I need some new stands

[Filterlab]

Interesting, Steve. Can you elaborate on that, too? Does it involve the coupling or decoupling method, or is it an amalgamation of both?

Ahh, I see a small 'speeling eroor' there.

[Marco]

Where? I think you might want to check on that

Marco.

[fraser.]

I'm keen on getting the SE12s but in the meantime here's my beautiful stand in stands:


breezeblocks.. have some spare if you like the look these give, very homely

[Filterlab]

Crikey, that's a stand. However I have solid concrete blocks underneath my speaker stands so I'm one to talk. I take it you're not married then?

How is the sound affected, better, worse or indifferent?

[fraser.]

LOL no... although my girlfriend wasn't too impressed either.

In some ways they are a definite improvement, there was a big problem with soundstage before, i'm not obsessed with that but it was a worry just having a wall of sound- very different presentation from the TDLs.. That's cleared up a lot and everything's much more defined now. Some of this might just be down to raising the height of the speakers i guess..

However i still have a problem with the bass, it's not as defined as i like- at the moment i'm blaming this mostly down to how they are sitting- i have no cones or spikes spare and the blocks aren't ideal- tomorrow i will put the blocks on the floor and put the granite slabs on top of them- and then add some cones to the speakers and take it from there.

I also experimented with different toe-ins, which seems to make a much bigger change than it did with the TDLs... i think i've now got the types of speaker which need to be positioned exactly right to sound their best. Listening position also seems critical- if you don't sit in the middle everything sounds a bit wonky but in the right spot they continue to amaze me. I never realy considered SONY as a potential speaker upgrade but my fetish for 80s gear drew me in again

I used loads of test tracks for this but the most revealing were 'son of a preacher man' and some norah jones stuff. Things got a bit cloudy when the positioning was off, especially the complex parts of 'don't know why', and the dusty spingfield track just took on a different level when everything was set up better.