I actually did notice a kind of distinguished difference between each setup. But I do however think that the biggest difference is due to placement rather than the stands. It would be really interesting to see the same comparison, but with the speakers placed on the same height and open space on every test, if you do hear a difference then its likely due to the stands. Keep up the good work :)

Spike feet are just to penetrate carpet so the speaker doesn't rock on a too-soft base, the cups that receive the spikes are so you can keep the spikes on your speaker when you move it to a floor you don't want to damage. Sand (or gravel, or lead shot) in a metal stand does help prevent the stand ringing in resonance with the speaker, although enough metal and the natural frequency gets lower until it's irrelevant. But if your metal stand does ring, it's not a subtle flaw!

Tbh i think they do make a difference however it’s probably more prominent in person as this has been compressed via KZfaq etc

These videos are giving me multiple vibes, they feel like tutorial, satisfying videos, diy´s. All of this with a great commentary and high content and picture quality gives your channel the most unique originality I´ve ever seen. Not only you teach, but you also satisfy and entertain. Thanks for your videos and keep the great work going :)

I thought I heard a significant dropout in the bass region on the special stance, but then I went back and listened to the song on its own, and I realized that in the last clip of the stands the music actually has the bass drop out. So the difference isn't as significant as I thought, but is still somewhat noticeable. If you wanted to dig deeper into this, you could possibly do a frequency sweep in the three different setups and see if your microphone can pick up a difference in amplitude among the three at any particular frequencies, or you can look at spectrograph of your existing footage to see if you can visually identify any differences in the sound they were putting out. But like I said in the live chat, a beautiful build in any case!

Thanks for a fun and approachable build! You may have already discovered this - but moving your surround speakers farther away from your ears will diffuse the sound and create a much wider area of effect. Even if they are different distances to each other - if your receiver has the auto-setup mic, it will account for that.

Just a suggestion: Bring the speakers to the table saw and trim the front baffles flush. Even better, round the front (side) corners. Next, trim off some of the speaker stand bases so that doesn't reflect sound either. And will look nicer too IMO

Great build and fun video. I always look forward to watching your builds. Keep up the great work!!

I use PrimeAcoustic stands for my studio speakers and they have made a major difference in the tightness of the bottom end of my speaker sound. I first experienced this while working for the CBC and bought a pair of stands for myself based on my experiences there. They successfully isolate the speakers from causing external vibration of the bass frequencies thus resulting in a more precise lower frequency.

Another great video dude. Your content is always top notch!

Many years ago I made an industrial looking Club/hangout space in my basement. I used some 55 gallon drums from chain link fence and some diamond plate. I quickly realized empty 55-gallon steel drums we're not good for sound quality. That's and trick made a big difference.

Well they do make a difference imho. On the floor they sounded too boomy then on the normal stand the bass response was muddy then on the wallnut stand everything was a bit clearer… Idk if it was just my imagination but i think the build was worth it just for the looks 👍

the middle set up is my favorite

I think that a lot of the reason for the bass being weaker on the stands is simply because a lot of the energy from the speaker goes into slightly moving the stands. While you probably dampened the resonance from the stand itself by using the sand (which is also used to simply give the stands more weight and in that way adding stability to them) they are still most likely a bit flexible from using just one thin steel tube off center. If the design used bigger steel tubes and also used 2 or 3 of them instead of just 1 it would've been a lot more rigid, which in turn wouldn't let the bass energy get lost into slightly moving the stand. This is the reason why a simple cement block can make a speaker sound great when used as a stand. They are simply to heavy and rigid for any energy to actually move into them, which in turn makes the sound waves fly to your ears instead of getting absorbed by the stand itself.

On the floor you could hear more bass, but I think it's just due to the position: in a corner the bass are always amplified. Also as surround speakers you don't necessarily want to have too much bass on them tho. For the sand, I've read somewhere that it was more because it's breaking the resonance freq of the hollow tubes. The sound impacting on them will resonate and be distorted. So it's not really for the speakers it's holding, but more for the speakers shooting at it.

Zac very nice job. Those turned out very beautiful and unique design. Hopefully they work out well for many years to come my friend. Can't wait to see more videos soon my friend. Keep up the great craftsmanship and hard work my friend. Keep making. God bless.

Not sure they made much of a difference in sound but they sure do look awesome! Nice video Zac!

You went above nd beyond, I love it Great production!

I have some stands filled with lead shot. I'm pleased with them. I wouldn't use spikes on hard floor, only carpet. I have uncoupled my floorstanders with rubber feet and the gain in high frequency energy was AMAZING. Search for Max Townshend's video on decoupling. It's what motivated me to try it. Best regards, Rob

I can hear a difference with the speaker stands for the better, but it’s also attributed to the height that they were placed as compared to putting them on the floor where there’s a direct, bounce immediately and then putting it on other furniture that snap position to ear level bottom line. It all plays a part.

Oh yeah, when they were on the floor there was more bass, on the stands the sound was more crisp. The stands look good and probably let more undistorted sound out. Always enjoy your vids, someday I'm gonna try welding.

I noticed a big difference between the three options, on the ground they sounded more 'bassy' but this could be because of the reverb from the floor. But comparing the 'horse' stand and the custom, the custom sounded a little cleaner. I'm pretty sure this will be one of my next projects!

Nice job Zac! Very stylish.

Another great vid! 👍🏻👍🏻

Between the sounds of floor mounted and the two stands, the difference is in clarity and bass level. The floor mount gave the most bass, thanks to the floor reflecting the lower tones more. But it also muddied the bass more, reinforcing certain low notes, making it less distinct (which is why speakers, including subs, should not be placed in corners). Mids and highs were also less distinct, since. we now had two sources of those notes - the sound from the drivers hitting us first, then the reflected sound off the floor. The larger of the two stands has a smoother bass and more distinct mids and highs, while the tall stands gave the best highs and most accurate bass (from the speaker's ability), since nothing was reinforcing and adding to the speaker, though it may not be the best sound for a listener's preference. Your rear speaker placement, like in many homes, is dictated by the furniture and it's layout (and by significant other, who hold final approval). The left rear is nearly perfect, being away from any walls and angled slightly, while the right is stuck against the wall, exaggerating the sound. The ideal audiophile thing to do is to move the sectional out away from the wall so there is a lot of free space around the speaker. That method totally makes the room unusable. So, what to do? Make the surrounds face each other, aimed forward a tad so they converge about a foot back from the face of the sofa. This will give you great sound sitting on the sectional facing the screen. The people watching and listening on the sectional against wall won't get the best sound, but they came in late to the movie and they should be glad they have a place to sit. The speaker stand's job is to hold the speaker at eye level to the listener. That is it. It's not supposed to add or take anything away from the speaker itself, so the aim is to make it neutral - adding no sound by vibration and not moving to muddy the sound. Oh so easy to do: hollow metal tubes filled with lead shot, heavy bases and speaker platforms, spikes into carpet, Blu Tack tape if on a wood floor. Very high on the ASF (amazing sound factor) and so very low on the WAF scale (wife acceptance factor). Oh so hard to make look good!

Interesting test with the stands. I have Adam T5V monitors so the most stand out was when they were on the floor, that was very bassy. Less noticable on random furniture, however when on the stands the music does sound clearer. The difference would be best heard probably with a decent pair of wired headphones

Nice work, Zac, the stand looks interesting and is something special. But when this speaker stay in the middle of the room, I think they need a wooden "backcover" to hide the back of the speaker include the wire.

Honestly the huge difference is on the floor than on the furniture and stands. The base is significantly quieter on the stands vs on the floor. Unless you are super into audio and everything, it's not noticable. Only reason I can tell is cause it vibrates less through my headphones.

Get the waveform outputs from each of the tests and overlay them, that will show you the differences.

Use ferrules for your wire connection in the receiver.

Not a bad use of all Hardware but there are designs out for a dedicated dipole rear speaker in the overnight sensation lineup. I've built them and they do a nice job filling in without being too directional. Which is kind of what you want for some Rears

When they was on the floor i could hear a real big difference, however the difference between the stands and the furniture was not as much. But i still could hear a difference between all of them, on the floor big no no because of the bass sounding muddy/clonky. Also the looks make it alot better =) Love your videos tbh :)

Definitely a difference. It cleaned up the midrange. It's not about great hearing but more about knowing what to listen to. The midrange became cleaner because the bass tightend up and there was less resonances being transferred. Tge stand was absorbing them and not amplifying them as the furniture will transmit them and amplify the resonances.

I loved watching you build these stands. Now, some notes from an audiophile that hates snake oil: The position of the speakers (in the room) will make far more of a difference than the stands. The lip on the bottom of the stands is not ideal, some sound will reflect off of it and bounce back to interfere with the primary sound from the speaker. Sand is a big deal, but you need 20-80 lbs of sand. (IMO) the biggest difference is to stabilize the stands but even with less weight it should also deaden vibrations in the metal. Decoupling with foam is a nice touch. Coupling and stabilizing with the metal feet looks nice and using spikes is *essential* for folks with thick carpet (spikes are not cones).

spikes are coupling to the floor. But if the floor is concrete, then it is OK to do that. But if the floor is wood, then you will have to isolate. But you have already isolated the speakers from the stands to the speakers. So what you do further down will not have much effect. You will get better effect if youcouple the speakers to the stands instead of isolate there.

Using very high grade mixing headphones, huge difference, question is whether it's a difference you fully want. On the floor, way more bass response, and this decreased between the furniture and further the stands. If you want a big cinematic home theatre experience you may want a little more rumble, but in terms of pure audio quality it does actually make a difference.

Interesting, that Colt Copperrune did speaker stand review, with actual frequency response measurements, and the was pretty big difference between them. In the real control room situation you can actually not notice a difference, but it will be in your mixes.

Beautiful build! I think I would have made a pass through for the wooden base for a clean finish. The only downside is I'd have to grind the 3 tabs off should you want to take the stands appart. Regardless I love them!

Stands defiantly make a difference to the sound quality. It produces much less vibrations compared to if it was placed on a desk or the floor. You can also eliminate this with foam pads. You also have to think about acoustic treatment and the size of the woofer compared to the size of the room. And of course you'll need to have them set up properly and in the right position. But going into that much detail is only really necessary when professionally mixing or producing.

The stands do look great.

Great video. I would like to add some personal findings, as all the things you did will, indeed, improve sound quality. However... I had a set of speaker stands with two small vertical tubes (1" x 2" each) which I filled with sand for a decided improvement over being empty. But there was still some ringing. I then built new stands using a single 4" square tube, and tested empty and full of sand. When the larger tube was full of sand, all perceivable resonance disappeared. I attribute this to the sheer mass and absolute deadness of the sand. They were quite heavy. The bass got much quicker and the mid base flattened, and my overall soundstage (width and rear/forward depth) opened up big time. I would reuse the tops and bottoms of those stands and replace the pillar with something more substantial. You are certain to hear an improvement. I also found that museum putty rolled out thin (about 1/8" thick) placed between the speaker and the stand was way more effective than using acoustic mat or pucks. It will 100% stop any high frequency movement between the two hard surfaces, as if your speaker were encased in concrete, which will bring out accuracy in the sounds reproduced (at least as accurate as your playback equipment is capable of, without the speaker becoming an instrument , in and of itself). The feet, I agree with you. They look cool, but other than used on a sub woofer, I have found no particular improvement with or without them. Last, as others mentioned, speaker placement will be the single biggest way to improve your listening experience. All other treatments, like described above or acoustic panels on the walls, are simply going to refine what you hear once you have nailed the placement of your speakers. There's a slew of videos out there regarding placement and I encourage folks who aren't familiar with this to check them out. You will not be sorry. I hope this helps.

zac year before : im not audiophile, continue building another dream speaker.

The feet are meant to be used one of two ways. One way with just the spikes if being placed on carpet, the other with the leveler feet if being placed on a hard surface.

Having quite a nice setup myself I would say two things. First of all it depends on the floor material. If it's wood on wood joists then the bass is just going to flood out / dissipate through the floor (and you'll annoy everyone in the house!). Spikes will avoid that and send the bass to where it's meant to go. Secondly, it all comes down to the source - having a better amplifier, etc. will give the best improvement. And then it's just the law of diminishing returns. I knew someone that used to turn his turntable by 90 degrees every three months because he though it handles the magnet fileds better. Now that is taking it to extremes - but if it makes you feel better.....

awesome pad dude

I recently made some speaker stands out of Baltic Birch. Basically a 6” square tube sitting on a 14 inch base both of which were completely filled with sand and they came out amazing! My new Focal 80 ‘s sound incredible on them in the studio! Cost me about 60 bucks to make. I think what you built here is really nice. My only thought is not quite large enough doesn’t have enough mass to achieve the affect you’re really looking for. I’m sure better than if you had not done it this way, but that’s just my guess. Honestly, I hate to say this I thought they sounded the best on the floor.

Not gonna lie, that was a huge difference. The stands certainly are the best sound tonality out of the three, but this doesn't really tell us the difference between normal stands and the specific mods you added. Nice video!!!

Small piece of advice, a larger drill will not actually countersink a hole as the drill point is around 120 degrees, whereas countersunk screws are usually 90 degrees, so you will get a better result with a dedicated countersunk bit off amazon.

Keep in mind, you’re auditioning speakers through speakers that are also on a table top, and the reflections that are associated with that set up as well

Looks nice !!! I added more than 10KG shell sand to each of my speakerstands ;) Sounds great and solid! But i don't bother if it's better than without.

lets go Zac

I personally think they sounded the best when the were on the floor. But the stands do look nice

There’s most definitely going to be some minor differences considering the sand and the padding. The question I have is if the difference is a good one or a bad one. At times, a bit of distortion coming from your set up adds to the experience rather than takes away from it.

I used leftover sandpit sand from when my daughters were very small - seemed to work back then - 30 years on, and the sand is still in, and I've not bothered to empty them. Personally, I'd doubt the single pole design, but any stand is better than nothing - I used chairs when I was young and poor!

Nice!

I have to say the stands look great! I'm by no means an audiophile, more of an enthusiast. But as someone who has spent a lot of time reading and testing myself I hope I can shed some light on the "myths" that were mentioned. Usually we fill the stands to prevent them from creating a ringing sound at their resonance frequency. A highly scientific way to test this is by simply tapping a tube with no filling and a tube with filling using a screwdriver or something and observing the difference in ringing. The ringing can be triggered as the speaker plays the same frequency as the resonance frequency of the stands and therefore coloring the sound in a potentially unwanted way. The "improved bass response" idea of this might stem from the usage of larger diameter tubes which would have a lower resonance frequency than that of a smaller diameter tube. But this is just speculation on my behalf. So the idea of filling the stands has a similar idea as isolating the speakers using foam pads. It's meant to reduce the response coming from the floor or the stand so that you get as much of the sound as possible directly from the speaker. Another thing I noticed is that the stands are protruding in front of the baffle. Usually this is also unwanted due to the very early reflection from the tweeter and midrange which may create all kinds of wonky responses. All of this can be measured and I'd suggest getting a cheap measurement microphone like the minidsp umik-1 and a free software like room equalizer wizard and testing it out for yourself. Spikes are indeed a tricky topic and in my research I have found that if you have a wooden floor, you do not want to use spikes. Spikes couple the speaker to the floor, they do not isolate them from it. A wooden floor will resonate at bass frequencies coloring the sound from the speaker like the stands. Instead you want to isolate them from the floor by using isolation pads. If you have a concrete floor, an effective way of getting rid of the vibrations that inevitably get into the stands is by leading it straight into the concrete. The concrete is very heavy and therefore has a much lower resonance frequency than wood which means it's unlikely to affect the sound. So we want to couple the stands to the floor by using spikes if the floor is concrete (or if you have a concrete floor with laminate on top). If the floor is wood we want to isolate the stands from it as much as possible, although it's almost impossible to completely isolate them.

There is 100% difference, the thing is, how much? Audio can have very diminishing returns, for an audio engineer or audiophile these would be a great addition to an already awesome speaker set-up and treated room. However, I feel like noticing a big difference without these things would be really hard without some audio measurement software to really look into it, people also just like the "idea" that something could make their audio 3% clearer. It's a huge rabbit hole but really interesting if you look at scientific measurements per frequency. Personally I think these stands are a really neat idea that turned out amazing, love your stuff!

Great work zac! I'm glad you didnt notice much of a difference because I couldn't tell... but I would've felt bad if I was the idiot who didn't notice the difference 😂

A good proper speaker stand will make a great difference. A DIY project is very likely to fail unless you have experience in the matter.

the spike feet are good for subwoofer, there you can really hear a different. because of the vibration

If you do the same with larger monitor speakers as well as stands, you create a resonance box in the tubes of your stands, as it were. There you will hear a greater difference between a position with sand and one without. For example, Isoacoustic Gaia feet under the stand also make a big difference. This is a bigger investment. Grtz Phil

Yes is a difference between the placement of the speakers on the floor and up on the metal stands. The speakers on the floor have more bass, but this results from the room reflections, so the bass is artificial with lots of sustained and muddy characteristics and almost no attack and precision. The speakers on the stands sound more accurate in the mid and high areas but need improvement in the lower frequencies. I would try to kill any vibrations on the speaker box by making the box with a double wall filled with sand, activated carbon, or baby powder; the baby powder contains magnesium which has sound-isolated properties.

its a hobby, have fun and enjoy! Great vid

Thanks for sharing but on the home recording used gear market you probably can find a few brands of super good used speaker stands for really cheap. Even new they are pretty cheap, I got two pair myself. So buying all the gear and material you would need to make them your self could be really fun but probably a lot more expensive.

Everything soundquality is subjective, as long as you are happy about it and it sounds good to you. My few suggestions is to set them up in equilateral triangle for the fronts, the backs to a more directional way directed at your ears and maybe to move them out from the corners or walls to get the best experience possible. In your Amplifier/AVR set all speakers to small no matter what te size is of them physically just to send all the low tones to the subwoofer. Try that and hear for yourself if there's a difference ;)

Did you make that block stand on the left side? I think that looks awesome! If you did make it, how did you make it? Or where did you get it?

Why not use frequency response measurement software like REW for comparisons?

Besides the speakers themselves the most important thing to sound quality is the room itself. Parallel walls and floors diminish sound quality and for the best bass response you want the sub closer to the floor. In the age oh high fidelity, late '70s through the '80s, subwoofers became extremely popular. Bass can not be made stereo indoors because of the size of the wave so a sub and satellite speakers ruled. That took care of the bass and speaker placement, balance and fade took care of the rest. Then came surrounded which put a delay on rear speakers to mimic the dopler effect giving depth to video soundtracks. After that came recording and playback sound directabillity so that sounds like airplanes, rain etc can be focused within a room.

I just use a wooden box that just fits the speakers and some white sand All those feet are nice, but they are a dust magnet and you have to keep moving the speakers ps.. Just place your speakers at your ear height, This is especially good in your living room when you watch music or movies

Changing the speakers position in the room will probably affect the sound more that the type of stand. The distance between the speaker and the floor and celling will make a difference

is there a video for the media stand you have the TV on?

On the stands they sound flatter, but there’s potentially a difference in the point in the songs maybe 🤔

where do you buy walnut wood? it is kind expensive on amazon

Lol, the amateur speaker stand build and evaluation. There are so many things wrong in this video, I wonder if it was done on purpose 😂 Anyhow it does not matter what we think, as long as you are happy with the result. The biggest improvement would be to get better speakers 😊 Anyhow, good luck

4:40 Curved flap paddle discs? I don't think I've ever used them. I'll have to get some and give that a try for cleaning up inside corners. Can you recommend some for wood? 11:00 When the speakers were on the floor, the music sounded a bit more heavy in the bass to me, especially the horn and distortion overlay. As it's not a song I'm familiar with I checked it out on KZfaq, then rewatched that segment and the floor definitely made the speakers sound different than when they were either on stands or on furniture. That's probably an audio reflection issue, since neither the stands or the furniture have a plane extending several feet in front of the speakers.

I definitely heard a difference between the stand versions and the floor version. I do also notice a slight difference between the two stand versions, but I find it insignificant enough to make it worth it Edit: I should notice, I listened to the comparison on my high-end wireless earbuds and with the video quality at max, to minimize KZfaq compression. ...I swear I'm not an audiophile

i could hear a deeper base when they stood directly on the floor, but other then that nodifferance for me

interesting information, and there are a lot of what I would even call exquisite speaker stands available at relatively inexpensive prices. I'll just say it this way, there are a lot of KZfaqrs that have great instructional videos about welding. Maybe you might possibly want to invest into a drill press considering all of your other tools.

I doubt they do much for sound quality, though they are attractive. Speaker stands must be rigid and have zero wobble at the speaker. The stands that work the best are normally all metal and usually welded.

Yes, the one Trick is Don't do what I'm doing. Top heavy, weak, For $15 speakers . But you showed off your workspace That was the highlight

Wath is your sound amplifier. Good job!!!

Audiophile rabbit hole is the worst. Those people think the air you breathe affects the sound of your speakers

I hear the big difference when they where on the floor, base went up.

Floor: Slightly dead. Non-acoustic furniture: Brighter, but not entirely full. Stands: Bright, full. The differences are like really small though.

The Stand and those sound Improving Features you mentioned in the video Makes a HUGE difference when it comes to Studio Monitors , Trust me .

i think just having them off the ground and on wood makes it so much better 2to 3 is minimal at best

#Zacbuilds So this is why speaker stands, spikes and mass loading works, speakers generate vibrations in order to creat sound those vibrations will travel trought your speaker cabinates witch creats a harmoinc resonace in the material and the material witch it comes in contact with. There are allot of diffrent resonanses from diffrent materials that reach your ear at a diffrent time and amplitude then from the orginal source the speaker mebrane. That is called disstortion and your ear brain is verry good at picking these up! So bye isolating your speakers through mass and pointed to a small surface area that helps you not to coupple the speaker to the next material witch cutts down on unwanted/uncontrolled harmonic resonases so now you know some of why it works 😉

In der Regel bekommen Regallautsprecher, wenn man sie richtig aufstellt ein gleichmässigeres frequenzbild und der Bass kann etwas tiefer. Sowas hört man aber auch erst ab einer gewissen Qualität und Preis. Ich bin der Meinung, dass regallautsprecher auch in ein Regal gehören. Wenn ich die auf ständen stelle, hätte ich ja sofort Standlautsprecher hinstellen können.

what would have been really a good feature with all of this work would have been to not have the plate the speakers stand on be so long that there is wood infront of the speakers

Nice Build, the stands look good. I think putting the chamfer on the bottom of the foot instead of the top of the foot doesn't look as nice, but hey it's not my build. Does anyone know what the show or movie he was watching on the tv at the end?

I was extremely skeptical about everything except the foam padding. The 2lbs of sand didn't seem like a substantial enough amount to make a difference and the feet (despite looking pretty awesome) didn't seem to me to have any sort of logical benefit to me. After hearing the audio clips in each position I can actually hear a distinct difference. There is much more of a reverb and vibration when on the floor. The sound quality becomes less reverberate and slightly muffled on the non-acoustically inclined furniture. The new furniture seemed to have a brighter sounds altogether. Perhaps it was the song, perhaps it was my headphones, perhaps I'm just sleepy or maybe...just maybe....it actually made a tangible difference.

Why did you not drill your flanges before welding? Also LUBRICANT IS YOUR FRIEND!!!

You can here that there is a lot less of the bassy radeling from the new ones

How would solid metal sound?

Nice birdhouses.

Bass dropped a lot on the stands yet the spacing was still there..Once you have wood floors and live in a building, yu already have some dampening and isolation..So here in my house,I am right on tiles about the foundation so I make sure my gear is not directly on the floor. I use wood tops and that fake rubber from the dollar store ,among other simple things. I care less about the audiophile thingy because in a world of compressed MP3 music, it does not really matter. It's not like great vinyl, SACDs, nor DVD/CD is the norm anymore.In fact, here in NYC, it's a club scene with a garbage system just shrill and bassy, with people walking around taking selfies or videos, instead of dancing and human interaction/conversation..I'm fine with my analog audio setup and my soundbar in front of my TV..

You’re going to a massive difference in frequency balance as the speakers are at different heights.

LoL your listening for differences via a recording played through another set of speakers 😂 That's hilarious 😂

For the wires tap them put a carpet or a fancy wire cover

To me, setting them on the floor had too much boom and low end which is expected from the floor magnifying the sound, particularly the low end. The non acoustically treated furniture sounded better, but seemed like it lacked some detail and clarity. The stands you built probably sound the best in person, but on the video they sound thin, which in my experience, the microphones won't be able to accurately pick up the frequencies of the speakers as they tend to pick up way too much ambient sounds and reflections, but overall, I think the speakers on the stands are probably the clearest.