Don S,
not sure why you're getting so defensive about this. My point is simply that the use of lead shot, particularly lead shot made of recycled lead as ballast, is not necessarily worse than anything other than sand. That's ALL I'm saying. And I'm not doubting ALL green products. I'm merely pointing out that not all green products are as green as they seem. Trying to argue life cycle or ownership time of anything is a straw soldier at best, also. I wouldn't promote the use of lead as ballast, but I wouldn't necessarily shun it in ALL cases either. At least the lead shot could be reused or recycled again.....unlike that hybrid car battery.
As you said, all lead stays in circulation regardless if it is newly mined or recycled......so, I argue, if it is already mined, why is it less green to put it to use in something that isn't environmentally harmful versus just letting it be used in perhaps even worse ways? Again, we're talking about the use of it in stands, which I'm sure is but a microfraction of how it is normally used or what it is normally manufactured for.
I do understand the concept that whatever is taken out of circulation will get replaced via more mining. BUT, unless one uses sand, I really don't think steel ballast or anything along these lines that require materials and resources as well as manufacturing processes are "more" green or have a longer life/use cycle. Understand what I'm saying?
Again, I'm not promoting the use of lead, but I'm also not against it if one decides to use it for something that isn't really worse for the environment than some alternatives. If one is truly concerned, use sand. At the end of the day, it is likely that sand filled stands will be plenty heavy and be sonically fine for the majority of stand mount speaker applications. I use sand in my stands today.
1. Sand is cheap
2. Sand is heavy enough for my stands / speakers
3. I have more things to worry about than if steel ballast or lead ballast or sand will seriously transform the sound of my stand mounted speakers. Just deaden the stands. Add sufficient weight (based on the size / weight / moving mass ie driver size). Play around with coupling vs decoupling the stands and speakers if you want to. Be done. Enjoy listening. Stop worrying.
