Should Floorstanders really stand on the floor ? or on a plinth, slab … Is tweeter height the main factor to consider.

I use WD25TEx closed boxes - and have them on marble slabs as plinths. I don’t really like the “ imperial”look and am thinking of making some wooden stands. but is tweeter/ears height the deciding factor ? or would an open space between them and the floor perhaps have an effect? I saw some stands designed by Planet10 in a sort of inclined sling arrangement in a thread on A25/deVore clones- worth trying ?
 
I think the answer to all of your questions is possibly. How about trying different heights and seeing what the effect is? Four tins of beans, or eight to lift both speakers is quick and cheap to try, and you can eat the beans afterwards! Bricks, concrete or wooden blocks etc. can also be used to create temporary stands to test

Brian
 
I thought you put them on those spikes.

1980D250-6BCF-438B-ACC4-2FCEFE7261EA.jpeg
 
Tweeter height is the first concern, and yes this question does present as a bit of a mystery since it has many possible secondary effects which may or may not mean you should do it. For example room modes, and there's tilting the speaker for distance aligning as you've mentioned. Then there's floor resonance.

You also mention a gap under the speaker. While this can make a difference, what happens at the bottom of the cabinet is it's own thing which may or may not be an issue.
 
What I was really getting at was whether my speakers should literally reach the floor or if a separating space of say 8-10 centimetres was preferable. This all came about after reading that Yamaha NS1000 are really to be considered bookshelf speakers
 
Had I not read it myself in a Yamaha catalogue, I would never had thought it. I now understand that bookshelf in audio has nothing to do with books nor shelves - I take shelf to mean a narrowish support of some kind underneath it to allow the tweeter to be at the correct height and not too far from, but not necessarily connected to, a wall behind. Of course, I may well be wrong. I shall try and conjure up some open stands to replace my present plinth arrangement but they won’t be 300mm tall.
 
People like skinny front baffles
for the magical effect they seem to produce.

The tradeoff is just more work to remove the baffle step
in the response.

With a tower that touches the floor.
The longer tower will help reduce the baffle step
if you want it skinny.

Otherwise standing height is hard to achieve with any
speaker.
But yes a tower should put the tweeter at the listening position.
Aka be at ear level seated.

Other than if using a actual woofer say 8" to 12"
then a tower makes more sense.
Since you will need the volume for the drivers.
Basically for me, I dont put speakers on shelfs
and dont use stands to make shelf speakers work.
The stand is build into the speaker. The speaker
sits at seating ear level. Makes life simple.
Since the footprint of a shelf speaker and tower can
basically be the same. I dont feel towers have a space constraint
or "too big"
Footprint can be the same, but more volume for woofers
 
Are you talking large speakers or real floor standers? With large speakers I put them on wheeled stands so the tweeters are at ear height. It also gets the woofer off the floor. Both of which are desirable.

Some floor standers are just fine as they are but if they are short I will put a short wheeled stand under them to raise them and make it easier to place them.

Rob 🙂
 

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