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Raising Speakers

Experimentation has made it clear that my listening position is too high. Not wanting to cut the legs off my couch leaves the alternative of raising the speakers.

The speakers are sealed cabinet floor standers (Hales Revelation Three; dimensions are 11"x14.5"x40") and the lift needs to be ~2-3 inches, stable and preferably not impinge on the decor too much. The floor is padded wall-to-wall carpet over a concrete slab. Thinking it through there seems to be two basic options.

One possibility is using taller spikes/cones. Currently the stock 1.5" tall brass ones are installed. Is there such a thing as 4.5" spikes? If so, any idea what effect would a larger mass spike would have on the sound?

Using a platform made of either wood (probably maple) or granite is also an option. Comments on the qualities these materials might have on the sound would be appreciated. Also, would it be useful to spike the platform to the floor? How about spikes between the speaker and the platform (or not)?

I'm always willing to try something new, but hope to narrow things down somewhat before investing in potential solutions. As always, thanks in advance for the input.
fpeel
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
...i also have a low-standing speakers and i realy was trying to make different experiments but my possibilities are realy limited. currently they stand on the wide black thick 1 and 3/4" plexi-glass platforms firmly screwed to the bottom so my little boy will not be able to push them. This platform is placed on five #4 vibrapods and speakers are loaded with 50lB of the lead shots inside each load compartment. Thus the speakers are lifted by almost two inches. First I was thinking to screw the speakers to the floor but than I changed my mind and decided to arrange the platforms. Arround the ball feet on which speakers are standing I placed self-adhesive felt stripes that I bought in local car-wash.
The speaker screw-down mounting is complicated and made of the custom parts which are a pair of circular boards with screw-down 2" holes and eight holes for the thin screws with flat hat. One of such board is screwed onto the plexiglass platform and the other is to the bottom-center of the speaker and 2" thick bolt is screwed between them. To make a firm contact I simply rotate a speaker clockwise with its ball feet and there it stays firmly on the platform and isolated from the hardwood floor at the same time!
I had even a chance to compare the firmly screwed speaker against free-standing and simply standing with no platform and vibra-pods and realized that this construction is realy a great tweak to child-proof, sonics and listening position at the same time.
alcides
44 posts
 
cinder blocks work great. They are cheap, mechanically dead, and heavy. Buy a couple of the 2 inch thick "bricks" used as step stones in a garden store, and sandwich a piece of rubber matting between them to couple them together. I've seen this used in several Mastering studios under ATC's, B&W Nautilus 801's, and others. It can look pretty cool too.
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
If you can't rais the speakers,
Lower the seat :^)
bishopwill
369 posts
 
I'm with Woodman: Stone and hockey pucks. Years ago, when microvibration was first being recognized as a significant issue, hockey pucks were quite in vogue. Apparently the "vulcanite" hard rubber from which they are made is extremely non-resonant. I used to have four of them under my TT and they worked quite well.

will
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