Putting weights on speakers?

Speaking of cabinet resonances and vibrations. I have never put weights on any of my audio equipment.  Reading many years ago that if you can balance a nickel on edge on top of your speakers and play at very loud volumes and not have the nickel move, you're good.  So, of course, I tried it, much to my surprise the nickles never moved.  That's with 24" woofers and 1.1kw of ARC power going to the woofers in a tri-amp system. Left the nickels there for weeks and finally got tired of looking at them. Try it, let me know. Regards, Barts

Mass loading can affect/improve cabinet resonance issues but is not a one size fits all path as it can affect resonant frequencies and will respond differently for different speakers depending on the many design choices made by the designer.
One loading option I have found to improve focus, bass and stability of my speakers is the use of heavy Sound Anchor stands, which they can make for any speaker. Another consideration for more decor-friendly weights are the brass weights from edenSound. Many believe the resonance of brass is musical, and many like the look of brass. However, Dan at edenSound can also make his brass weights in a black finish, like the four black fat boy weights he recently finished for me.

I am trying to adapt this from work.  We used electric motors and bolted them to a concrete base.  The mass of the base was 3-5X the mass of the motor.  The same would hold true for a driver and the enclosure.  If the speaker cabinet is vibrating then that is the resonant frequency.  An accelerometer placed on the cabinet would also tell you what that frequency is.  Another way is to hit the cabinet with a rubber mallet while the accelerometer is attached.  If weight is added to a certain portion of the speaker enclosure that would help but would not solve the resonant frequency for the entire cabinet, I don't think.  It got more complicated with motors if they were mounted on springs, which I think is what you have with a speaker driver.  But in general weight is good, unless you want to move them.

For ~$30:
Reverse some (just longer than speaker to ceiling measure) bar clamps to spread mode. Attach some wood pads to spread out the pressure to the ceiling. Apply fo.Q tape to the pads. It is then easy to apply hundreds pounds of pressure to the speaker assemblies.. AND to remove them if you want soup tonight.
If you have high ceilings live without.

A few months ago I put together a small, simple system while away from home and my TAD Cr-1’s.

The speakers I chose were the LSA statement 10’s from Underwood, which very recently TAS have a great review. I paired them with a Hegel h190 and an old furman power conditioner.

Since the rather small speakers are only 25lbs, I decided to try placing some 8lb neooprene covered hand weights on top.

While the difference isn’t night and day, with the weights on, I get the sense of really listening to a “high end” speaker. Sure I could site a slightly better disappearing sense of the speaker as well as slightly better imaging, but it’s mostly an intangible sense. I wish Steve Stone had listened to the speakers with weights- his review might have been even more glowing.

I especially think with light speakers There is a larger possible improvement (and also 8lbs is almost a third of added mass to 25lb speaker).

I haven’t tried adding weight to my tad’s which are about 130lbs with the attached stands.