Speakers on wheels.

[Brian DK]

Any eksperience on speakers on wheels?

I am thinking on building a feet with wheels for my
Everest 66000.
That will make it a lot easier to move them arround
and try different angels and distance to back
and side walls.

but how will the wheels affect the Sound.?

[SEAWOLF97]

but how will the wheels affect the Sound.?

measure the height of the wheels, put blocks of the same height
under the speakers and listen.

I've put feet under my 250ti's .. no difference in sound
and wheels under my Ohm's ...also no difference.

YMMV

I used the 2 inch feet that attach to the bottom of an office chair, they are on a 1/4 inch shaft instead of 4 screws through a plate.

[sonofagun]

Works best with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzL4ntNwpH8

[BMWCCA]

I've had hardware-store ball-casters under my 4345s since I brought them into the house. I noticed screw holes on the bottoms when transporting them and the previous owner gave me the specifics on what he used and I was able to find the exact same ones which raise the cabinets just barely off the floor and the casters are completely hidden behind the plinth. I can't find anything the system does wrong so I'm assuming the casters haven't affected them.

[Mr. Widget]

A few thoughts.

1. From my experience with the DD66000, I feel raising the speakers will improve the woofer/floor interaction, but it will negatively impact aesthetics and if you go too high it will likely negatively impact the upper frequency performance.

2. You will need casters that can carry about 40kg each.

3. Some years ago when dealing with an unwanted resonance in a prototype speaker, I took precise measurements of the speaker that was well over 200lbs and had been on industrial casters that added about 3” in height. My measurements compared the speakers on the casters and on blocks to see the impacts of the casters. I could measure a difference, but I did not perceive an audible difference.


I hope this helps.


Widget

[RMC]

Hi Brian,

My three pairs of bass cabinets are on wheels. Much easier to move them around, especially for the larger 15" 2205H cabinets which are a bit less than 3" (7.62 cm) off the floor and the other two pairs with 12" drivers are about 2" off the floor. All depending on wheel size. The extent of impact on sound depends on how high the boxes will be away from the floor.

Since most speakers are designed for half-space or 2 Pi radiation into a room (ground or wall placement), In theory, there should be a small low frequency loss which increases with distance from boundary. The reason being that with boxes now off the floor, you don't have real or perfect half-space radiation as it was intended to be.

This is probably why Eargle writes, in the chapter "Aspects of the Home Listening Environment" of his Handbook*:

"Virtually all loudspeaker design is carried out in simulated open space (4 Pi) or ground plane half-space (2 Pi) environments. (...) The actual home loudspeaker environment is apt to be somewhere between a 4 Pi and 2 Pi condition, ..."

In practice, such small LF loss, as the case may be, may not really be noticeable during normal listening sessions, as reported by Seawolf. That doesn't mean there is absolutely no LF loss (however small), but rather that it isn't noticed, again depending on distance off the floor (the shorter the better for LF). Regards,

Richard

* John Eargle (JBL), Loudspeaker Handbook, Chapman & Hall, 1997, P. 291.

EDIT: Widget's last phrase says it all, in accordance with what I wrote.

[christo]

Hi Brian,
All my speakers (K2S99/4344/4345) are on stands with wheels it’s the only way to live with them! Love the hobby but I’m so tired of dealing with 200 lbs. speakers.

With equipment that is in the 200 lbs. range and up the stand needs to be 1.5 to 2” thick to avoid warping. Thus, adding the height of the casters, the speakers will be at a minimum 4.5 higher than they sit now. From a sound point of view nothing really changes except you may not want to slouch when listening to them.

With the weight of the Everest’s you’ll probably need 5 casters - one in the center of the stand. I have also put two layers of thin carpet on the top of the stand which seems to work well with the physical connection of the speaker and the stand.

I would suggest that the stand (one beautiful piece of hardwood) you make should be the same shape as the Everest’s with an additional 1” on all edges which would allow you to bump in to things with the stand as opposed to the cabinet!

[rusty jefferson]

I think the best answer is, it depends. Do you have a dedicated listening room, or are you in a shared space that requires flexibility? If the rest of your system and room acoustics are up to the level of those speakers, you're probably not going to want them on casters permanently. It is rather ubiquitous these days that high end speakers come with heavy floor spikes to couple them to the floor. This can reduce cabinet resonances, improve bass transients, and improve transparency. The construction of the floor will also play a part in how noticeable the differences are.

In a dedicated space, it makes sense to use casters (dollies) to make large experimental changes in position to obtain the most satisfactory performance, and then install spikes.

[hjames]

Dunno. I made wheeled stands for my 4341s years ago - it just made good sense to make them somewhat easier
to move so I didn't have to kill my back trying to Hulk out and move them around, or chip the veneer or whatever.
So one of the first things I did with the L200s was to build wheeled pinths that fit around the factory plinths
so I could move them without making any extra holes in them.

I flipped up the ALTEC Model 15 cabinets I recently got and the factory plinths are kinda flimsy - have not decided yet
if I'll do some 2x4 plinths and mount wheels in them. or do some kinda "hardware store ball-casters" as Phil mentioned
and just screw them right into the cabinet.

But - they will be on wheels.

[toddalin]

https://www.harborfreight.com/1000-l...Q3In0%3D%0D%0A

They have smaller for cheaper too.

[hjames]

They have smaller for cheaper too.

But they are so freaking UGLY! For Garage or warehouse use, perhaps,
but who'd want those thing on permanent view in their home?? UGH!

[toddalin]

They also have a black plastic one that wouldn't even show under the speaker, but only rated for 200#.

https://www.harborfreight.com/19-12-...lly-61164.html

[opimax]

I have the ones above under my beat 250ti in the garage. I will say that with only 2 wheels that pivot they are not what I wanted. You have to parallel park rather the slide them directly to where you want them. I never checked sound quality differences since for my purposes wheels were a requirement and the bottoms of these are water damaged and swollen, don't want to drill into them.


happy holidays !

[hjames]

Yes yes ...
Happy Halibut to all,
and to all a good fry!

happy holidays !