Cheap and cheerful Spendor/Harbeth stands

Kpatch · Jan 18, 2020

I’m still planning on taking my time this Spring making knock-offs of the high priced stands with their patented ‘tone beds’ for my Spendor SP100s. But I was sitting outside enjoying an adult beverage and putting together my new sturdy Polywood end tables for the deck when I noticed how similar the Polywood were to two of the more popular Harbeth stands.

So I removed two of the table top slats and voila! Cheap and cheerful Spendor stands. The plywood is very dense and certainly seems strong and sturdy enough to do the job. I’ll add permanent feet/spikes later. The Polywood tables cost $60 each on Black Friday.

The high priced, $1500

The medium priced stand $500

The Polywood knock-offs with two table top slats removed:

‘Tone Beds’ wall bumper stand-ins

SP100s on the Polywood stands

My previous attempt at homemade stands:

prime minister · Jan 18, 2020

Very nice find! Love it.

gable · Jan 19, 2020

They look pretty nice, well done!

Salectric · Jan 29, 2020

They do look nice. How do they sound?

I had SP100's for a long time and have nothing but good feelings towards them. In my case, about a year after I bought the Spendors, I bought the dedicated Sound Anchor stands and was very pleased with the sonic improvement compared to my DIY wood stands. The only disadvantage was the 3-leg construction which was not as 100% stable as a 4-leg stand like the Skylan. A few years later I bought some Skylan stands and was somewhat disappointed with the sound quality. They looked better than the SA but they weren't as detailed and the bass was not as tight and powerful.

airdronian · Jan 29, 2020

@Salectric I have the Skylan 4 posters, for about a year and a half now. I also purchased the optional Q-Bricks which is an interface between the stand and speaker. Because of how they fit and the placement it's not just a pad.

When I first tried them (just after purchase) I wasn't a fan, feeling like I'd lost some bass. Just last week I put them back in and feel that the bass is better defined and not as resonant. If that makes sense. That effect subjectively gives them a little more detail.

First photo is the Q-Bricks. They have two metal plates that are sandwiching an absorptive material of some kind. Kind of a nipple (!) on one side.
Second photo - the round bit with the dimple is on top of the rod which tensions the top and bottom plate. The Q-Brick sits on that. It also provides a little more gap between the bottom of the cabinet and the top plate. Which may benefit the Harbeths as the cabinet does resonate quite intentionally.

Sorry for being off topic, I think @Kpatch has done a good job with his solution.

Salectric · Jan 29, 2020

My Skylans also came with Q-Bricks. I used them for a while but when I moved the speakers at some point I discovered the nipples were squashed totally flat. They may be better suited to a lower weight speaker. I ended up using the same rubber bumpers that I had on my Sound Anchor stands.

Kpatch · Jan 31, 2020

Salectric said:
They do look nice. How do they sound?

I had SP100's for a long time and have nothing but good feelings towards them. In my case, about a year after I bought the Spendors, I bought the dedicated Sound Anchor stands and was very pleased with the sonic improvement compared to my DIY wood stands. The only disadvantage was the 3-leg construction which was not as 100% stable as a 4-leg stand like the Skylan. A few years later I bought some Skylan stands and was somewhat disappointed with the sound quality. They looked better than the SA but they weren't as detailed and the bass was not as tight and powerful.

Apologies for the tardy response. I made a change in the knock-offs by adding the two removed center table top slats
to the legs to serve as base supports effectively making them more like the design of the Skylans than the $1500 stands.
I have both the SAs and the Sklans so sometime in the near future I can compare and contrast the three.
But I can’t to that now because I’m caught up in something else, something new, bold and shinier than shiny.

New base supports added:

Kpatch · Jan 31, 2020

airdronian said:
@Salectric I have the Skylan 4 posters, for about a year and a half now. I also purchased the optional Q-Bricks which is an interface between the stand and speaker. Because of how they fit and the placement it's not just a pad.

When I first tried them (just after purchase) I wasn't a fan, feeling like I'd lost some bass. Just last week I put them back in and feel that the bass is better defined and not as resonant. If that makes sense. That effect subjectively gives them a little more detail.

View attachment 19741

First photo is the Q-Bricks. They have two metal plates that are sandwiching an absorptive material of some kind. Kind of a nipple (!) on one side.
Second photo - the round bit with the dimple is on top of the rod which tensions the top and bottom plate. The Q-Brick sits on that. It also provides a little more gap between the bottom of the cabinet and the top plate. Which may benefit the Harbeths as the cabinet does resonate quite intentionally.

Sorry for being off topic, I think @Kpatch has done a good job with his solution.

My dear airdronian, I’m a bit confused as to how the Q-Bricks are used. The Q-Bricks are placed on the dimple and then the speaker on top of the Q-bricks? Doesn’t that make for a possible slippery situation?

I plan to try vibrapods between stand and floor and between speaker and top of stand (to also serve as the aforementioned tone wells!). Thoughts?

Also, in the future I plan to make a knock-off that looks like this, just because I like the looks of them, as does the
Mrs Ken Patch.

airdronian · Jan 31, 2020

Yes, the dimple fits with the protrusion on the q-brick. The opposite side has a thin layer of sumthin placed on it, which is visible in the photo. Once on the stand the speaker doesn't seem inclined to slide at all.

Cheap and cheerful Spendor/Harbeth stands

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