I revitalized the sound quality on my tiny bookshelf speakers with this free, unassuming change: Here’s why it works
I test loads of the best speakers, and the Edifier M60 are the smallest I’ve tested thus far. At just four inches wide, six inches deep, and six-and-a-half inches tall, the M60 take the award for “Most likely to blow your mind.” You’d think speakers this compact would sound weak, watery, and wearisome, but not the M60.
Part of the awesome sound is due to the speakers themselves, but not all of it. The M60 owe a lot to the unassuming speaker stands provided in the box. These minuscule speaker stands — just an inch-and-a-half tall, which results in a 15° uplift — should not be ignored.
So what do the speaker stands actually do?
Speakers produce sound. And what is sound made of? Sound waves.
Sound waves get absorbed by/are altered by everything in the environment. I’m not going to get into the weeds with the science here, but basically, you want the sound waves to travel as easily as possible.
Unfortunately, that means that placing your bookshelf speakers on your desktop might actually be negatively impacting the end sound quality. Wood is a dense material, so it absorbs sound more than aluminium.
When your speakers emit sound waves, the wooden surface of your desk is actually softening those sounds. Ergo, you won’t be getting as clear or natural a sound as you might like.
This is why you should try out speaker stands.
When your speakers are raised off your desk, the vibrations aren’t absorbed by the wood. They’re able to travel through the air without as much diffusion, which results in a clearer, cleaner sound. Great!
There are probably theses written on this subject — and I’m just an audiophile. I’m not going to pretend I’m the be-all-and-end-all of sound wave research.
I do, however, have ears, and I know that my Edifier M60 speakers sound better when I use them with the provided aluminium speaker stands. If you have these speakers too, I wholeheartedly recommend fishing out these mounts from the depths of the speaker packaging and trying them out. Don’t disregard them — they actually make a tangible difference.
Yes, that difference is, in the grand scheme, relatively nuanced, but it’s still a beneficial change. With stands, the softer, higher-frequency sounds are clearer, and the overall sound is fuller-bodied. I will never listen to my M60 without the speaker stands now.
If your speakers didn’t come with stands, check out these Kanto stands. Frustratingly, Edifier doesn’t ship stands with all of its speakers. My $449 S880DB MKII don’t have stands, so I’ll need to get some if I want even better sound (although it’s already 99% perfect).
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