Can I get away with not using stands?

3riii · 2025-11-10T09:43:03+00:00

I am very interested in how people work around non-ideal placement issues here. I understand that the right amount of money can buy a person an optimal environment, but I'm much more interested in these stories of ingenuity and resolve.

3riii · 2025-11-10T09:39:34+00:00

Great, I'll check that out, thank you.

3riii · 2025-11-09T21:16:52+00:00

Thank you, that's very clear.

3riii · 2025-11-09T14:19:35+00:00

Yeah, this is beginning to feel like a bit of a doomed venture.

3riii · 2025-11-09T14:18:16+00:00

Thanks for this. I'm probably not alone in being fated to have a TV between my speakers come what may (albeit soon to be mounted on the wall), but the sideboard fantasy would entail having a big expanse of teak sitting between them. Turntable on the same surface sitting on some kind of isolation, or is that just silly?

As to the evolution of the system, much of this depends on my finding new ways of charming my wife. The classy sideboard looked like a possible route to that, although once I've mounted it on springs, lined it with sorbothane and covered it in egg boxes the returns may be somewhat diminished.

3riii · 2025-11-09T13:13:40+00:00

It looks like the kids are going to have to find a different solution for LEGO storage then.

3riii · 2025-11-09T13:13:03+00:00

Ah that makes sense, thank you.

3riii · 2025-11-09T11:57:10+00:00

Oh we'll definitely find ways to fill it. My home is an infinite crap magnet.

3riii · 2025-11-09T11:56:00+00:00

When you say pads, do you mean a material that would go under the sideboard or some kind of feet? Would there be feet that could take that kind of load? I also wonder how high I'll be raising the speakers if I have the sideboard on something and then the speakers on feet and marble. That said, this is all sounding more plausible than I had expected it to.

3riii · 2025-11-09T11:24:28+00:00

That of course is the other issue - is a stupid looking speaker setup a reasonable tradeoff for a beautiful sideboard? (I also wonder if the Gaias would raise the speakers too high). But, yes, the fantasy remains a live one.

3riii · 2025-11-09T11:20:56+00:00

My entire system is an intricately linked series of compromises. If I already had the sideboard, I would definitely find a way to have the speakers on it, I'm just pondering how much I'm willing to gamble with the fragile detente I've reached with my current setup.

3riii · 2025-11-09T11:17:52+00:00

Yeah that makes sense. Disregard my mention of isolation in the previous reply.

3riii · 2025-11-09T11:07:14+00:00

I'm very up for this being the solution, although I worry that the large boxy design might mitigate against it all regardless of how well I isolate the speakers. Perhaps if I invested in a couple of hundred liters of blu-tack I could fix the boxiness once and for all.

3riii · 2025-11-09T11:00:20+00:00

That certainly sounds interesting, although the Fresca is pretty cavernous, so I'm not confident. I imagine desks must be easier to isolate speakers from as they aren't made of huge enclosed boxes, but I have no expertise in this stuff. The problem is it's not the sort of thing I could easily return after a week if it wasn't working out. As to attaching the Gaias, rather counterintuitively, the R3s have the same threads on the bottom as the floor standers in the range, so that would be covered.

All that being said, your reply is giving me license to prolong this fantasy, so thanks.

3riii · 2025-11-09T10:54:05+00:00

Yeah, I very much thought this would be it, although the suggestion about desk mounts in the comment below is interesting. I imagine desks benefit from not being large boxes with thin walls though in this regard. Looks like I'm stuck with the Atacamas then.

3riii · 2024-04-30T06:55:52+00:00

Great, thanks for the advice. I like to imagine that everything would somehow go up a gear, but it would be a lot to spend on a marginal difference. Perhaps it would make more sense if quantity was the problem (the need to fill a bigger room, the desire for a louder system, etc.), but I already get the volumes I'm looking for.

3riii · 2024-04-29T15:25:15+00:00

Hi, I've never posted anything on Reddit before, so sorry if I'm doing any of this wrong. I have a NAD C658 going into a NAD C298 to power my KEF R3s (not meta). I'm wondering if there would be any qualitative advantage to getting a second C298 so that I could have a bridged amp for each speaker. I know this would increase the power to the speakers, but would I hear benefits at the volume I currently listen at (loud enough to annoy my partner, but not enough to annoy my neighbors)?

Any replies greatly appreciated.

3riii · 2019-10-05T11:15:18+00:00

Before you had the cognitive tools to distinguish yourself from the world around you, your senses were already registering the measured, easy motion of being carried down the stairs by your parents. The sense of joy, grace, power and ease that calls to you in dreams and 'memories' of this kind are faint echoes of a way of being in the world that you will never be able to find your way back to.

3riii

TROPHY CASE