Custom Design Loudspeaker Stands

Having recently purchased a pair of Tannoy 15DMT loudspeakers I wanted a pair of stands of around 250mm in height to raise the speakers so that the speaker axis was more in line with my listening position. This is where my problems began as I found the well known loudspeaker stand manufacturers catered mainly for small loudspeakers requiring stands of around 400-600mm in height. Atacama offered a stand of 300mm in height but the base and top plates were too small for stability as the Tannoys have quite a large footprint and are haevy at around 90lbs. I then came across Custom Design (Tel no. 0191 2624646) in the HiFi World magazine who as part of their normal range of stands will also make custom design stands I duly contacted them and found them very helpful and placed my order for a fully welded space frame type with spikes and inert filler, the cost including delivery being £150. The stands arrived yesterday and I was impressed by their quality of workmanship and finish. I must say at this point that I am not in any way connected with this company but if you require a pair of custom design stands I don't think you would be disappointed.

 

'Something Solid' is another custom builder of speaker stands and now also audio racks.

http://www.noteworthyaudio.co.uk/Something_Solid.html

(I am not connected in any way to any company mentioned or linked to in this thread).

 

Most small engineering firms will undertake this sort of work for one off's cost should be less than £50 ......

As an aside DaveF has had a set built by a company local to him that are well put together and sound damn fine ...bettering a set of atacamas that I'd lent him ....not bad for £40..... A coat of metal paint [aldi £3.99 gloss black] .....

I've had him get a pair made for me .....totally off the wall design ...two halves with a complient contact. I degreased them and dried in an oven at 110 deg c then painted hot ...very exciting but they were touch dry in half an hour.

If I can get the design to sound half decent I'll pop up the details on the diy section...currently messing with the contact material ....super balls are not strong enough so it rubber door stops !

 

£150 is reasonable given that they've done the filling and presumably they've painted them etc as well as delivery of a pretty heavy item.

A local place would probably do a cash in hand deal for £60-£70, but you'd have to do the filling and painting yourself (as I did with Tonne Control).

As for sticking speaker stands in the oven... your wife must be very patient!

 

I waited till she'd gone out !

 

:lol:

What exactly was the point in putting them in the oven then?

 

It was a bake-off ;P

 

:bakeoff: And the results? :MILD:

 

I've got a pair of custom made Something Solid XF stands under my Harbeth C7s and they are excellent, certainly a lot better than the very high mass Targets I had previously.

Tony.

 

Water soluble degreaser .....The heat also allowed the paint to dry about 8x faster ....but you need oven gloves to move the sections. The finish seems pretty good ....a deep black gloss

sound wise ...bass light but imagining was very sharp .....so I'm messing with the elastomers currently rolled rubber mat is the fav ..but I'm down with a heavy cold so further experiments have been banned by Mrs Z.

 

Cheers pete.

yes, i got a local fabricators to make up a single column design using 4mm box section with 6 mm plate (top and bottom)

I'd been over to petes mainly to listen to his valve amps using my speakers (but with petes atacana stands) to see if i liked the effect; i d been asking him about the poss of me using a valve amp and so he suggested i had a listen to his.

Indeed i WAS impressed...to an extent that made me look at his stands more closely.

breifly, pete (very kindly) lent me the stands....when i got them to my place I was again very surprised at the different between my old tar*ets and petes atacamas. One obvious difference betwen the two sets was that petes had thicker top/bottom plates, so as pete says we got to thinking about various designs might do. I would say at this point that petes help and encouragement have been invaluable.....his knowledge seems unburstable!! cheers pete

The single column design IS quite good....would like to see what a 4 column design might do but that pushes the price up to possibly £80-90. Regretably thats gonna have to wait.

I'm going to see another fabricator in town soon to see how his prices compare.