[beowulf]

Hey guys, I was wondering if anybody had any experience with this type of fill for speaker stands?  I'm having a custom pair of stands built for me and I can either use sand or I was thinking about Star Sound Technologies' - Micro-Bearing Conductive Steel Fill.  It's pretty pricey though, so I was hoping to hear some feedback on it if possible.

From their website:
Micro-Bearing Conductive Steel™ is the preferred ball-bearing steel fill material that is used to fill the support tube assemblies in Sistrum Platforms™. It has also become a favorite material for the High-End Audio Industry to fill racks, amplifier and loudspeaker stands.

One bearing is thinner than a human hair and smaller than a grain of sand (.0091 millimeters each), and multiplied by millions, provides a conductive mass and more importantly an even grain structure to expedite the high speed flow of resonance and traverse the design to the grounding plane. One quart of Micro-Bearing Conductive Steel weighs in at approximately 9 pounds.

This airy mass improves the audible (and inaudible) sound quality and performance of any equipment rack and/or loudspeaker stand by reducing the detrimental effects caused from vibration.

NO SAND, NO LEAD and NO RUBBER products can compare as these substances come from the 'absorbent materials' group.

It remains a fact that sand, lead and rubber materials are a solution to treat the negative effects of resonance and vibration. However, these materials absorb dynamics and micro-dynamics when used with audio and acoustic equipment. They literally soak up and destroy the energies that make the musical presentation exhilarating.

Maintaining and increasing dynamics within the presentation is a primary goal of all audiophiles. If you currently own a stand that can be mass loaded or are using sand and/or lead as the primary fill material, we highly recommend replacing the absorbent material with Micro-Bearing Conductive Steel.

Thanks in advance for any feedback you can offer!

[ssglx]

I didn't use the Star Sound product, but it inspired me to try steel blasting shot which is available on ebay. I tried it back when I used to couple my monitor speakers to their stands and it made a large change to the sound. Very energetic and vibrant. Ultimately I mixed the shot with ~50% dry play sand to I achieve the most natural balance, while preserving most of the nuance and microdynamics.

I choose to decouple my speakers now, but I highly recommend trying different speaker stand fills.

[beowulf]

I didn't use the Star Sound product, but it inspired me to try steel blasting shot which is available on ebay. I tried it back when I used to couple my monitor speakers to their stands and it made a large change to the sound. Very energetic and vibrant. Ultimately I mixed the shot with ~50% dry play sand to I achieve the most natural balance, while preserving most of the nuance and microdynamics.

I choose to decouple my speakers now, but I highly recommend trying different speaker stand fills.

Thanks for your feedback.  TBH, mixing the mediums is something I've never thought about.  I wonder if sand plus a more coarser medium like lead shot or even kitty litter would be better?  It would certainly be less expensive.  The only thing I'm thinking is that the way he builds the speakers I think the medium is actually sealed so it needs to be thought about carefully before he welds them shut, though I would ask if he could leave a tap or something so I can play around with the fillings.  Good suggestion though, it's something I going to ask him so I won't be tied to just sand for the life of my speakers.

[ssglx]

Some others will disagree with this preference and experience (and thus disagree with the Star Sound folks), but I hated what lead shot did to the sound. Absolutely sucked the life out of the speakers.
The room is alive with the metal shot mix because the music blooms with energy and presence and little is lost to heat in the fill.

If you couple your speakers to the stands and want to add more mass (accentuating the deeper bass frequencies in the process) I would definitely go with the steel fill in some manner. If you like or want to try lower mass and a different balance (which I also like), then go toward dry sand or kitty litter.

[beowulf]

Some others will disagree with this preference and experience (and thus disagree with the Star Sound folks), but I hated what lead shot did to the sound. Absolutely sucked the life out of the speakers.
The room is alive with the metal shot mix because the music blooms with energy and presence and little is lost to heat in the fill.

If you couple your speakers to the stands and want to add more mass (accentuating the deeper bass frequencies in the process) I would definitely go with the steel fill in some manner. If you like or want to try lower mass and a different balance (which I also like), then go toward dry sand or kitty litter.

Thanks, I'm going to try the Star Sound fill (I think), but need to know how much I need ~ since I'm only paying $245 for the stands, I don't want to spend as much on the fill! 

Also, do you use anything specific between the speakers and the stands (i.e. coupling the speakers to the stands)?

[ssglx]

If you are coupling to the stands, and you are already buying the Star Sound Microbearings, I would recommend you try their Audiopoints .2 AP .7D. My recollection is they produced a crystal clear sound that was hard hitting and vivid.
One of the micro-ball type products would probably also work similarly well.
For coupling I also tried wood pucks, thin cork, blue tack, and lead. Cork was my preference of those.

For decoupling (where the stand fill should matter little), I tried sorbothane products , vibrapods, and cork/rubber sandwiches from Mapleshade and Isolpads available on Audiogon. I ended up moving towards the softer interfaces with #2 vibrapods being favorite for larger rooms, and currently Isolpads for the small room I am now stuck in.

YMMV, but if you know your system well, this is where you can have alot of fun.

[beowulf]

If you are coupling to the stands, and you are already buying the Star Sound Microbearings, I would recommend you try their Audiopoints .2 AP .7D. My recollection is they produced a crystal clear sound that was hard hitting and vivid.
One of the micro-ball type products would probably also work similarly well.
For coupling I also tried wood pucks, thin cork, blue tack, and lead. Cork was my preference of those.

For decoupling (where the stand fill should matter little), I tried sorbothane products , vibrapods, and cork/rubber sandwiches from Mapleshade and Isolpads available on Audiogon. I ended up moving towards the softer interfaces with #2 vibrapods being favorite for larger rooms, and currently Isolpads for the small room I am now stuck in.

YMMV, but if you know your system well, this is where you can have alot of fun.

What do you prefer in your room with your speakers (coupling or decoupling)?  Thanks for all your input, this thread has been very enlightening to me on the different things I can try.

[ssglx]

Oops...in my last post I meant to say one of the roller-ball type products for coupling speakers. I believe they actually decouple for the horizontal, but couple in the vertical based on the hardness of the ball.

What do you prefer in your room with your speakers (coupling or decoupling)? 

Well that is actually a lot of question and depends on a lot of things. I personally like variety, and I like to have many tools at my disposal (cables, coupling methods, etc) rather than striving for a perfect sound.

I'm curious to know what speakers you are using? My main pair are Soliloquy. They are like Chemeleons.

I kick myself now for returning the Star Sound .2's. They seemed expensive and I had smaller kids at the time, so the chance of an accident was higher. I would also now very much like to try a good roller-ball product.

My preference has typically been decoupling (rather than spiking) because of the warmer and fleshy sound. Isopads under my Soliloquy floorstanders when I had them, and vibrapods under the bookshelf speakers because they accentuated some mid-low bass boost and growl which I liked.
But the vibrapods don't work in the smaller room I'm in now due to slow/bloated bass, and I'm back to Isopads.

Note that Star Sound .2's produced a tighter sound, but did not sound sterile. If you have the funds, that is where I would start. But I would also purchase Isolpads to have to try and compare because they are cheap.
If you don't like the .2's, I might even buy them from you, as they seem to never come up used.

[DaveC113]

How tall is your stand?

If it's not that tall you might want to consider using isoacoustics stands, if it's a normal height stand I'd make the stand lower and use the isoacoustics stand between the stand and the speaker.

On the fill material, I do agree with star sound that too much damping can seem to suck the life out of the music and harder materials that can transfer vibration often do sound better, especially with components, but with speakers you want the speaker isolated from the floor as effectively as possible and the isoacoustics stands do this extremely well.

[beowulf]

Oops...in my last post I meant to say one of the roller-ball type products for coupling speakers. I believe they actually decouple for the horizontal, but couple in the vertical based on the hardness of the ball.

Well that is actually a lot of question and depends on a lot of things. I personally like variety, and I like to have many tools at my disposal (cables, coupling methods, etc) rather than striving for a perfect sound.

I'm curious to know what speakers you are using? My main pair are Soliloquy. They are like Chemeleons.

I kick myself now for returning the Star Sound .2's. They seemed expensive and I had smaller kids at the time, so the chance of an accident was higher. I would also now very much like to try a good roller-ball product.

My preference has typically been decoupling (rather than spiking) because of the warmer and fleshy sound. Isopads under my Soliloquy floorstanders when I had them, and vibrapods under the bookshelf speakers because they accentuated some mid-low bass boost and growl which I liked.
But the vibrapods don't work in the smaller room I'm in now due to slow/bloated bass, and I'm back to Isopads.

Note that Star Sound .2's produced a tighter sound, but did not sound sterile. If you have the funds, that is where I would start. But I would also purchase Isolpads to have to try and compare because they are cheap.
If you don't like the .2's, I might even buy them from you, as they seem to never come up used.

I'm having Louis C. from Omega Loudspeakers make me a custom pair of Outlaw Omegas.  They will be a 2 chamber cabinet, the top chamber will be ported and incorporate Omega's AlNiCo Hemp Cone drivers running fully open (without a crossover).  The bottom chamber will be sealed and incorporate Rythmik Audio's Servo MOSFET amplifiers and GR Research's SW-12 04 12" inch paper drivers.

Although the final dimensions are not worked out yet, they will resemble (both in style and size) a big BBC monitor ~ really close to the ATC SCM100, so I'm estimating these to be about 30" H x 15" W x 20" deep.  And fully loaded with drivers, amps and Louis' very stout cabinets I'm think they are going to be 80-100lbs each or possibly even a little heavier, so I'm wondering if they may be too heavy to try the Star Sound .2's (is there a rule of thumb when it comes to something heavy).  And although all our kids are teenagers, we do have some little ones over from time to time.  My living/listening area is in a great room (combined kitchen/living) so fairly big space and 12' ceilings, etc.

So I'm only estimating the stands need to be about 5-7" high.  Both the speakers and the stands will probably look very similar to this:


I know of the Soliloquy brand, fine speakers by the way!

How tall is your stand?

If it's not that tall you might want to consider using isoacoustics stands, if it's a normal height stand I'd make the stand lower and use the isoacoustics stand between the stand and the speaker.

On the fill material, I do agree with star sound that too much damping can seem to suck the life out of the music and harder materials that can transfer vibration often do sound better, especially with components, but with speakers you want the speaker isolated from the floor as effectively as possible and the isoacoustics stands do this extremely well.

Thanks Dave, I actually looked into the isoacoustics as I like what people have to say about them, and you're right the stands will not need to be tall, only about 5-7" is all I need, but the weight plus depth and width would require a custom stand made by them as well, and that turned out to be a little pricey, whereas the guy who is building my stands is only charging me a couple hundred dollars and then I could add whatever fill and spikes, etc. that I needed.  Plus I kind of like the look of the ATC stands ~ yes I'm being superficial , but these are in my living room and have to blend in with the décor, etc. (WAF and all) LOL!

[DaveC113]

Ok, well don't forget to account for/use decoupling devices... imo the iso stands are worth it and extremely effective, but I understand the looks are questionable. I'll be using a custom version of them for my speaker, but they will be hidden inside the bass cab.

[beowulf]

Ok, well don't forget to account for/use decoupling devices... imo the iso stands are worth it and extremely effective, but I understand the looks are questionable. I'll be using a custom version of them for my speaker, but they will be hidden inside the bass cab.

Good advice, that's why I'm holding off on the final height.  I want to make sure they're not too high, etc.  Integrated into the cabinet?  That sounds pretty cool, can't wait to see how these guy turn out!