Studio Monitor Speaker Stands

I needed a set of speaker stands and felt I could knock them together a few hours.

I decided on PVC pipe and plywood for materials. I wanted to minimize the transmission of vibration as well so there's a few hidden additions, too.

Step 1 Materials and Tools

Materials:

About 1/2 sheet of 3/4" plywood. I used birch for nice wood finish.
8 ft of 3" Schedule 40 PVC Pipe. This is the heavyweight PVC that's about 1/4" thick.
8 ft of 3/8" -16 All-Thread. Get this in the electrical department where the conduit and the like are sold.
4 3/8" nuts and washers
Some wood door molding, ranch style and some smaller beveled wood trim.
8 3/8" tee nuts. These are the type that get recessed into the plywood.
8 3/8" threaded rubber-bottomed furniture feet. Your could maybe use something smaller, but I had these on hand. I need these type of feet on just about anything I put in this room because the house is old and the floors are not level. This allows me to level the base of the stands.
Some clear silicone sealant.
Some general purpose play sand.
1 long flat bungee style strap.
A couple of computer 'mouse' pads.
4d finishing nails
wood glue

Tools:
Table or Radial Arm Saw.
Mitre "chop' saw
Drill and 3/8", 1" and 1-1/2" wood bore bits
Hack saw
Wrenches
Hammer
nail set
3/4" wide wood chisel
Staple Gun

Comments

[rootvalue]

Thanks for the helpful tutorial; your depth is really helpful as most people skimp out on the minor details. I, however, find them intriguing and appreciate the effort behind them.

Also, this is the first time I've seen 'All-Thread' and I'm amazed. How long do they make these, and do you pick them up at a Home Depot or similar home improvement store?

[ddjack59]

You can get all-thread in 10 or 12 ft lengths at Home Depot or Lowe's or the like. It's usually in the electrical dept.

[betarded]

 About how much did this cost to make?  And what is the weight of your speakers?  

I really like this design but I probably won't worry about how nice it looks right away and leave them bare for a bit.  My speakers weigh about 20lbs each and are about 13" H x 8.9" W x 10.8" D.  So I assume the only difference would be making the bases bigger and they should hold about the same still. 

[ddjack59]

Hi, betarded;
Thanks for the inquiry.

Since I had many of the materials on-hand, I don't know exactly how much the stands ended up costing.  PVC is affordable and strong.  And the weighting with the sand has worked well for me.  My speakers are the M-Audio Studiophile AV 40 and weigh about 14lbs each. The dimensions are 8.75" (H) x 6" (W) x 7.25" (D) -- slightly smaller than yours.
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/StudiophileAV40.html.
Enlarging the platform and the base proportionally to the size of your speakers I think should work well for you.

I'm glad you like the design and hope it will be useful to you.

Regards,
--Doug

[Poultrygeist]

Tilting the stand is not as practical as tilting the speaker. If you want to tilt the speaker you can use three rubber feet under each speaker - two taller ones in back and a shorter one in front. You can also use rubber door stop wedges under each speaker.

[shadowspydre]

 Anyway to make these with a tilting head? Get that perfect angle depending on your setup?

[ddjack59]

shadowspydre, thanks for your question, but I'm afraid I can't think of an easy way to achieve tilting with this design.  You'd have to change the way the top platform gets mounted to the top of the PVC.  Good luck. --Doug