New speakers for the Mod686

Got the tools out today and made a home for the 686.

The Krell being a monster had no chance of going in the IKEA unit so spent an hour doing this:



Just moved one of the vertical dividers over. Job done.

Left me now with some spare cables so I'll flog them off.

I'll second that.
Have you placed any further support between speaker and stand Oli?

Have you tried spikes or wooden cones in place of the acoustilay? I'm not saying they would sound better, just interested.

if the room is carpet with underlay just sit the speaker stand on that where it will essentially 'float' - you can't really get a better arrangement.

The idea of 'draining away' vibrations from the speaker into the stands and into the floor is just a fantasy although many people seem to think that is how it works.

Spikes don't do anything except raise the speaker up a bit. The height of the speaker's mid and tweeter relative to the height of the ears is the single biggest factor in any standmounting consideration. It will have much more effect than anything else, such what the stand is made of (or who it is made by) or whether spikes, sorbothane etc are used.

Various ways to connect the speaker to the stand, blu-tak is as good as any although as Dave says it can sometimes damage veneer although I've never had it do that.

I agree and disagree with Macca. With my brothers floorstanders, spikes improved the bass over non-spiked on carpet/underlay. Townshend speaker bars (floating) improved on the spikes.
With my cubes I use 3 wooden cones between speaker and stand, which for me was better than soft squigy stuff.

It will depend on whether the floor is solid or suspended. Also whether the speaker has little feet that the spikes go into or the spikes just go straight into the cabinet. You should always have something between the base of the speaker and the carpet just to raise it up a little and get some air underneath. IME it makes no difference what you use for that - spikes, egg cups, dice pinched from a boardgame, tins of sardines, whatever. I've tried em all

My advice for suspended floors is to move the system to a room that does not have a suspended floor. They can be got to work with paving slabs etc but they are always sub-optimal.

On the other hand with solid floor you do want a lot of damping on it. I have thick underlay, carpet snd then rugs on top of the carpet. Laminate flooring and a thin rug on top is not enough.

I just give my opinion based on decades of mucking around with this stuff. Maybe in the hope that it will save someone else the messing about. I don't expect everyone to agree nor do I care if they don't.

I do notice that a lot of the things I figured out for myself via trial and error are now backed up by the findings of seriously conducted research and experimentation though...

To be fair,

We all offer our opinions as absolutes because we all have worked hard and building them over many years and it's formed what we think is right.

I prefer that approach because it should mean more consistency.

For instance, if Macca said, "oi Oli, look at this Quad amp, it'll beat the pants off your 686" and I try it and it doesn't, the next time he recommends a product, I'm less Inclined to follow it. I think its a great demonstration of where people are aiming their system and its all about finding people whose plan is similar to your own.

As it happens, Macca is usually spot on when he advises something, as we have the same idea of what we want to hear, even if it's not exactly the same.

What I don't think helps, is when folk are less absolute, even with minor things like feet on a TT. Non committal. That gets on my tits.

As we all know, there are no real absolutes in Hifi, on absolutes in our testing so as long as you accept that someone's wisdom may not work in your system, it's all good advice.

Dave, your advice has been Heeded and some little feet are on the way to try.

I am not going to go bananas with the speakers as what Macca said about the bass is right. Now I have played with the setup and removed the mid bass, they do miss an octave at the low end. I either get a mid hump and decent bass or a flatter response with a loss of depth in the bass. No amount of toe in will help here.

There’s a key point in there. You are both seeking the same thing, or at least broadly similar. Probably worlds apart from what I’m seeking. If you can find like-minded folk, it’s often a benefit to you both.

Max Townshend has always charged quite a bit, but his stuff has always done what he claimed IME. If I was wealthy, I’d explore a lot of his stuff. Speaker cradles would be high up on the list.

Balls.

Let's move lmao

I don't get one. Maybe the Ad Blocker Plus that comes with my browser stops it.

I’ve often wondered that too. Brieze blocks with dot and dab plasterboard on top are shite too. Older houses are usually better than newer ones for acoustics, but I guess there’s no rule saying all new houses are built with crap cheap methods. I wouldn’t touch a conventional new build with a barge pole, having seen what they use and how they are constructed. That’s not a hifi thing, just an objection to buying houses that are using things like OSB I beams.