Speaker cables

I agree that the active components have the biggest impact, and that passive components (including cables, stands and room treatment) are there for refinement. Unfortunately, and I don't have any experience with your speaker stands, sometimes what we site our gear on can actively work against the system. Turntables too close to speakers, speakers sighted on wobbly, uneven stands, etc.

Chris Firth wrote: Baflar wrote: Now, what the blenge is so wrong with these speaker stands?! Probably nothing, other than the dealer maybe trying to sell you new ones. Are the ones being proposed meant to be spiked to the floor? Many folk have the idea that spiking speakers to the floor tightens up the sound, which in my experience is not the case. In my experience spiking speakers to the floor causes all sorts of problems, usually an unnatural and forced midband being most prominent. If you have suspended floors the floor becomes a sympathetic resonator too. The castors on your current stands probably provide decent enough isolation from the floor.

Very helpful comment, Chris.  Thanks for that.  The dealer 'not a million miles away' did say I need speaker stands that spike to the floor, and fill the columns with sand.  Given that this type of stand tends to have a solid platform, it seems to me that this will pretty reliably result in transmitting sound straight into my floorboards, introducing all sorts of colouration.  It's much the same as the principle used in transmitting the vibration into the sound-box on an old-fashioned mechanical gramophone: a rigid element terminating in a somewhat flexible transmitter.  At least the castors provide single-point contact, from a curved surface, so very little transmission, from a base that has negligible incoming vibration.

All in all, I don't find the dealer's advice very credible...!

As far as spikes vs castors are concerned, I have a very nice pair of retired Shahinian Obelisks with castors fitted as standard and at no point did I feel that this compromised the sound on either solid or suspended floors. I haven't used 'standard' spikes on speakers for several years.

And yet another option! I've put first generation Pulsar Points on the spikes of the stands and it's brought more precision and dynamic flexibility the sound. My opinion these days is that EVERYTHING matters to some degree and it's not always positive and not always obvious. Suck it and see is the only real way to know.
Mick.