You can take our word that merely placing your newly-bought speakers on a bookshelf won’t do. Unless they’re among the best floor standing speakers under $1000 or in a similar list, you have to do more than just position them on the ground, either. Instead, you should invest in quality speaker stands, as they can make all the difference in the world.
Aside from improving audio positioning and tweaking sound staging, they also help reduce audio reflections and produce surface tension. These benefits can vary in extent, depending on your speakers’ dimensions, material, and weight rating. You also want to choose stands that allow you to leverage sand of acoustics for better sound production overall.
Now that it’s confirmed that speaker stands make a difference to one’s audio experience, let’s find out exactly how they do that.
Why Stands Help Your Speakers Stand Out
Stands should be a top consideration for improving speaker performance on account of the following influences:
Helps Get Rid of Reflections
A bookshelf is great and all that, but it doesn’t really do much to prevent early sound echoes. The same goes for your tables, sideboards, televisions, and television boards. One thing about speakers is they don’t mix well with surfaces. Speakers positioned on top of, below, or close to any surface can give off distorted sounds due to early reflections. That’s also why corners and walls are never good places to put them.
Using a speaker stand allows one to add distance between their speakers and these sound-reflecting surfaces. Thus, early reflections become minimal, and the units can produce sounds with only the barest distortions. This is especially important to consider when you own low-end speakers that don’t possess much else for preventing sound interferences.
Stands are also particularly helpful in enhancing low-frequency sounds. This part of the spectrum flows in all directions and is more prone to sound-disrupting surfaces than the high-frequency range.
Stands Are Constructed To Separate
Aside from battling early reflections, speaker stands offer what’s known as a decoupling of your speakers and the ground or the floor. In a process known as mechanical isolation, the stand’s spiked or rubber feet and base plates help manage vibrations and provide stability, respectively. Thus, decoupling makes it more difficult for speaker units to fall over.
There is designated space for cable and sand compartments in most models and a top plate that decouples the speaker and the stand. This specific construction keeps sound vibrations manageable and allows for either the coupling or decoupling of the stand and the floor and the speaker and the top plate.
The Right Height Goes a Long Way
Height is another factor that allows stands to produce quality sounds. Tweeters should be at ear level to positively impact the treble and speaker directionality. This is vital because tweeters shouldn’t be radiating sound pressure omnidirectionally as their bass-producing counterparts do. These units radiate in a narrower window, which can be made even more conducive for quality treble with the right elevation.
You may go stand-less and still produce excellent treble by aiming the tilt at your ears. Though that setup doesn’t do much for directionality, which is as important. After all, sounds coming from the floor usually aren’t the most pleasing.
Why Choosing the Right Feet Matters
Speakers generate sound pressure that can cause wooden floors to vibrate. Using a stand cuts off those vibrations, preventing them from making their way back to the speakers. This lets your speakers provide better overall performance.
That said, things don’t quite work that way for solid floors. Even a pair of powerful speakers could barely excite concrete flooring. That means the concrete surface can actually be used as a tool for getting rid of vibrations through coupling. All that’s required is to fasten your speakers to the floor as tightly as possible.
This is when stand feet selection makes a significant difference. Depending on the surface you position your stands on, a spiked or rubber-ring model can result in starkly different speaker performances.
For instance, if you place a stand on top of a carpet over solid flooring, make sure you use a spiked stand whose feet penetrate through the carpet and make contact with the floor. Conversely, this would be a poor choice for a wooden floor, as spikes piercing the wood could cause even more vibrations.
Stands Provide Optimal Conditions for Speakers
There you go! These are some of the basics for considering stands for your speakers. While we’ve barely scratched the surface of this broad topic, this should provide a good starting point for understanding stands and their roles in a stereo system. These accessories can contribute heavily to creating optimal conditions for speaker performance when chosen correctly and used accordingly. Do prior research before making a purchase, and you should be golden!