Whats the point of speaker stands?

[Macca]

I'm using some JM Labs speakers right now. They weight 28 kilos each and are quite tall. On the base are four rubber feet. They also come with spikes that screw into sockets in the middle of the rubber feet.

So the idea is that if you have a wooden/laminate floor you don't fit the spikes, so as not to damage the floor, but if you have carpet you fit the spikes to pierce through the carpet and 'couple' with the floorboards or concrete beneath.

But if you have carpet plus underlay (not just a rug) under the speakers is it not best to let them just sit on that, on the rubber feet? This way they are decoupled at least to a degree, from putting vibration into the floor. With the spikes you deliberately connect with the floor and so increase the amount of vibration transferred. Even a concrete slab will transmit vibration. Worse for wood. So the provision of spikes for carpeted floors makes no sense. Hence spikes make no sense. They are just a sub-optimal way of getting, as Jerry puts it, a 'bit of air' under the speaker. Which I agree is a good thing.

[Pharos]

My heavy ESSs had polythene feet on their base, and my 54kg ADAM Gammas had spikes. The replacement Betas had spikes according to the manual but came without them, but they have 8mm tapped holes in the base for them.

I looked on Ebay and found some 30mm DIA, feet, with a PVC pad going into a stainless steel dome base with 8mm studs for fixing. These I hope will slide across the carpet, and provide a good compromise solution to the rocking and transmission problems.

[Mikeandvan]

Thanks to all replies, the Spendors are too small for my listening room. So gonna concentrate on getting the Talisman right. The Ruarks are great speakers and are better with my HK amp, so will try some new speaker cable, marble plinths underneath, as Marco said upthread, get the basics right, Cheers.

[Haselsh1]

It used to be argued in the 80s that standmounts were visually less imposing, and that may be subjectively so, but the stand is still visually there, and costs money, and the space it occupies is useless whereas a floorstander uses this for greater bass extension. Unless there are acoustic advantages to a standmounter I see no point in them.

Yes a floorstander uses this extra cabinet space for a lower bottom end but try using a floorstander with a rear firing port within twelve inches of a rear wall and it becomes obvious why stand mounts exist. Even larger standmounts won't sound very good when close to a rear wall.

[Pharos]

My ESS Heil + Rogers mid/woof have a passive pointing towards the rear wall, and it does not seem problematic, in fact people comment on the good bass.

I also designed a small pair of speakers for an ex girlfriend using modified Denton boxes and Panasonic drivers which had a rear firing port, and which also worked well.

[walpurgis]

I remember in the seventies, the Goodmans Dimension 8 speaker being demonstrated fairly close to rear walls and that had a large rear facing ABR. Having said that, I don't like rear ports or drivers, they just don't seem to sound right to me. Why do it in the first place? There's no need unless the front baffle space precludes it.

[Macca]

The idea with rear port is you are less likely to hear it 'chuffing'. Although I've never noticed this to be a problem on the dozens of front ported speakers I've owned and heard.

[jandl100]

Floorstanders are a lot more expensive than standmounts for the same basic sound quality.
Cabinets are generally the most expensive part of a speaker - a smaller cabinet is much cheaper.
If you don't want or are prepared to sacrifice that extra octave of deep bass then a standmount makes sense in terms of sound/£.

On the other hand, speaker stands can be expensive, too!

[hifi_dave]

Floor standers don't necessarily give better bass than a stand mount. Very often, the floor stander uses a squitty little bass/mid driver in a narrow box and that doesn't give better bass than a decent stand mount. Just ask any owner of a large, stand mount Tannoy, JBL, ATC, Harbeth if they are short of bass.

Not only that but many floor standers are just a stand mount design with the bottom part of the cabinet sealed off from the top unit with the drivers.

[Marco]

Exactly - and for that reason (among others) I'm not overly keen on 'tall and slim'-type floor-standing designs. I like some GIRTH, and that means nice fat-ass baffles, housing drive units much bigger than those found in the WAF-controlled home of your average pee-soaked weeny boy!

In general, I'd take a quality, large stand-mounted speaker, over most floor-standers; certainly the conventional variety, which for me offer too many compromises.

Marco.