For critical listening, like mixing and mastering, your speakers are obviously important. Often overlooked, however, is the importance of the stands on which the speakers sit. For best performance, monitor and hifi speakers should be level with the listener’s ears. Good speaker stands improve the bass response of just about every speaker, and a good stand provides isolation from vibration, further cleaning up the sound.
Of course, like most products marketed to audiophiles, quality speaker stands are expensive to buy. But a few industrious folk on the web have drawn up plans for good, cheap DIY monitor speaker stands:
The TNT Stubby: This is the most popular design for DIY’ers. Its simple wooden base and sand-filled PVC design is sturdy, yet easy to construct.
Lots of people have their own take on the TNT Stubby design. Here’s one with great pictures, and another all-black design that might suit some decors better than unfinished wood and PVC pipe.
Rob’s Speaker Stands: Made with steel, lots of steel. These might be trickier to build than the above designs, but they’re dead sexy.
3-spike Maple Stand: These all-wood frames look great, though solid maple may colour the speaker’s sound. (Though that could be desirable.)
Simple MDF Stands: All-MDF construction, so these stands are probably the cheapest of the group.
PVC and Concrete Stands: Art deco!
Generic Wooden Speaker Stands: This one-picture plan is straightforward, but the spikes on the stands’ bases (overlooked on a few of the other designs) would greatly enhance isolation. If you have hardwood floors, stands with a flat base may transmit too many vibrations.
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A bit late to contribute (2008!), but here’s my set:
http://www.benhall.com/speaker_stands.html
55 lbs. each, a bit reminiscent of deco (minus the curves), and like many DIY projects, they were cheap in every way but time. I don’t have plans posted, but it’s pretty obvious how they go together…