Filling Partington Super Dreads with Atabites

[admin_exported]

Hello

I have my B&W 685s mounted on Partington Super Dreadnoughts. I am looking to put some Atacama Atabites into them in a bid to get even better sound from them (they already sound very good to me).

Was just wondering if anyone had experience with filling these with Atabites? The 9kg (20 lbs) buckets are quite expensive here in Australia ($130 each - approx 80 pounds) so I was thinking just one bucket for each stand, distributed equally (to the same height)amongst the 4 tubes and the center column.

I was hoping to avoid sand as I heard it can leak a bit and figured the dense Atabites may be better in that regard.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks

David

 

[Chewy]

Don't quote me as I'm not an expert on this, but I doubt you would notice any sonic difference between using the Atabites and plain old silica sand, the latter being available for less than a 10th of the former.

Ultimately all you are trying to do is add mass to the speaker stand, whilst filling any cavaities, both of which should reduce any vibrations and provide a more stable platform for your speaker.

 

[Anonymous]

I used kiln drie sand in mine works a treat!

 

[jiggyjoe]

I filled my partington trophys with 1 tub of atabytes and it only came about 1/2 way up!!! I think because your stands have a large section in the middle you would need a minimum a 2.

 

[Anonymous]

jiggyjoe:I filled my partington trophys with 1 tub of atabytes and it only came about 1/2 way up!!! I think because your stands have a large section in the middle you would need a minimum a 2.

You only need one 9kg tub to fill both of your partington super dreads, and you will have a little left over in case of spilage.

all the best

 

[alex cook]

I'd go with sand.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Or find a local metalworking company and ask if you can take away some of their small scrap: does seem a bit bizarre paying so much to have a bucket of metal shipped halfwat around the world, when I am sure a large part of the price in Australia must be down to the weight.

 

[DavieCee]

THESTIG08:

jiggyjoe:I filled my partington trophys with 1 tub of atabytes and it only came about 1/2 way up!!! I think because your stands have a large section in the middle you would need a minimum a 2.

You only need one 9kg tub to fill both of your partington super dreads, and you will have a little left over in case of spilage.

all the best

One tub only half filled both mine. I would say you need one tub each to fully fill them, ie one tub per stand = 2 tubs.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks to everyone's prompt replies. It's appreciated. If Thestig08 is correct and I only need one bucket to fill both stands then that might be the way to go. That's what I was mostly looking for - how many buckets it would take. That has saved me inadvertently buying two. I will pay a visit to one of the local hardware warehouses on the weekend as well and see what they have by the way of sand. If I can get it fairly coarse then it wouldn't tend to leak, although I find the plastic plugs that came with the stands to be extremely tight fitting anyway.

Edit: Okay - I see now it may be one per stand after all... Which is quite expensive really so the sand option is suddenly looking a lot better!

David

 

[datay]

I have mine filled with kiln-dried sand and they haven't leaked at all.

Somebody posted recently that they didn't think the sand added enough mass so they went with Atabites. Once the sand has settled you can add more to the same level (it seems to be generally advised to fill them 3/4 full), adding mass, or tamp down with some sort of prodder on first filling to add more. Shipping Atabites to Australia just seems like a waste of money as Andrew says, for a difference it's distinctly possible you won't even hear. Good luck at the scrap merchant's in that case.

 

[Anonymous]

I kind of get the feeling that once I put those plugs in I'm not going to want to pull them back out again - they seem very tight and like they would create a seal I wouldn't want to mess with afterwards. If I filled them with sand would they then settle to the recommended 3/4 mark? Or perhaps filling them completely may be a bit much?

 

[Sizzers]

I'd listen to Andrew.

 

[audioaffair]

The massive benefit of Atabites over some other materials is that the Atabites are sized and designed to interlock and fit together effectively so that you can fit as much of it in as possible - so more effective at mass filling than say ball bearings. Obviously sand is effective in this respect but the sonic benefits of atabites are apparent to my ears anyway.

In either case, its worth filling the stands and you can experiment by filling them say half full, then a little more and a little more until the bass response is at the desired level.

 

[sweety7272]

+1 for andrew. Think there may be better ways to spend over a hundred quid!