Monitor stands...big difference?

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ad0lescnts

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I was recently getting one of my recording projects mastered at Threshold Sound + Vision by Jeff King. He was telling me about how having your monitors and stands makes the hugest difference in how well your mixes will turn out. I looked into it and I can get a pair of KK audio stands for 50 bucks. Any input on this? Do you think it makes a difference? right now i just have my monitors sitting on my desk.

Thanks,
T
 
It depends on the situation, but isolating the monitors from the architecture can do wonders in many cases.
 
From a wharedale monitor manual:
Care should be taken to reduce as much as possible the clearly audible effects of sound bouncing off the control surface of mixer or console...
They further suggest mounting the monitors on sound absorbing blanket temporarily and if it makes a big difference, elevate them (or, I assume, buy stands)
 
Try this, I think you'll find it interesting:



Take whatever set of speakers you're using, and place them on different surfaces. Play something through them, then place your ear on the surface they are on. You should hear a good amount of "Warbling" effect comming from the surface.


In other words, surfaces tend to act like amplifiers, so if you could find stands that react the least to your speakers, the better off you'll be. Professional speaker stands are usually manufactured with absorbant materials for that reason.
 
http://www.americanmusical.com/item--i-AUR-MOPAD.html

these yielded about a 10% audible difference in my case, which was worth it to me. the bass became much more intelligeble. these pads are also cool in that you can put them together in different ways that let you adjust the angle of the monitors verticaly.

my studio space is too limited to get stands for my monitors so that wasn't an option for me.

also, don't forget to tune your monitors to your room!
 
You want truly inert stands, which are generally somewhat expensive. We use Sound Anchors stands exclusively here - they are excellent.

An easy way to find out how well stands will work for you is to simply make a stack of conder blocks and set the speaker on top - they are almost completely inert and will let you immediatly hear if the improvement is worth spending the money on something that looks nice...
 
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