Granite slabs underneath speakers

DannyW

DannyW

DannyW

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I normally take audiofoolery advise with a pinch of salt but a couple of friends insisted granite improves bass, tightens it up and packs more of a punch

Tried it today and I'm totally blown away, wish I'd of tried it sooner.

They are just granite chopping boards £10 from Argos or wilkinsons






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Hi speakers are 602 S3

No, stands are not filled I'm not even sure if they can be but looks like they can
 
I have some Atacama Nexus 6s that can be filled. Not that I've got around to it but that's supposed to have a similar effect. It'd be interesting to compare empty/filled stands vs granite/non granite placement.

Speakers look massive... Almost too big to be stand mounts haha
 
I may try that I have some bags of sand in the garage

They are actually a good size stand for the speaker, it's probably how I've taken the pic. But the 602's are big compared to modern bookshelf standards
 
It's just simple physics really. Sound is a energy and by isolating it on a slap of granite you are not losing energy through the floor. The only energy you are losing are through the 4 spikes which are minimal compared to the entire footprint of the speaker.
 
Raymond Lin said:
It's just simple physics really. Sound is a energy and by isolating it on a slap of granite you are not losing energy through the floor. The only energy you are losing are through the 4 spikes which are minimal compared to the entire footprint of the speaker.
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Im assuming then that with a hard floor it wouldnt need the slab?
 
Participant said:
Might try this. Do you still use metal carpet spikes on them? Or should you use rubber speaker feet with a granite base?
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I left the spikes on yeh but you can take them off and use bluetac to bond the speaker stand or speaker to the granite
 
theone8181 said:
Im assuming then that with a hard floor it wouldnt need the slab?
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Possibly not.

It depends on how 'dead' the floor is. The basic idea is to stop anything that the speaker is touching from vibrating. Speakers should be decoupled from surfaces that resonate audibly or hollow surfaces which act kind of like an acoustic guitar body and amplify resonant frequencies themselves - be it the desk, stands, floors and the wall. Usually this is accomplished via materials that doesn't resonate like rubber/sorbothane/kiln-dried sand etc.

The actual weight of a stand is only really important in relation to the weight of the speaker (you wouldn't want a heavy speaker on a light stand making it both overly top-heavy and potentially unstable) as heavy stands can still vibrate or transfer sound to the floor depending on what they're made from and an inert stand doesn't necessarily need to be heavy.
 
theone8181 said:
Im assuming then that with a hard floor it wouldnt need the slab?
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This will sound silly but suspending it on fishing wire is probably the best way :p

But if you have it on spike, you are most of the way there. Just don't have the speaker's entire base in contact.
 
I was surprised it made a difference when I put my speakers onto granite but it really tightened up the bass even my other half noticed the difference!
 
"I usually take audiofoolery advice with a grain of salt"

(has sound deadening panels beside and behind speakers which are on granite slabs)

ROFL

Wicked setup man. Seriously.

You might want to try moving those speakers forward a few inches (adjust the deadening panels accordingly)

and try not completely toeing them into the listening position, but setting them up so the sound they project both hits the sides of you and also "glides around" the listening position.
 
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Raymond Lin said:
It's just simple physics really. Sound is a energy and by isolating it on a slap of granite you are not losing energy through the floor. The only energy you are losing are through the 4 spikes which are minimal compared to the entire footprint of the speaker.
Click to expand...

The explanations I've read for spikes is that they increase friction between speaker/stand floor to increase the rigidity of the system and its mass.

So using heavy granite slabs increases the mass of the system as does filling the stands with sand.
 
nice tip thanks , i have some mission slim spiked floor standers on a thick carpet often thought there not stable enough this should help with that and the bass :)
 
As others have said some proper spikes should always be used for carpet to stiffen up the speaker placement. I noticed a huge difference with my subwoofer (an MS309i) when I drilled/tapped in four cheapo spikes from ebay. A lump of granite probably works similarly.
 
I use these with my Kefs to decouple them from the building and reduce vibrations and sound travel. It works quite well, and using a paving slab under my sub works beautifully for the same reason.

I can't say it's affected the sound quality at all, but it works well for my requirement.
 
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