John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum

Hey All,

I have read quite a few threads about monitor stands and isolation and I'd hate to start yet another one but my problem seems a little different. The floor in my mix room is old softwood planks. I am assuming the best way to deal with this is to sand/shot fill my monitor stands to give them the most mass possible, decouple the stands from the floor (need suggestions on how to do this if this is the case), and use spikes or something to couple the monitors to the stands. Is this the right approach?

thanks!

-erik

you could use a stack of cement blocks on open cell polyurethane foam, cover with cloth. cap with some nice wood and use the spikes or another layer of thin foam (like the bottom but thinner). the idea being the stand is massive, decoupled, and stable so the foam should be compressed enough to be stable but not enough to be rigid - say 50% of the original foam depth. glue the edges of the blocks to hold them together.

Fantastic! Thanks much for the suggestion. Do I want the monitors coupled to the high mass stand or do you think they should also be decoupled (spikes vs. foam)? One last question - I hear folks talking about sorbothane as a good isolator... Would sorbothane be too soft to be used below these cement blocks or should I just STFU and use the open cell foam. Thanks again for your help.

cheers,
erik

one of the reasons for coupling to the stand is stability. if you can decouple from the stand, great, if the decoupling is too soft and the monitor will sway, then don't do it. Sorbothane is nice and with the right density selection it will be useful for both under the block and under the monitor.

I was about to purchase some monitor stands and wondering if I should just build them. Do you always need to decouple a stand or is it only because of the type of floor he mentioned he had in the first post? I'm a bit confused about why exactly this needs to be done.

hi, i think he only needs to decouple his stands from his floor because the wooden floor boards would resonate to a greater extent if they were coupled. if he had a solid concrete floor, it could be a good idea to couple them and make it as solid and rigid as possible so that less bass is absorbed by the stand.

Probably not a good idea. Sound travels through solid things, like concrete and metal, much faster than through air, so anything else coupled to the floor and located closer to you that the speakers, such as the desk for example, would also be vibrating: you'd hear the sound from that before you hear the sound from the speakers. Not good. Speakers should be decoupled from everything as much as possible.