Why You Should Mass Fill Your Speaker Stands

At Expressive Audio we always recommend using Atacama's Atabite inert mass filler with any newly purchased speaker stands, or indeed as an easy DIY upgrade for your existing stands. In the following article and video we show you firstly how to put together a pair of new Atacama NeXXus 600 Essential speaker stands, and secondly how to reach that next level of sonic perfection by filling the legs with Atacama Atabite inert filler.

The Atabites themselves are uniformly sized discs of zinc coated steel which, when poured into the legs of your speaker stands, reduce the natural resonance of the metal legs and therefore eliminate any ringing caused by sound waves travelling from the speaker to the stands. The zinc coating also prevents any corrosion due to oxidisation, so you won't have to worry about changing your filler later down the line.

While ringing from the speaker stands may sound like an inconsequential problem to solve, everyone who has done a side by side comparison between filled and empty stands has been astonished at the difference it can make. And at £35 a tub, with two tubs usually being enough for most stands, it's an absurdly easy and worthwhile upgrade for your HiFi system!

 

Building the stands is simple. There are four main components; the legs, top plates, bottom plates, and bolts/spikes. Start by placing the bottom plates on the legs and attaching them with the round head screws. Then turn the stands the right way up and attach the top plates with the countersunk screws. Flip it back upside down and screw the spikes into the bottom side of the bottom plates, followed by the locking nuts on the top side of the bottom plates. This is better demonstrated in the video!

Filling the stands is equally simple. With the stands the right way up, remove the top plates with the two countersunk screws, and use a funnel and scoop to fill each leg of each stand with the required amount of Atabites. 

At the end of this article is a rough guide to the amount of filler you will need for different sizes of Atacama stands. Each tub contains 7kg, so divide the recommended weight of filler by 7 to calculate the number of tubs to buy. Obviously if it says 1.3 tubs, buy 2! To achieve the best sonic performance, we recommend only filling each leg about half to two thirds of the way up, or you risk deadening the stands too much.


Maximum approximate weight of Atabites that can be used for each pair of Atacama speaker stands

Nexus 5, Moseco 5, =7KG,

Nexus 6, Moseco 6, Duo 6, =10.4KG

Nexus 7, Moseco 7, Duo 7, =12.2KG

Nexus10, Moseco 10, =21KG

Moseco CC series, as above with corresponding leg height.

SLX200=7.2KG

SLX300=15.2KG

SLX400=24KG

SLX500=32.8KG

SLX600=41.6KG

SLX700=48.8KG

SLX1000=68KG

(SL series, as SLX)

HMS1.1 & Moseco XL 500mm=34KG

HMS1.1 & Moseco XL 600mm=41.8KG

HMS1.1 700mm=55.4KG

HMS2.1 & HMS2X-600=84KG

Apollo Cyclone 5= 7KG

Apollo Cyclone 6= 10.4KG

Apollo Cyclone 7= 12.2KG

Moseco 5=7KG

Moseco 6, Duo 6=10.4KG

Moseco 7, Duo 7=12.2KG

Moseco 10=21KG

Nexus 6i=8.2KG

Nexus7i=12.2KG

Nexus10i=21KG

Audition Series (approximate number of tubs needed per pair of stands)

Audition 300 = 2 Tubs

Audition 400 = 3 Tubs

Audition 500 = 4 Tubs

Audition 600 = 5 Tubs

Audition 700 = 6 Tubs

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