When I bought my Revels I decided to go with the dedicated stands that accompanied them. Basically they're unballasted tri-leg affairs with a flat top plate (exactly the same trapezoidal shape as the speaker) and the base plate is a very heavy rolled off job. When I set them up I thought they were very 'ringy' and despite being very tightly bolted together and extremely close tolerance in fitment, they still clatter like a bag of spanner. Still, once in place and standing on some slate they are nice and solid and stable.

Anyway, last night I decided to get my spare stands out and see if something with more mass made a difference. The stands in question are a pair of concrete filled Atacama SE24 with a full set of M8 spikes top and bottom. They weigh at least twice as much as the Revel dedicateds and in my mind (and according to the reviewers), mass should provide a much more inert base for a speaker. However the recent Quadraspire range of stands seems to have disproved that, stating that mass stores energy and consequently a low mass stand will 'ground' and stored energy and divert it away from where it is desired to be avoided.

So after playing music for a couple of hours I swapped the speakers over to the Atacamas and proceeded to listen. Mmmm, not impressed, all the life disappeared and the imaging got confusing. Whilst the treble remained as crystal clear as usual, the vocals seemed to disappear behind a blanket and the bass lost its crispness. So I swapped the speakers back to their dedicated stands and all was redeemed.

It really makes me think that Quadraspire have got their ideas bang on and that mass is not the answer.

Do they make speaker stands?