Speaker measurement stand

[DeZZar]

Not sure if anyone will really care too much about this but I thought I would share anyway just in case someone out there might be thinking of something similar.

I'd been thinking for a while about how to create a speaker measurement stand that was height adjustable and more importantly could be rotated without getting in the way of the speaker. I was sort of sick of moving the mic around during measurements following little bits of tape on my floor for angles etc and really wanted to be able to set the mic up and leave it alone and rotate the speaker instead.

I originally thought of a sort of turntable but as I was mocking that up I realized that the point of pivot had to be able to line up directly with the center of the front baffle which meant the speaker had to sit with its baffle in the middle of a circular turntable....wasn't going to work as it would then create a reflective surface directly under the speaker AND it would have to be a huge turntable.

As usual I was over-thinking it and finally just grabbed a bit of spare wood and parts from around the shop and came up with this.


Whole thing is made from bits of scrap timber and pallet wood I just milled up.


Its anchored to a pivot point at the front that I made with a spare bearing block. (but you could just as easily put a bolt through a block of wood and call it a day).

I 3D printed the little "protractor" and pointer and added some old speaker spikes to the board so that it basically holds itself in place on the workshop rug.



At the back is a cross member with a couple of castors that allow it to rotate and give it overall stability.



Top part of the stand is just a flat surface mounted to two posts that slide between these bottom posts. Bolt holes drilled at intervals allow it to be adjusted and I 3D printed these little knobs to make it a bit easier to clamp/unclamp the setup.



You can obviously make it as tall or short as you want (within reason - I wouldn't expect it to be terribly stable if you made it 20 feet tall). I will likely make this one a little shorter actually as I'm more often working with floor standing speakers than bookshelf's and this'll get to close to the ceiling.

So now I can set the mic up on axis and just rotate the whole speaker around a fixed point a whole 360 degrees in 15 degree increments! Woot!

Anyway, that's all folks - just wanted to share

[DeZZar]

[LOUT]

I was going to suggest putting the turn-table on the floor (under both the stand and speaker instead of onto the stand and under the speaker) where its front half wouldn't mess with measurements more than the floor...but your version has nice angle indication and probably a lot more stability.

[DeZZar]

yeah that's actually the line of thought that lead to the above design - essentially just shrunk the turntable down to a pivot point and put the stand on top of it!

[tomzarbo]

That's a clever design. Just roll the back of the speaker to get to the indicated degree marking. Simple but effective. The easy adjustment for various speaker heights is a nice touch too.
Cool!

TomZ

[DeZZar]

Thanks Tom! We'll see how I go getting really heavy speakers up onto it! haha

[johnny5jz]

I have been trying to figure something like this out over the last month or so, but your design is way better that what I was headed for. Love it!!

[DeZZar]

Thanks! It's actually really easy construction when you break it down - and all that fancy stuff at the front isn't strictly required - you just need it to pivot around the very front center.