Woke up today with a question in my mind - what would happen if I took a couple of long clamps and put them on the back of the speakers to clamp them down to the stands..... The clamps go between the top of the speakers, where I've also added a couple of 3mm aluminium squares 150x150mm, and the bottom side of the metal top plate of the stand.
So I tried it out. Quite a difference! Very audible increase in clarity and dynamics. And the words of lyrics have become easier to hear, together with low level detail I hadn't heard before on tracks. The sound is clearer and more percussive - accents are more pronounced. The drum kit in particular is more dynamic. You might expect the difference to be in the bass, but it isn't - it's in the mids and treble. The bass is a little tighter but because of the brighter mids it has gone back a little in the mix. It's not deeper, but you wouldn't expect that.
Speakers are Mission 761, sealed box 10.2 litres, 6.5" and 19mm tweeter. Stands are very solid Atacama SLX 600.
Has anyone else tried this? If you have a couple of long clamps I suggest you try this out. The difference in my case isn't subtle. I'm going through all my favourite jazz singers and having a ball.
So I tried it out. Quite a difference! Very audible increase in clarity and dynamics. And the words of lyrics have become easier to hear, together with low level detail I hadn't heard before on tracks. The sound is clearer and more percussive - accents are more pronounced. The drum kit in particular is more dynamic. You might expect the difference to be in the bass, but it isn't - it's in the mids and treble. The bass is a little tighter but because of the brighter mids it has gone back a little in the mix. It's not deeper, but you wouldn't expect that.
Speakers are Mission 761, sealed box 10.2 litres, 6.5" and 19mm tweeter. Stands are very solid Atacama SLX 600.
Has anyone else tried this? If you have a couple of long clamps I suggest you try this out. The difference in my case isn't subtle. I'm going through all my favourite jazz singers and having a ball.
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Not clamps, but I've used a ruddy great pot-plant or a slab of marble on the top before now, just as was popular in the '50s - '70s, and was laughed at by subsequent, oh-so-wise hi-fi magazines as merely a sop to contemporary decor taste. It might have helped with that, but it could acoustically too. Which is logical when you think about it -adding the weight high up mass-loads the panels into the floor, or in this case the stand, which is in turn loaded into the floor. Similar result to clamping; you're basically helping shunt the panel resonances out of a region where they're most likely to be excited, as well as improving the overall stability.
I wonder if the improvement is clamping it to the stand, or because you are putting forces on the cabinet that affect its performance? Could be tested easily enough, though it might be hard to turn off the brain's inherent biases when deciding how it sounds. Worth trying though.
I've usually used (wood) screws; they can help if the stand is either heavy or also screwed down. But I'm intrigued by augerpro's post; if the speaker cabinet isn't well enough braced then perhaps external clamps might also reduce/damp the muddying sound of panel vibrations.
Both, though 'fighting'/annulling each other to a some extent.
A-ha! Those look like Vifa woofers that I'm playing with, well, the boxes. Tweeters in mines is a 2" wideband in a 8" waveguide. Now that I see those Mission...the tweeter is a 1" dome in a big (flat) waveguide!
Regarding the resonance of the different pieces altogether, the change of the clamps set to a different kind.
Regarding the resonance of the different pieces altogether, the change of the clamps set to a different kind.