Magic of a ply board

firearm12

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Hi friends,

Just sharing what I have experienced with my bookshelf speakers. I always thought that getting up speakers on dedicated stands and positioning them appropriately in room is the work done. I use mentor menuet speakers which are tiny and low on bass if you want to categorise them, and I thought because of this they were lacking and sounding somewhat thin on midrange, though they sounded very good to me. Few days back I happened to get hold of two rectangular ply board pieces just bigger than the upper place of my speaker stands. Though I did not intend to use them for my audio system at all but just out of curiosity I placed them under my speakers on their own rubber feet, played a song and what a change I experienced. The midrange suddenly went heavy on texture and the sound just filled the room fully, bass got heavy, tight and extended much lower, highs got extended higher and treble became more silkier and here I stood in disbelief, it was like i just got new pair of speakers for free. I am really not exaggerating anything trust me here. This makes me think that apart from speakers, we also need to carefully choose on what we place them. It has been really great experience so wanted to share with all of you.

IMG_20180917_180743-1160x870.jpg
 
Hey!!! Thank you for the confirmation...have two pieces of plywood at home. Now is the time to bring them to good use for my FS-52's.
 
Hey!!! Thank you for the confirmation...have two pieces of plywood at home. Now is the time to bring them to good use for my FS-52's.

Pls try surely, for my case the cons is that the sound has also become little loose and little imprecise and looses some soundstage, so technically is not the perfect sound but I am liking this sound, more musical and melodious to my ears. Sometimes when i play old Bollywood songs, I am reminded of an old valve radio which we had in our house, wooden kind of sound.
 
Pls try surely, for my case the cons is that the sound has also become little loose and little imprecise and looses some soundstage, so technically is not the perfect sound but I am liking this sound, more musical and melodious to my ears. Sometimes when i play old Bollywood songs, I am reminded of an old valve radio which we had in our house, wooden kind of sound.

Will try and share the feedback..
 
few of us have used Bamboo chopping board and the results were far better than ply. YMMV.
search bamboo chopping board in AMAZON.
 
As Prem has much experience about these things..he can explain better about the characteristics of spruce like he told about granite and i pretty much get convinced by his experiments.
 
Spruce as a shelf does not work. The way to make it work is to have two planks wider than the equipment placed under the legs of the equipment. Each plank can be 2.5 to 3 inches wide. Thickness between 25-35 mm. My personal favourite thickness is 34 mm

The planks must not rest on the shelf. It should be raised by about an inch. I prefer small 1x1 inch maple risers here. These two risers are at the end of each plank.

By doing this you’re creating two cantilevered bridges on which the equipment sits.

Above is the only way spruce works under equipment.

A few members on our forum use spruce this way under their equipment and have been happy with the results.

@yogibear, however thick a granite slab you use, it rings. You may like the sound of the granite slab under the speaker because you get the feeling the highs are extended. That’s a personal taste, best left for each to listen and decide.

@guys you want to go ahead and experiment with granite please do

To me granite is like a brash whiskey. I prefer something which brings out the flavours and is smoother ;)
 
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What to do mpw? After hanging around with you, I have developed a taste for all good things in life
 
Spruce as a shelf does not work. The way to make it work is to have two planks wider than the equipment placed under the legs of the equipment. Each plank can be 2.5 to 3 inches wide. Thickness between 25-35 mm. My personal favourite thickness is 34 mm

The planks must not rest on the shelf. It should be raised by about an inch. I prefer small 1x1 inch maple risers here. These two risers are at the end of each plank.

By doing this you’re creating two cantilevered bridges on which the equipment sits.

Above is the only way spruce works under equipment.

A few members on our forum use spruce this way under their equipment and have been happy with the results.

@yogibear, however thick a granite slab you use, it rings. You may like the sound of the granite slab under the speaker because you get the feeling the highs are extended. That’s a personal taste, best left for each to listen and decide.

@guys you want to go ahead and experiment with granite please do

To me granite is like a brash whiskey. I prefer something which brings out the flavours and is smoother ;)


Wow, looks like there is a lot more science to it than i thought, this should make a good business idea, differences seem more than what we get by chaning cables.

Just used two marble pieces and i dint like the sound, too thin.
 
Try a layer of yoga mat on the top of the plywood. I am speculating some improvement. Since I dont have a speaker stand i cannot test it myself. I sold them recently. ;( If you are testing that , please do let know the results :);) By the way, what brand are your stands? Sometimes if the stands are not heavy enough, you are kind of preventing the vibration to pass to the stands there by providing more isolation.
 
Get the Wharfedale EVO 4.2 3-Way Standmount Speakers at a Special Offer Price.
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