There is some discussion around about whether speaker stands influence how a bookshelf speaker sounds. I know my experiences , what have other found for themselves. Is it the stands that seem to affect how a speaker sounds or is it just the height of the tweeter and its relationship to your ears. Post your own experiences and tests with speaker stands.

I have 3 sets of Axiom FMS stands for M2s, M3s, M22s (in HT). While they are costly, they are stout, stable, look good & fit Axiom speakers perfectly.

I think that placement in the room & the room itself is way more important than the stand. Furthermore, moving them for tweaking is generally much easier that awkward, heavy towers...

TAM

I found that how you mate the speaker to the stand makes a difference. Going from blu tac to shelf liner was a bad move. Back to blu tac.

I just used the little rubber type 'feet' that Axiom supplied with each speaker...

TAM

I hate stands. Complete hatred. In my mind if I'm going to buy bookshelves only to put them on overpriced stands... just buy the towers and be done with it. You are not saving space with bookshelves on stands so what are you gaining? I'll do anything I can to avoid stands for any speaker. And yes, the height of the speaker to your ears is very important. Some rooms that are very open are an exception but if I can find a way to avoid stands I will.

Newf, i was thinking more from a sonic perspective and what effect the construction material made. I can think of other reasons not to use a stand such as the fact they are inherently unstable. I also believe that with a sub towers are not required as long as the bookshelf can play down to 60hz or so. I used M2's with 2- 8" subs and it sounded really good ,the difference going to the M80's was not a large as you might think.When i had the M2's i researched speaker stands and i was able to find info to support my theory that the stands would affect the sonic's of the speaker on the stand but im sure if i looked hard enough i could have found info that refuted that position as well,on the internet you can find a way to justify almost anything. As for towers, they are part of my furniture and as a kid we always had large speakers in the main living room so the tradition continues.

How about buying bookshelves and putting them on cheap but solid stands ?

I have been going back and forth between towers & bookshelves for (yikes) maybe 40 years now and I keep coming back to bookshelves on stands. Haven't had to fill the stands with depleted uranium or anything, just cheap dimensional lumber from <local building supply place> seems fine.

I am not sure if anyone could tell whether the stand influences the sonics though from what i have read the density of the cabinet and amount of bracing can affect how a speaker sounds so why not the density and type of wood the stand is made of. When i used my M2's i put little stickon rubber isolators on the bottom which also kept them from sliding around. I played with ideas in my mind of things i would like to try such as hanging from ceiling or using something like a plant hanger.

I expect that the stand does affect the sound, although to a much lesser extent than the cabinet.

With the cabinet you have big flappy panels enclosing a region with constantly varying pressure, so if anything is going to resonate it has the perfect opportunity... but for the stands you have essentially unidirectional stimulus (through the bottom of the cabinet) acting on the supports in their strongest direction.

So personally I worry a lot about cabinet resonances and don't worry hardly at all about stand resonances

Agree 100% about the need for some kind of flexible isolation between speaker & stand but I think about it more as a way to avoid buzzing between the two hard surfaces.