When it comes to audio there are so many tips and tricks you can do by yourself to elevate your experience. This of course is very important to those that are dealing with music professionally, film making and so on.
Sound is really important to us and the way we hear certain things influences the way we understand and comprehend stuff around us. Most of us use our vision for our day to day life, but this doesn’t mean that sound is any less important. As you already know most people in this world do not have the commodity of eyesight and they have to go about their lives utilizing sound only.
Based on that we can deduce that 50% of our life is our viewing experience while another half is the audio one. With this in mind people that work with sounds professionally really have to invest a lot into creating the best possible audio feedback. This includes high-quality speakers, lines, soundboards, sound rooms and their isolation and much, much more. As you can see today’s topic will regard speakers as a sound providers and why it is so important that you use speaker stands if you want to elevate your experience. If you are on a hunt for a perfect speaker stand for your set then try Vogels and see if they have what you need.
One of the most common problems we see when it comes to editors editing their audio for their project is that they set their speakers on the top of their desktop and go from there. Now you may have invested in some expensive equipment and you may have all the gadgets necessary to record the sound for your project professionally but if your speakers are set on the top of your desk you will never manage to experience the true sound quality like that. This raises a few problems that we will elaborate on next.
If you set your speakers on top of your desk you are allowing your speakers to interact with your desktop surface and that is going to negatively impact the sound quality and the way you are hearing the sound. This is the result of a lot of vibration and distortion that is going on between your speaker and your desk. This will create a problem and if you are all into the sound quality you should aim to hear the truest possible sound so when you do you’re mixing it all sounds the way it should sound.
Another issue that happens here is that, when you set your speakers on your desk, the sound is way lower than it should be. Regular desk setups, with 99% of people is that they are sitting way above their desktop surface and if your speakers are on that surface it means that you are also sitting away above the place where the sound ends up. This means that sound will not directly travel to your ears and that it will end up bouncing all around the walls and other objects before it gets to your ear.
This means that you will hear that sound from a secondary source which can make it sound distorted and wrong. The way to combat this is to use those stands and try to elevate your speakers high enough so the tweeters are located at the level of your ear. this way you are getting all the sound directly from the speaker and there will be no bouncing back and forth and no secondary sound sources with interference.
OK, now that we have established the issues that you will have from speakers sitting on rigid surfaces like desks, bookshelves, or whatever setup you have, let’s talk a bit about what stand you need. When it comes to stands you need to make a selection depending on your use case. If you are a professional that needs each sound to be clear if you need to hear every tone and with any sort of interference then you need to find a speaker stand that will take all the distortion from the equation.
The type of stands that should be in your crosshairs are those that will mount on the wall and aim the speaker straight toward you without any interference beneath or around the speaker, but keep in mind that the sound quality also suffers if you have the speaker too close to a wall. Find the stand that is far enough from the wall that you avoid any possible distortions. Another solution is to find a speaker stand that will go on your desk, elevate the speakers to your ear level and take away any possible distortion that might happen. Those are the stands that do not have any rigid structure beneath them and that allows for some movement to absorb the vibrations the speaker will produce when it operates.
If you are someone who is not a professional but you want to enjoy the best sound possible then you don’t have to bother with the stands that have to be mounted on a wall or that have to allow for some vibration soak. You can get one of those tall stands with a thin leg that is aiming to get rid of as many acoustic reflections as possible. In this regard look for any speaker stand that is quite narrow or anyone that has some sort of curved or similar. This is the way you will ensure the best possible sound feedback in your use case scenario.
The thing to avoid is any type of blocky stand which is flat, like your desk. This also includes fancy stands in a form of cinderblocks that we try to utilize to add something different to the room.
Again, if the sound quality isn’t all that important go ahead, use cinder blocks from Home Depot, use file cabinets, shelves or whatever, but if you want clear sound without tonal distortions turn to slim stands that will both elevate your speakers to the desired height and add to the quality of the sound. If you are a professional think hard about those metal, curved stands that will take away from the speaker vibration or think about wall-mounted speakers for the best possible audio experience.
