Is anyone else amused by the price of speaker stands?

[ckolchak]

was going to buy some last week, and nearly blew a synapse when i saw some of the prices for these things...$30, $40...up to $90 A PIECE ?!? for what?
went to home depot last night and picked up some MDF(?) shelves, and some ash skirts for $20 and put them together this morning. not too shabby. didn't have long enough wood screws so i used some exterior screws. only one of them sunk though, so i'll be going back tonight to try to find some small self-adhesive rubber pads to lay over the screw heads.
all in all i'm pretty satisfied. the ash skirts as well as the shelves are rounded on the one edge so it looks pretty good. wish i had a camera.
one of the posts doesn't seem that tight, but that stand isn't near the sub, so it should be alright.
if i ever paint 'em black they should look REALLY slick, but right now they go w/ my home-made component rack.

so now that i saved about $60+ looks like i'll have to go out and buy some more movies :)

[Eeyore]

i have a friend who stacks his speakers on old phone books... sounds ridiculous but it seems to work ok. have to admit, it doesn't look as weird as it sounds. and here in atlanta where you get five (FIVE!!) volumes of the phone book each year and the stack is about 1 foot tall each time, it doesn't take long to accumulate very many...

but yeah, useless anecdote. but you're not the only one to have second thoughts when you see a $90 pricetag on a $1 piece of wood :>

[jumbojp]

Just buy 4 concrete blocks. They work great and are really cheap:) I paid $100 for some Lovan stands a few years back and really don't think they were worth it.

On a side note:
I was just at my local home store today and picked up 4 3ft x 5/8" lengths of all-thread, 4 36" x 18" pine boards, a bag of 5/8" hex nuts, a pint of stain and a pint of clear coat all for a total of $51.

I am going to use all this to build a equipment rack. I was looking around and those things are way too expensive so I decided to do it myself. I am still looking for some nice tubing or pipe to cover the all-thread between the shelves. Anyone have any ideas?

Good luck with your stands!

[Fhrx]

Amazed or appalled?

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Jumbojp -

Sounds like you're making a flexi rack. I made one with 3/4" MDF and painted everything a semi-gloss black. You could also leave the threaded rods and nuts bare, giving a minimalist, tech sort of look. The larger diameter plastic wire looms at Rat Shack and other places can be cut to length in between the shelves - you'll just have to get some big enough to fit over the nuts.

[Static Cling]

Originally posted by Fhrx
Amazed or appalled?

My vote goes into the "appalled" pile... I picked up adjustable stands for my rear speakers that go really high up... unfortunately, the price went really high too... $100! Yes, they work fine... but COME ON! I have stands for medium-sized speakers (that I used with my old stereo) that I'm using right now for my small-sized fronts... it may not look completely right, but I just can't bring myself to spend that kind of money again on stands. I paid $175 for my SPEAKERS... the Sony SA-VE315 setup, with five small satellites and a powered sub. Paying more for my speaker stands than I paid for my speakers seems criminal to me. :P

[Gonnosuke]

I went the super cheap route in the beginning but after a while I realized that "looks" really mattered to me. Stylish speaker stands in a high end home theatre make me smile.

-Gonnosuke

[El Pollo]

Originally posted by ckolchak
was going to buy some last week, and nearly blew a synapse when i saw some of the prices for these things...$30, $40...up to $90 A PIECE ?!? for what?
went to home depot last night and picked up some MDF(?) shelves, and some ash skirts for $20 and put them together this morning. not too shabby. didn't have long enough wood screws so i used some exterior screws.

Really, $90, where'd you find stands so cheap?:p

I've been thinking of doing a speakers stands project after I move. I'm trying to figure out how to build some so that there would be a place to run the wire up and a place to pour sand or whatever in to weigh it down and eliminate vibrations. When I think about it, the materials and the amount of time I would spend, it would probably equal out to $100 per speaker stand and there's no guarantee they'll look good.

What I don't get are these high end component racks that come complete with spikes and stuff for $500+. They're components! Ground vibrations shouldn't affect the performance of an amp or receiver, should they? And DVD/CD players have built in mechanisms to keep them spinning quite stably.

Anyone have a good link on building more advanced stands than just two square boards and two long boards?

[Edited by El Pollo on 03-08-01 at 06:49 AM]

[Static Cling]

A RACK for $500? People would actually buy something like that? My HT is in a put-it-together-yourself cabinet from Wal-Mart... 60 bucks, baby! :)

[dvdrocks]

always wonder what make those stands so expensive, just metals or sometimes come with piece of wood. how do the retailers come up with the retail price?