Oak speaker stand project - what do you think?

[fobos8]

Hi all

When I'm not woodworking I'm a bit of a music nut. I have a great set of speakers but I hate their metal stands so I'm gonna make some oak stands for them.

The stands will basically be a large lump of oak with the speaker sat on the top. Nothing fancy - just beautifull wood.

The stands will be 600mm high x 150mm wide x 200mm deep.

There is a guy down the road who has loads of offcuts of large French Oak beams so my first idea was to just thickness them down to the dimensions I want. The thing is the Oak will split - a look which I actually like but I think the vibrations of the split pieces of wood will affect the sound quality. I have a offcut of a beam and if you flick a split piece with your finger you can feel it vibrating.

So my second idea is to laminate 4 pieces of 150 x 40mm oak to get the dimensions I want. This should be less likely to split. I'm just not sure how successfull the laminating will be on pieces this thick- anyone ever done this.

The third idea is to get four pieces of oak ( 2 at 150 wide and 2 at 200 wide) and mitre them along the long grain. The hollow centre can be filled with sand to help dampen vibrations.

Would anyone like to offer some comments?

Cheer, Andrew

 

[Eric The Viking]

Hi all

When I'm not woodworking I'm a bit of a music nut. I have a great set of speakers but I hate their metal stands so I'm gonna make some oak stands for them.

The stands will basically be a large lump of oak with the speaker sat on the top. Nothing fancy - just beautifull wood.

The stands will be 600mm high x 150mm wide x 200mm deep.

There is a guy down the road who has loads of offcuts of large French Oak beams so my first idea was to just thickness them down to the dimensions I want. The thing is the Oak will split - a look which I actually like but I think the vibrations of the split pieces of wood will affect the sound quality. I have a offcut of a beam and if you flick a split piece with your finger you can feel it vibrating.

So my second idea is to laminate 4 pieces of 150 x 40mm oak to get the dimensions I want. This should be less likely to split. I'm just not sure how successfull the laminating will be on pieces this thick- anyone ever done this.

The third idea is to get four pieces of oak ( 2 at 150 wide and 2 at 200 wide) and mitre them along the long grain. The hollow centre can be filled with sand to help dampen vibrations.

Would anyone like to offer some comments?

Cheer, Andrew

Hardwood is used to make xylophones and marimbas. If you have parallel surfaces it will resonate (ring musically).

You can damp this by using different types of wood in your laminations, but the movement with humidity and temperature might prove difficult to control. Good quality ply (or MDF) would be more dimensionally stable, resonate less, and probably be a good base for thick, bandsaw-cut oak veneer! If you really want to be pedantic, build the legs as hollow boxes and fill them with dry sand (this works really well, but can be messy!). If you want to get creative with shapes, you could do the frame in square sand-filled steel tube and clad that.

Mass is a good thing, but the floor will have a huge effect on the bass end. If it's concrete, the bass will come entirely from the bass driver cone and the enclosure. If it's boards with a space beneath, the speaker will couple to the floor, with unpredictable results depending on the shape of the room, the speaker's size & weight and LF response, and the size of the void below the floor (assuming it's at ground level).

Does it matter? Not if you have tone controls on your amplifier!

Incidentally, the functional purpose of speaker stands (ignoring the aesthetics) is to raise the tweeters to head level. If they're tall enough, and you sit in a sofa or armchair to listen, you might not need stands at all.

My main hi-fi speakers are like that. In industrial use they had stands, as the main use was listening from a console or standing up, but at home they don't really need them. There's specific LF equalization provided on their amps to accommodate how they're used.

I don't want to put you off an interesting project, mind!

Almost forgot: putting speakers in corners of rooms is almost inevitable. Again it may not matter if you have good tone controls, but they will sound *very* different depending on how far from the wall and returning corners they are. If you complete your stands and don't like the sound, moving them by only a few inches may make a huge difference.

 

[fobos8]

Hi Eric

Thanks for your time in giving me such an interesting reply.

If I made one solid post from Oak laminations would it still resonate. Surely its just hollow parrallel surfaces that resonate? I can controll the movement of the solid mass by alternating the direction of the growth rings when I glue them up ( same way as some people do for tabletops).

Why do you say that MDF would resonate less than say 40mm thick oak. I had considered using veneered MDF but I thought that solid oak would be stiffer?

Do you think that a solid Oak beam offcut is a bad idea?

My intention is to fix a 30mm granite base to the oak or MDF stand using coach screws(solid oak would give a much better fixing). I will also thread floor spikes into the granite.

Andrew

 

[Harbo]

I used to make speakers and their stands and there's a lot of technical stuff to be taken into account which Eric has touched upon.
The simplest thing is to make something stable and the easiest way is to clad your existing metal frames in wood if that is possible?

Here's some I made a few years ago - (built in stands)

http://www.lowther.com.hk/acousta.htm

Sound fantastic but sadly SWIMBO will not allow them in the house

Rod

 

[Eric The Viking]

I used to make speakers and their stands and there's a lot of technical stuff to be taken into account which Eric has touched upon.
The simplest thing is to make something stable and the easiest way is to clad your existing metal frames in wood if that is possible?

Here's some I made a few years ago - (built in stands)

http://www.lowther.com.hk/acousta.htm

Sound fantastic but sadly SWIMBO will not allow them in the house

Rod

That's a shame - they look rather fun!

Are those concentric drivers, or is that a dispersion cone in the centre?

Mine are like these:

They're in need of a little TLC at the moment, but I"m hoping they'll be a re-veneering project sometime soon. They've had a hard life, and although they sound wonderful, the handles and the metal on the outside make them look far too industrial for my taste. I wouldn't put castors on them either!

 

[cambournepete]

Here's an alternative thought or two...

Why not use the offcuts as you suggest, but when they finish splitting fill the cracks with resin/foam/or similar?
I reckon, completely unscientifically, that this would dampen the vibrations quite nicely.

Alternatively, make them hollow boxes and fill the boxes with sand, lead shot, concrete or similar to make them completely inert?

 

[Racers]

Hi, Fobos8

I like the idea of the big chunks of beam. you could do some butterflys across the splits in different wood, that would look nice and stop it vibrating.

Or just buy some floor standers! what speakers are they and what do you drive then with, yep another musid nut.

Pete

 

[Harbo]

Eric

They are full range drive units so no crossovers etc:

http://www.lowtherloudspeakers.co.uk/

Bass is enhanced by the folded horn internals of the speaker cabinet.

Made in the UK too, but not cheap.

Rod

 

[jeffinfrance]

did your speakers come with points for the bottom?

points reduce the vibrations enormously and should allow your split aestetic no problem.

jeff
(also a dj)

 

[Mr T]

Hi

I used to make speaker stands for someone who sold them for hundreds of pounds to hi fi nuts. He seemed to know what he was doing and got good reviews for them. They were tear drop shaped in section with a steel rod on either side bolted into metal plates top and bottom. The bottom plates had spikes. A 25mm square hole extended down the centre about half way, this was filled with lead shot.

I made them in various woods ash, oak,cherry and I have to admit rosewood. I think he said the oak sounded best.

Unfortunately he went bust in the end!

Chris

 

[fobos8]

Hi all

These are the speakers I have

http://www.avihifi.co.uk/adm9.html They are the dogs doodars which is why I not gonna get floorstanders. I have a subwoofer to go with them so I have plenty of bass.

I really like the idea of a oak beam aswell but listening to feedback and doing a bit of research on google I reckon that a hollow oak column filled with sand might be the way to go.

Last night my girlfriend and I put one of the speakers on top of a oak beam I have lying around and the sound quality was significantly worse than the metal stand its currently on.

Will test out cladding the existing metal stands this week by just putting a mdf box round and seeing how it looks/sounds but I think the column will end up too wide to look good.

All the best, Andrew

 

[woodsworth]

Those look like nice speakers, where did you get them? I've been looking but can only find reviews.

 

[fobos8]

you can buy direct from the manufacturer but I got em from Bartletts Hifi in London http://www.bartlettshifi.com/ I bought them with a MJAcoustics Pro50 sub. Bartletts have a audition room - beware though!! if you enter you'll end up buying them.