefit of filling hollow spaces in all types of stands. Probably, different stands would have been a better option.Thanks to all for offering suggestions.

I suggest you do not use Sorbothane. I have found that it sucks the life out of some components and creates a muffled effect, plus it will leave a residue on the surfaces it comes in contact with. I recommend Herbie's fat dots for isolation between your speakers & the stands.

http://herbiesaudiolab.net/softdots.htm

Another option is cast steel shot if not willing to take precautions. [ dust mask, gloves although the one time exposure level is so low as to be inconsequential  ] Its density it about 75% of lead. Sand is barely 15%

Rice is probably not a good idea as it is organic and not very dense. Rice may damp, but is unlikely to eliminate tube resonance. It's density is half of sand.

Sorbothane has improved everything where used. One must get the right size and duro. As far as marking, who cares about the bottom of the speaker? Sorbothane creates a unit of the stand and loudspeaker. Other materials may not.

My X wife left me and all of her Valium. I used that in the stands to mellow out the sound. Worked as you might have imagined it would. 

soundsrealaudio.....been there. If I had enough valium to fill speaker stands my problem would be much larger than pursuing better sound. By the way...are valium pills smaller that small grain rice?I just want constructive advice.
Good luck with your problems.

Anytime you have a cavity you should have it filled.

Thought I would revive this thread with the weirdest experience I've had in this hobby. I had Atacama Nexus stands which were filled to the brim with Atabites. I experimented with 50% filled and then 75% filled which sounded better before settling on 100% filled because my bookshelf speakers are quite heavy (Dynaudio Contour 20). The Nexus stands were pretty wobbly so my thinking was that the more weight the better since it would be more stable. To be honest there was no difference in sound quality between 75% and 100% filled. I just filled it because there were spare atabites and I didn't want the stand to wobble. I enjoyed this combination (C20 on Nexus stands) for a little under a year, the sound was open, the bass was deep and rich.

Fast forward to 5 days ago and I copped a new pair Dynaudio Stand 6 stands as there was a discount to good to pass up with the local AD. Upon transferring the atabites from the Nexus stands to the new Dyn Stand 6 I realized that there weren't enough atabites because it was filled until halfway or 50% only and not the recommended 75%. The Dyn Stand 6 is more robust compared to the Atacama Nexus (its also 2 times the price which is why I didn't buy it in the first place (doh!)) and has a damping material sandwiched in between top and bottom plates and my first impressions were that it sounded okay at 50% filled but not as open sounding as the Atacama Nexus was with atabites filled to the brim.

So what was my solution? Buy more atabites! So I bought a tub and filled it up to the recommended 75% filled amount. Turned up the juice and my jaw dropped because it sounded horrible! Life was sucked out of the music, anxiety and worry washed over and I thought to myself what have I done? 

Did some quick research on overdamped stands and true enough someone from a Singapore hifi forum experienced the same thing with his Dyn stands and atabites. He ended up removing all of his atabites. 

The following day I removed half of the atabites and left about 1/4 filled in each stand and lo and behold, the C20's are singing again. They sound better than they ever were with the Nexus + 100% atabites filled combination.

The moral of this long and winding post is: what is recommended does not always translate to best results (granted Dynaudio website recommends filling up the stands to 75% with dry quartz sand and not atabites) and secondly, sometimes less is more. I hope this can help someone not make the same mistake as I did as he too will have a tub of inert silver pellets hidden under his couch.      

I posted on this very subject earlier today, describing how easy it is to be lulled into the state of mind that absorption or damping is always good. And how difficult or impossible it is to change course once one has started down that path. It’s what Acoustic Revive, a high end Japanese company, refers to in their literature as “over-dumping.” Pity the man who believed more is better and didn’t pay attention to the potential for over-dumping.

Sound Anchors damp their metal-tube stands with a foam-like substance, I believe. Great stands imo.