Should I dampen my speaker stands?

I have the 26" Kanto stands…and by dampen, I have two thoughts.

  1. fill them with some dense material, as is a popular soluton
  2. because I think I need a bit more height to position my YU6 properly for nearfield use with my desk, get some 12" cubed blocks of pine to give them the necessary lift.

some concerns though. The wiring comes up through the stand, which is common also I believe, meaning that once the material is poured, it’ll be a bitch to upgrade / replace the wiring if ever needed and also because that means these aren’t sealed in any way so sand, etc, could leak / spill. the simple solution would be to seal any holes in the stands and bypass running the cable through them entirely. that’s not a big deal, being all the cable will be behind my desk in the end anyways.

as for the wood blocks, they’re pine…not hardwood, so not sure how good / bad they will dampen vs other woods. however, I can access these for free, a buddy gets em from work and uses them for firewood. I can cut them to size as the base / feet on the stands are not 12" x 12" and finish them up nice so they look like a professional solution.

anyone know the math concepts well enough to have a clue how these two dampening ideas would work together or if one isn’t worth the effort over the other, etc etc?

lastly…for dampening material, other than sand, what should / could I consider using? is cement (dry powder vs. wet poured) any good? what else?

I also just got a new pair of stands recently, they seem to work just fine undampened but i currently have 40lbs of fine sand drying out in the basement that i plan on pouring into the plinths in a few more days once completely dry and screend. You can also add/use lead shot sold for shotgun re-loading. I have read that you can mix it in with sand And it makes for extremely dense dead weight.

I don’t know much about which stands you’re talking about. You could get a thin PVC pipe to run through the stand, run the wire through the pipe, then fill in the area between pipe and rest of stand with sand or lead shot.

For the desk solution…pine is a soft wood. I think hard woods are preferred when sound is involved. However, you could use the pine and find a thin yoga mat to cut down and place between pine blocks and speakers.

Also, I just use yoga blocks to elevate my desk speakers up to ear height. Works great.

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lead and sand…interesting.

WT, stands I have are these:

I know pine is a softwood, but I would theorize that a 12" cubed block, resting on carpet, would dampen vibrations quite well. no doubt hardwood would do better…and you know, my SiL could take the pallets he collects and uses and create block using glue n such. idea’s idea’s!

yoga bricks definitely won’t work though being my desk surface is covered in stuff for work and play, hence why they will be on stands placed either side.

I have the 32" white version of these and have my Kali lp6 monitors on them, There is a isolation pad on the top plate and I have no resonance from them but if necessary I do have 2" yoga blocks that I can use. I have never detected a problem though.

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If you are willing to use a 12” cube of pine you might as well go with tried and true proven Cinder blocks. I have seen pictures of folks using simple cement cinder blocks as stands Often on the internet. Looks stupid but can’t deny the fact that they are dead, heavy, and have NO vibration. I know for a fact that folks have made speakers with cement filled bases and there is even a mfgr. Or 2 that sell cement base speakers and speakers with a lower cavity that can hold sand or cement.
https://www.concrete-audio.com/en/

Hell, if you are going to use pine you could even use books. They are dense, and dead. I used to read a guys blog that used books all the time on his desk to bring speakers to ear hight for his reviews. He was an engineer and swore by his methods…
http://noaudiophile.com/index.php

I felt it was quite the audible upgrade when I filled my stands. My cables originally went through the stands like yours, but now, I just keep them out.