Raising Speakers

A while back there was a similar discussion here. I think the consensus was not to use granit but marble (rough unpolished side up). It was said that the granit 'rings'. You might want to search for it in the forums.

Agree with TWL: A very "slight" adjustment to the angle will raise/lower the image quite a bit. I even do this with stand mount speakers (adjust the stand spikes to raise the front a tad, which gives a more spacious sound in my setup).

Okay don't laugh.
I own a pair of Rev 3s myself. I love "em. But, I'm 6'4" and sit in a rather large rocking chair to listen. Here's what I've done. Four hockey pucks on the floor supporting a concrete paving block 12" square and about 2" thick. Not only Have I raised the Hales up, but the bass got tighter as well. And of course my investment in all that is small.
Good Luck

As usual, Twl and Dekay are right. However, I am not familiar with the Hales speakers (no web site either I guess) and there may be one caveat. If the speakers are designed with the bass slightly forward of the midrange which is slightly forward of the tweeter, they are already adjusted so the signals arrive in phase. By "slightly forward", I mean that the bass is physically closer to the listener than the midrange which is, in turn, physically closer than the tweeter). Tilting them may reduce the predesigned phase correction and may offset the sonic advantages of aiming them at your ears. If the front of the speakers are flat with the speakers equidistant to the listener, you may pick up two advantages by tilting so it is an additive benefit.

Simple enough to find out. Use some dimes, quarters and double stacked quarters under your front cones to see if it helps -- you may also "unscrew" the front cones for some more height (leave enough thread for a solid connection though). If that sounds good, play around with different cone sizes for a more solid connection. Don't forget that pucks can also be used to raise the speakers. They can sound quite good on carpet and will also offer more height (carpet + pad thickness plus puck thickness) -- probably 3/4" to one inch for the standard 1/2" thick puck. Good luck!

I also needed to raise my speakers (Thiel CS2.2's) in my previous listening room. For quite a while, I attempted to solve the problem by tilting the speakers as Twl suggests. However, whether actual or psychological, I became increasingly bothered by the sensation that I was now "looking down" into the soundstage, as if I was sitting in the balcony - a perspective that does not correctly apply to most of the music I listen to. Going ahead and raising the whole speaker off the floor flat (several inches in my case) proved much more satisfactory in the long run. (This was a slightly too small room in reality for these speakers, so the bass held up OK, but if I had been able to sit the ideal distance from the speakers, I wouldn't have needed to raise them this much; I actually wound up using small stepstools to accomplish the task.)

In my new room (where I can listen from the correct distance), if I decide to raise them just a little, I may turn to the Sound Anchors dedicated stands. These can be custom ordered for most floorstanders with dimensions provided, but Sound Anchors makes several standard models for popular speakers (including discontinued models such as my Thiels, but I'm not sure about the Hales). These stands mass-load the speaker's base, and provide a wider footprint for increased stability and rigidity, while raising the speakers a couple of inches at the same time. The research I did on these suggested that many users feel this product improves the sound; Thiel themselves liked the results, and offered the stands as a factory option, as do some other makers.