Chord Freak said:Can the RX6's be used without the plinths? Can you screw the supplied spikes directly into the bottom of the speakers? Thanks.
BlueWizard said:As to whether the spike can be used without the plynths, it is simply a matter of looking at the bottom of the speaker to see if there are threaded holes for the spikes. Short of that, get a copy of the owner's manual. Though the speaker are pretty popular, and perhaps someone who has the speaker can look for you.
Steve/bluewizard
BlueWizard said:Most often the WHY is just as important as the WHAT. Can you explain why you are asking this question? What the problem is? What do you hope to achieve? The devil is always in the details, and the more we know, the more we can help.
Steve/bluewizard
However the question still stands can you get different plinths to fit like the feet on the kef r500?
They do need space to get the best put of them Chord. By saying you need narrow are you stuffing them into a corner?
YIKES! Good luck with that.
Steve/bluewizard
Would you care to elaborate on that please - are you thinking bookshelf speakers on stands would be better due to placement? Thanks
PS. sorry to the OP for hijacking your thread!
What are the floors like under the carpet? If they are nice finished wood floor that you might want to show off at sometime in the future. Then you might not want to use Spikes. But it the Sub-floors under the carpet are just rough unfinished sub-floor, then you certainly do want to use Spikes.
The problem with carpet is that is is not very stable. Put a speaker or speaker and stand on a carpet and give it a wiggle. It is very unstable. You want the speaker solid. Any movement in the cabinet is a loss of movement to the speaker drivers, and that is not good for sound.
So, to answer you question, Yes, the Spike are for both leveling and Stability.
Prior to this, I don't believe you actually mentioned the type of floor you had. I do have a video I was going to post, but it is for Wood Floors. Still worth a look. This is an AV-Land review of the Dali Zensor 5. Notice when the camera moves to the speaker in the corner, the speakers is spiked to a black granite 'chopping board' -
Dali Zensor 5 Loudpseaker HD Video Review by AV LAND UK - YouTube
I'm not sure if they have covered the bottom of the board, but likely the bottom is finished as smooth as the top, so scratching would be kept to a minimum.
I have heard of people using the 'chopping boards' on carpet, it spreads the weight of the speaker base over a broader area, and that can make a more stable base. But, for best result, Spike the speaker into the carpet. It might seem unstable at first, but in time the spike will penetrate to the wood floor below, and hold the speakers stable.
On a very very side tangent, I've discovered a pretty effective way of moving speaker that are spiked to carpet, just one requirement, you have to be wearing shoes. Tilt the speaker back and push your foot under the bottom, then tilt the speaker forward so you foot is supporting it. Then you can slowly 'walk' the speaker to a new locations and to the reverse to get your foot out from under.
This might sound stupid, but I broke the pins on my grill cloth trying to move the speaker by given it a bear-hug and trying to pick it up. From my experience, this is the safest way to move a speaker, even over moderately long distance, especially if you are trying to move it alone. Any type of grabbing or dragging is just too dangerous.
That's probably way more information than you wanted or needed, but none the less, there it is.
Steve/bluewizard
Are you planning in putting the speakers in an enclosed space? This would be far from ideal as you will get a boundary effect which could cause the bass to be very boomy. Floorstanders can be fussy if placed too close to a rear wall but if have surfaces just above and to the side as well this has a high chance of adversely affecting the sound. Make sure you demo your chosen speakers in your room first since some speakers are more fussy with placement than others. Woould be a shame to buy a nice set of speakers for them to only sound bad due to them interacting badly with your room.
That is certainly a far from ideal set up with a very limited front sound stage. Even standmounts are going to struggle to not be boomy in that location. However, a lot will depend on the speaker since some are more prone to issues than others. For example the RX1 has been mentioned on here as being particularly fussy with placement and sounding boomy if too close to walls etc. However, something like the PMC GBs are far less fussy with placement so something like the PMC DB may well work well in your location but they are not cheap (although can pick them up for reasonable prices secondhand on ebay etc.).
You also have no space for a centre either since speakers will not like being on or on the cabinet. Saying that, since your fronts are so close together I am not sure a centre is really going to add anything and you may be better just having the front pair with no centre at all.
Is there any way to arrange the room differently to get the TV out of that corner? I would also look to move the sub out of the corner from behind the speaker to somewhere else in the room which should improve the sub bass performance.