What's best? Speaker Isolation vs. Heavy Stand with Shot/Sand etc.

[DrGerm]

I'm researching speaker stands. For me, these will be for placement of surround speakers in a 7.2.2 environment. Mostly home theater, but also music listening. Price, size, etc. are of no problem. Looks are, however, important due to the ever important WAF. Otherwise I'm purely looking for an apples vs apples "what is the best" answer... if one exists.

I'm posting here cause I like how (at least in the youtube videos) this community doesn't seem to fall for the "marketing hype" of certain things.

So, here is my question:

1. Speaker stands with "sound isolation"? example: an IsoAcoustics speaker stand atop (or built into) an otherwise quality stand?

or

2. Heavy (i.e. steel) stands which you can fill with shot (steel or lead) or sand? i.e. a stand with heavy mass that couples the speaker directly to said mass + floor?

Thank you.

 

[ski2xblack]

Nothing wrong with a heavy, non-resonant stand. I use stands from these guys, and can recommend them with confidence. They also make wall mounts and will do whatever custom sort of stands you may need. Heavy steel construction, sand filled, powder coated (hope you like black), they're quite nice. And I should mention they're wildly inexpensive compared to what's out there.

 

[shadyJ]

If the speaker is well made, I don't think isolation pads or heavy-duty stands will do much to improve the sound. The speaker cabinet should be pretty inert already. If it isn't, it is a poorly-braced and shoddy speaker, and you have bigger problems to worry about than isolating it. "De-coupling" speakers from a floor is nonsense as far as I can see. It that could actually improve sound, it means flimsy flooring or flimsy speakers, and either way, you need to address the root of the problem, not band-aid it with a workaround like isolation pads.