Your thoughts on speaker stands

Generally speaking my advice is to go with light but rigid stands if you have "springy" floors such as wood or heavy rigid stands if you have more secure floors such as cement of plaster. I would use spikes to couple to the floor in both cases. I also prefer one piece welded stands to the cheaper modular models. One exception to this may be Coincident speakers which are tuned to the speaker cabinet resonance as opposed to damping the crap out of the cabinet. I don't know if they are different, but it would seem that you would not want to over damp them because of their design. Using Pods (or cones) as Sam mentions can make a huge difference and it just depends on what type of sound you are looking for. I use tack right now, but have used both Pods and cones in the past as well as both types of speaker stands noted above. On the plaster based floor in the living room I am currently using Target HR70 (28") stands with sand (I tried lead and sand and did not care for the sound). Sand alone in my situation sounds smoother and more natural. I use a small accurate bubble level for the initial setup and then fine tune by extending a straight rod along the top of the speaker and then measuring the distance from it's tip to the floor. This seems to match the speakers quite well (especially when the listening position is out into the room) and it is simple to do. Others may disagree with part of what I have to say, but this is what has worked best for me in the past.

The most rigid stands that i have seen are manufactured by Solidsteel. They are a tripod design and actually quite attractive. Check them out. I think they will adequately address many of your concerns.

The most important attribute of a stand is its height. Most of the time, but not always, you need to get the tweeter to ear level. I still have an email I received from the designer of some very good speakers who told me the only function of a stand if to get the speakers off the floor and the tweeter up to ear level. Some speakers are better tilted backward a little so Im not sure what a level would do for you in that situation.

I think if you have a speaker with a well braced rigid relatively non-resonant cabinet, then weight and rigidity are important, even on a light floor. Cinder blocks work well. With a lossy box design, weight and rigidity are pointless. Wood stands are fine.

I have lossy box speakers and use metal stands filled with unscented kitty litter for one set and the matching wood stands filled the same with the other.

With metal stands, after height, damping the stand's own ringing comes next. Kitty litter works fine.

Paul: What is a "lossy" box? I forgot about the Kitty Litter thing and will try it out on the "light" stands that I use in the bedroom. Also, yes both of my speakers sound better angled very slightly up (more spacious). This is what I use the rod and measurment for (to set the angel even on each speaker).

"angle"