[Laundrew]

Curious if anyone has had any experience with elevating their floor speakers and the resulting sound quality.

I was working in the listening room this morning and was considering adding a small stage, perhaps 4 inches tall for my audio gear to sit on. As you can see by the photo, the equipment sits in a small nook - the upper "beam" at the ceiling indicates how deep the nook is. The stage would be approximately 3 feet deep and running "wall-to-wall."

A small stage would eliminate the requirement for the carpet installers to join carpet because the room is around 14 feet wide at this location - no seams. Also, my speakers used to sit on a particle board tile and this was to protect them against the vacuum cleaner.

Would this be an issue with floor coupling or is this an old wife's tale? Any comments are certainly welcome as I am truly out of my league on this issue.






Be well...

[Laundrew]

post scriptum...

The "lamp cord" speaker wire is long gone - this is what I used for the Marantz before the Beasties arrived 

Be well...

[Phil A]

I used to elevate my old B&W P6s when I used them in the bedroom.  I have a sleigh bed and without the elevation the woofers would fire into bed.  It also got the tweeters closer to the level of the TV.  I used 16 inch stands.  It did lose a little bass response but I was primarily using them for HT and had a sub.  I eventually gave up on the arrangement as for the room the speakers were not right.  They worked out nice in the basement system after I finished the basement.  I would not think that a small stage of a few inches or less would probably hurt it terribly.  You can experiment either with an RTA or a disc with test tones and an SPL meter to see if it impacts anything significantly.

[rollo]

Elevate away however keep that tweeter no higher than your ear at sitting position. Check out Sound Anchor or equal. Did wonders with our vintage Snell EIV.


charles

[won ton on]

Just do the vacuuming yourself ,also i agree with rollo. A stage would be fine as long as tweeters are not above your ear level,maybe raise your chair if you have to.

[won ton on]

Nice set up bye the way.It looks like you could use more space on the sides of the speakers though.

[Laundrew]

Thanks to all who commented thus far Did not know about the tweeter issue as they are already very close to ear level as it now stands. I agree on the side distance to the wall and hopefully will gain another foot with an audio stand.

Be well...

[TomS]

Laundrew,

They're rather pricey, but take a look at Sistrum stands.

http://www.audiopoints.com/ComponentPlatformsDetail.php?SP-101-7

They have several models depending on the weight and dimensions of the speakers, but reviews are highly favorable across the board for use as speaker supports.

Tom

[Photon46]

My experience belies the need to keep tweeters at ear level, I suspect it's dependent on the dispersion pattern of the tweeter, room characteristics, and personal preference. My Tidal Piano Ceras have Accuton ceramic drivers and the tweeters are positioned about six inches above ear level with no deleterious effects. If anything, I think the speaker balance with the  tweeter slightly above ear level is more pleasant than being at ear level.

Those sheets of strand board your speakers are sitting on can't be doing your speakers any good though. Get something with a bit of mass for them to couple to, concrete patio pavers, granite, slate, maple. I needed something flat and solid for the feet of my speakers to sit on, they're rather like Cerapuc footers in function. Carpet definitely doesn't work with them. I got polished 20" square 50 lb. slabs of granite cut at a stone dealer for a hundred bucks, works great and definitely improved the sound compared to the lighter weight tiles I had been using.

[redbook]

  I can testify to the advantage of  concrete slabs as risers. The mass  has a bass tightening effect. Granite is even better and prettier. 

[Karhu]

+1 to using granite blocks under your speakers. I got the same tightening of the base as redbook.

I was told the black is the densest type and white granite is the least dense, so using the black gives the greatest effect.
They work really well if you have a suspended wooden floor like mine.

I had a set of 1 inch thick black granite blocks made to the same dimensions as the footprint of my OB1i's.
I had them made with the top face polished, intending to have this uppermost for aesthetic purposes; but found that, as I have a carpeted floor, having the polished face on the bottom allow easy movement of the granite block/speakers to get their position just right as it allows very fine movement without disturbing the positioning of the speakers which are are on spikes on the granite blocks.
The unpolished surface is a pale grey, which I actually like, oh and it matches the blocks you have your equipment on.

stay calm,
K

[tim92gts]

You can test how directional the tweeters are by moving your head up and down in the listening position,
if 4" higher sounds good what about a 4" concrete strip across the room there?
If you might want it out later lay it on thick plastic, a wood skirting across the front would tidy the front.

Just a thought !

[James Tanner]

Hi Folks,

Most dynamic type DOME tweeters (like in the model T speakers) these days have a very wide dispersion patterns - think of it like a flood light rather than a spot light.  So height differences of a few inches one way or the other should not cause drop outs in high frequency energy as you sit or stand or placing them on a support. 

Ribbon type tweeters or line source type tweeters generally have excellent dispersion in the horizontal plan but fall off rapidly above and below the physical location of the tweeter (vertical dispersion limited) in the speaker so they are much more prone to dropouts of energy as you raise your head above or below the on-axis dispersion.  Thats why most ribbon type tweeters or planar dynamic type tweeters are tall to provide as much coverage as possible over as wide a vertical area as possible.

Horn type tweeters are very directional so the waveguide horn assembly tends to beam the energy in a specific direction so placement is a bit more critical.

james