desk speaker stands

fobase, picking up on your setting up comment.

What I do is listen over 2-3 days. I'm stating the obvious but the 3 things that are important are, distance the speakers are to each other, the height, then finally the amount they are towed in.

You have limited control of bass / treble just by how close or how far speakers are apart form each other.

Also very important is distance from speaker to back wall, just 1 cm difference extra away from back wall can reduce vibrations. In that photo of my speaker, that's as close as I can get to the wall, any more and the sound quality drops off, it's almost like there is a tipping point or threshold to how close a speaker is to a wall.

Aim to get the vocals correct (vocals should sound centre), then focus on if the speakers are 2 bright. The brightness is controlled by the tweeter that's very directional, small adjustments on angle of the speaker can effect this. To bright then the speakers can become tiring.

Speakers should have the speaker grills off, however if a speaker is to bright (and you have run out of ideas to fix) one trick is to leave the grills on, as the grills restrict high frequencies more than low frequencies. A speaker grill is a high pass filter.

A good track for setting up is Kraftwerk The Model as it has a repeating electronic drum with clear vocal over the top.
 
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I've got a few tweaks I need to do to my setup to get the most out of it I think @JasonM. My speakers are a little close together (about 900mm apart atm). They are sitting on my desk (although they have at least some rubber pads under them). My desk also against the left wall in the room which is why I haven't put the speaker against the wall. When I get the new speaker stands I am going to move the desk about 300-400mm away from the corner. That'll give me some room to test them like you have mentioned.

P.S thanks for the recommendation of that track. I've left spotify playing it and its now gone in to some awesome techno playlist :)
 
Oh bugger. I have received the K&M speaker stands today, or should I say 'stand'. They are not sold in pairs it would seem??? :(

I thought I was saving some money by getting the K&M one(s). Ah well, another £41. They do look good and feel very substantial.
 
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Yup. I feel like a right plonker. I've set the left one up with my amp sitting over the stand. Makes my desk feel much bigger with the speakers further apart.

*edit* Some pictures of the ONE stand after I have moved my desk away from the corner - had to wait for wife to finish work (1.8m long desk stuck in carpet).

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I managed to remove the dali pads I had on the bottom of the speaker so they sat on the stand. The ones that came with the stand were tiny.

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I'll mess around with placement when the other one turns up.
 
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The other speaker stand turned up yesterday afternoon! I've set it up on the desk but I've been too busy decorating to sort out placement yet. I will have a go at the weekend I think.

@JasonM I was looking in my Dali manual and it mentions they do not need to be toed in. A quick google online and this seems to get mentioned a lot too! What are your thoughts on this?
 
They probably say that for normal listening distances. But as you’re sitting close to them, I’d definitely toe them in.
 
fobose said:
The other speaker stand turned up yesterday afternoon! I've set it up on the desk but I've been too busy decorating to sort out placement yet. I will have a go at the weekend I think.

@JasonM I was looking in my Dali manual and it mentions they do not need to be toed in. A quick google online and this seems to get mentioned a lot too! What are your thoughts on this?
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I expect the speakers need to be toed in.

With the grills removed, start with the speakers pointing forward.

Then with music playing, slowly toe them in. You will need to make small changes then keep sitting back down in your listening position.

As you turn them in the speakers should sound less muddy.

The angle is normally just outside your ear's, so if you could imagine a virtual line that's going from the speaker then missing the outside of your head.

What your listening for is the speakers becoming to bright, this will happen if the tweeters are directly at your ears that you don't want.

Sometimes you have to reset your hearing, so step away between testing, or test again late at night, or test next day.

Also in your photo that speaker looks to close to the wall.
 
Thanks @JasonM I will give it a go as you say and maybe aim to do it over a few days. I have moved my desk a bit further away from the wall yesterday as I thought the speaker was far too close too. I have an issue with my desk, the silly cable holes which are IIRC 100mm from teh edge of the desk, they are quite large and cause the speaker stands to not sit correctly. I have removed them but I am left with a huge hole that the rubber feet of the stand falls down so placement is a bit tricky. I shall have a play and may have to move my amp from its current location.
 
Hey. Welcome to the forum.

They have been great. They are very robust stands and quite heavy so feel very solid on my desk. Check to make sure if they come in pairs or not, when I ordered mine they were sold separately which cost me an extra £8 delivery charge grr.
 
Thanks @fobose I think I'll give them a go. I'm very pleased with the Spektors so I want to do everything to bring the best out of them. On Amazon they still seem to come singularly so I will make sure I get two. Thank you again for your speedy response.
 
No problem @BrutusM. I've had my Spektor 2's for over a year now and I am still really enjoying them. They look a lot better on the stands but I am not sure I can tell much difference if I am honest. I don't think I have the best hearing though ;)

P.S I reused the rubber pads that came with the Spektor 2's by carefully removing them (a bit tricky) and placed them so that they could locate on the top of the speaker stand (a bit of measuring involved) - in hindsight, I could have probably stuck them to the top of the stand itself but I like to know I can take the speaker off and place it any surface without it sliding around. The stand itself comes with 4 large thick pads and 4 very small thin ones. I only used the large ones which I put under the stand.
 
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