Old 09-21-2011, 08:43 PM   #1
the all new rob
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Default DIY monitor stands

Well, I ordered those Equators, and they get here in a couple days, and I can't be setting them on floor now, can I?

So I looked around at some other projects people had done and came up with my own twist on the perennial favorite DIY monitor stands.

Bill of Materials:
1 6' x 3/8" threaded rod
1 6' 4x4" vinyl fence post
2 3/8" carriage bolts
2 3/8" coupler nuts
4 washers
4 nuts
scrap 2x10" douglas fir (floor joist offcuts)
polyurethane varnish thinned with naphtha
self-adhesive wire management tabs with velcro strips
black vinyl dye (flat black Duplicolor Vinyl & Fabric Coating, to be specific)

Total spend ~ $30-40 (I only had to buy the first two items)

So I cut my vinyl post on the table saw into two 36" uprights. Sprayed those black with the vinyl dye, and wound up with this:


I cut squares (a bit over 8") out of my doug fir scrap, but first I ran it through my thickness planer, just to make it look nicer (it had printing all over it and was fairly ugly.

I used a forstner bit in the drill press to put a 1-1/8" countersink hole in the center (approximately--my drill has only 4" throat). Then I drilled through the rest of the way with a bit a little bigger than 3/8" so the bolt would pass through. All four pieces the same (but I paid attention to top and bottom appearance).

I rounded the corners just slightly on the router table using a 1/8" radius bit. End grain edges first to minimize the tearout along the grain. I tidied up a little with a block plane where things didn't look as slick as I wanted them to.

Then about four coats of my homebrew wipe-on varnish (50-50 polyurethane and naphtha applied with an old t-shirt. The naphtha makes the varnish dry extremely fast, so four coats took all of 15 minutes to apply. No stain, I just wanted the grain to pop a little.

The carriage bolts were installed to give me a temporary handle to pick up my workpieces.


Then I selected my top-bottom pairs


Here's a closeup of the edge treatment. You can sand this or do it with a block plane, I just happened to still have the router table set up from the last project. I just wanted the sharp edges broken.


Then it just came to final assembly. It doesn't take much imagination to put these parts together, however, my threaded rod was not long enough to go full height. So instead of buying another piece, I used a couple short carriage bolts and the coupler nuts to extend my rod a few inches (quiet in the back).

An added bonus is that I had the room to put a washer and nut holding the carriage bolt snug in the bottom plate before I put the coupler nut and long threaded rod on. So the rod didn't flop around like it would with no tension on it.

Going through the hole, from bottom up, it's carriage bolt, washer, nut, coupler nut, then threaded rod.


Then the post slips over that, line it up by eye and put the top plate on the threaded rod, and tighten down with washer and nut (using a socket wrench)


repeat the assembly and you have a pair of stands.


Mine are 39" high--36" posts plus 3" from the thickness of the top and bottom plates.


The wire management tabs were left over from some install at work, I just picked them out of the trash bin. One at top and bottom of the back side of each upright.


And velcro to gather up the cable and keep it out of sight and out from under foot.



Now, the technical part:

These absolutely should be filled with sand or cat litter or something else to contribute mass and dampen ringing. And because I can pop them right apart, I will be filling them as soon as I get enough old socks gathered and washed to hold my ballast. I have a couple five gallon buckets of aquarium gravel sitting around that is clean and won't mess up my room if it gets out the way sand would. That will get packed into socks and installed in the posts.

Concrete blocks on the floor work great, I know. I totally didn't want to look at them though. That was worth the 30 bucks to me plus the one evening effort to build these. I considered mixing up a bag of quikcrete and pouring it into the posts (not filling them though). I still may go that way. I hadn't figured out the trick with the nut on the carriage bolt before I gave up on the concrete fill. With that trick, you could build a temporary, narrow top plate to keep tension on the rod while you poured the concrete in, so the rod gets set in concrete at the right angle (kind of a big deal) and doesn't leak out the bottom end (bigger deal).

The tops won't show when these are in use, but the fronts will, so I chose to have that striking end grain showing forward on both tops and bottoms:


Thanks for your time.
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Old 09-21-2011, 08:47 PM   #2
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Oh yeah, the fence post came in a packaged 6' length, so not only did I not have to hassle cutting down PVC pipe (the usual material) that comes in 10' lengths, I could also fit this in my little car easily. Plus the square cross section looked more pro to me. A lot of builders use the 4" PVC and a toilet flange to attach it to the base and top. I didn't want to have to see that. Plus the fence had no markings to cover (even though i did paint it) and a finished texture as it came--no sanding and minimal prep work needed.

So fence FTW.
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Old 09-21-2011, 08:52 PM   #3
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Rob, you're a DIY machine!

Nice stands.
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Old 09-21-2011, 11:05 PM   #4
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that's awesome. I made some of these with black ABS - I wish I would've thought of the fence post idea. they look more legit with the square shape.

here's my project:
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=72883







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Old 09-22-2011, 08:58 PM   #5
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Very cool. I appreciate when people take time to take pictures to share their projects.
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Old 09-22-2011, 11:09 PM   #6
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Yeah they look great. Nice, interesting post
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Old 09-23-2011, 03:58 PM   #7
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Looks great, really classy. I like the black against the wood color. Good job!
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Old 09-23-2011, 07:18 PM   #8
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Looking better now:

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Old 09-23-2011, 07:41 PM   #9
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Very nice job. Looks Joe Pro.

Thanks for sharing.
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Old 09-23-2011, 08:38 PM   #10
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Sweet!
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Old 09-25-2011, 10:41 AM   #11
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Those look perfect with the Equators!
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Old 10-11-2011, 09:29 PM   #12
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Don't mean to detract from your workmanship, but the sand-loading won't have much effect apart from merely filling the cavity in the post. The damping effect of mass-loading depends upon the speaker being coupled to the loose mass, which is why metal plate and posts are generally used, to conduct the sound to the mass. When they're empty they should ring, and when they're full when you knock on them you hear more knuckle than metal. Your wooden top plate will act as a reflector and return the vibrations to the speaker, contributing to resonance and inter-modular distortion from the cabinet. The metal rod will offer some marginal transfer to the mass, but the socks will also insulate the mass from the vibrations, further diminishing the effect.

If you want some of that effect cheaply, you can simply use some small metal containers, like tuna cans. Take four empty tuna cans with no lids, drill a hole in the bottom center and cover it with duct tape. Take the top plate off a stand, fill a tuna can with sand, place the plate over the can, and flip it over, retaining as much sand in the can as possible, and align it with the edges at a corner, then fire a drywall screw through the can into the plate with enough torque to pinch the can in a little bit. Rinse & repeat for all four corners and the other stand.

What this does is provide metal contact between the speaker and mass, and the indentations created by torquing the screws let you use a stationary adhesive putty (dollar store) to hold the speakers in place. The sand will settle a bit so the pinching won't counter-act the loose mass effect. Naturally it would be nice to paint the cans prior to installation too. It actually looks like you could use some more height anyway, the tweeters should be at ear level.

So for the cost of eight tins of tuna, eight screws, $1 adhesive putty, and 8 sq in of duct tape, I bet it'll make the sound quality compete with $300 speaker stands. They'll lose some bottom end, but only the resonant flabby stuff, definition and imaging should sharply improve. Worst case scenario it's fully reversible, apart from four holes in each top plate that are covered by the speaker.
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Old 10-12-2011, 12:22 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuned View Post
They'll lose some bottom end, but only the resonant flabby stuff, definition and imaging should sharply improve.
I don't know that I claimed much in terms of my stands' performance other than positioning the speakers where I wanted them. And I did get the height correct, please at least give me that much credit.

I don't see how you are claiming that a couple pounds of sand helps as long as I put it in tuna cans while 30 pounds of gravel "won't have much effect" because I installed it in the columns. I wound up not using socks at all BTW, just loose gravel in the base (coarse sand by some descriptions).

In fact I really struggle to understand how you say that definition and imaging will sharply improve based on some pictures and text I posted. Even before I added ballast to the columns, I got a very respectable performance out of my setup in terms of being able to locate a panned sound at the listening position. I haven't really rechecked that test since I added the ballast, but I assume I at least did no harm.

I'm not an industrial designer not an acoustician, but it seems to me that the rigidity of the coupling I get from bottom to top plate using the threaded rod under significant tension (I don't have a way to measure it) would be preferable to the stiffness of the coupling from tuna can to top plate by means of a wood screw. Duct tape notwithstanding.

I guess I'll cop out and say my design was not intended to minimize intermodulation distortion at all, mainly because I knew ahead of time I couldn't effectively measure that. My design goals did include a) put the speaker in the desired position and b) don't tip over.

When I tap the filled stands with a drumstick, they ring far less than the unfilled stands did, I suspect mainly because the column is no longer freely vibrating in air. The 30 pounds of gravel made a perceptible difference there if not a measurable one.

If I was redoing this project, I would use a larger bottom plate. Just for additional resistance to getting knocked over.
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Old 10-12-2011, 11:32 PM   #14
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I made a mistake in saying they needed to be higher, I didn't recognize that they were Equator D5's with coaxial tweeters, I mistook the ports for the tweeters, my bad. Everything else I suggested is true, either try it, or don't. A few pounds of sand coupled to the speakers properly will accomplish a lot more than 30 lbs of fine gravel in the base on the other side of a reflective top plate.

I know because I've compared the same speakers on 1, 2, and 4 post sand-loaded metal speaker stands on many occasions, and also observed the benefits of mounting sand-loaded tuna cans to the undersides of stages to reduce solid-body resonance. The speakers improved in definition and imaging with less resonant bass, and the tuna can treatment resulted in less feedback from upright basses on every stage I treated.

It's a relatively easy and very cheap trick to try, and it's reversible if you don't like the results. If you like it it's not hard to chop down the posts and rods to achieve the desired height. Take it or leave it.
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Old 10-13-2011, 10:42 AM   #15
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this sand idea is intriguing - but why does it have to be Tuna cans? If the premise is loose-sand vibration, couldn't the OP try this out putting sand in 4 small plastic tubs (you know, like butter tubs, or the disposable ones you can buy at the grocery store), and set the speakers on the 4 tubs (using sticky putty for both ends) - shouldn't that get the same result?

That way, he (and I) could try it without having to eat 8 tins of lead-contaminated Tuna, and screwing screws into his nice looking stands (or my not-so-nice looking stands).

Anyway, maybe you've already tried this.

Also, could you possibly post pic's of what the Tuna can arrangement looks like?
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Old 10-13-2011, 11:10 AM   #16
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I've only ever done the tuna can trick on stages, and I only have mass-loaded metal stands, so I've got no pictures. But I'm certain that virtually all of the damping effect happens in the top 6" or so, the rest needn't be metal/sand. Surface area between metal and sand at the top is key, for example four post stands do a much better job than single post stands, but it's not because there is more overall metal/sand, it's because there is more metal/sand surface area at the top, more of the top plate is contact with the tubes.

The reason for the metal instead of plastic is to act as a conduit for sound, plastic is too soft. It would still work to some degree, but metal is definitely better. Feed the tuna to someone's cats if you must...
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Old 10-13-2011, 02:21 PM   #17
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ok, thanks, I may give this a try.
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