Extraordinary audio furniture -- available on bespoke basis

Hello, everyone,

I wanted to share what a joy it was to set up the Kaiser Panzerholz equipment stand recently. No specialty audio stand I've ever encountered comes close in terms of beauty and rationale of functionality. No gimmicks, no springs, no wires, no weights, no levers, magnets, nor even footers. The whole idea is one of pure simplicity and adherence to anti-vibrational principles of damping all resonance. But most of all what I love is the blend of looks and functionality. These stands are something to marvel!

These stands are available on bespoke basis in North America through Louis Motek of LessLoss Audio. They are manufactured in Germany by Kaiser and can be modified to suit your specific needs.

Kaiser's attention to detail and audio passion is not only evident in the impeccable workmanship of their products, but in their packaging as well. This is how the equipment stands show up, packaged with loving care to protect the polished mirror finishes no matter what mood the transporter might have been in that day:



First, we chose a rug which would work in terms of color coordination. In this case we used orange fruit in our initial assessment, as the Lamborghini orange speakers were not currently on location. (Close enough...)



Above, you see one of the side mono amp stands which we chose not to use for this small setup as space in the room was somewhat limited and the system's equipment would all fit on the larger middle shelf (you'll see this below).

The frame is made of precision veneered MDF. MDF is not the best material around Hi-Fi, but consider its implementation here. In this stand, the equipment never makes direct contact, nor even indirect contact with the MDF, as the vibrations from the Panzerholz portions of the stands are (1) intrinsically damped by the Panzerholz itself, and (2), the Panzerholz is set directly onto a bed of sand:



In this equipment shelf, you are looking at about 300 pounds (136 Kg) of sand. We continued to top it off until we had a flat surface of sand to place the top mirror-polished Panzerholz shelf directly onto for maximum damping:



Looking at the picture above, we're now ready for the next step, which is placing the side walls of the second level Panzerholz shelf to stand on. In the above picture, one of these is seen, upside down for the time being.



These, too, then, are filled with sand, up to a flat level for the next Panzerholz shelf to be placed onto. The difference when wrapping one's knuckles on the empty stand and then when filled with sand is like day and night!



These stands are so shiny that it uplifts the soul even before any sound has been made from the system.



Sand bag in the background here. Funny how the reflection of the polished glossy Pyramid Mahogany wood looks black. (These are iPhone 2 snapshots, bad with colors...) In reality, the reflection is deep, dark brown, as the wood veneer, only darker.

I spent quite a considerable amount of time tapping the sides of the legs and the bottom 'sandbox' part and was amazed at how much the sand would sink as the tiny crystals packed themselves always tighter and tighter with each tap. After a while we got it to be stable, but I will look inside in a month or two to see how much more settling may have taken place over time, simply from the rumble of the city or the vibrations from the audio. It might actually not settle much due to the weight of the Panzerholz bearing right down on it. We'll see! (I have extra sand, so who cares...)

Once the top is placed onto the sand-filled legs, the majestic, heavy and highly functional assembly looks like this:



Now that is one smart piece of furniture! Simple, elegant, form-follows-function design, with ample room for experiments with Blackbody placement. That whole assembly there weighs (probably) over 500-600 pounds (maybe more than 250 Kg).

What's more, there is a copper plate sandwiched inside of each of the black shelves, with an exposed portion at the back side of each. These can be grounded using alligator clips and some wire. I tried it out, and the results are indeed palpable. What a silent stand.

Now to add two Kaiser Vivace loudspeakers, made from dense glass particle and rubber damped Panzerholz. The height of these speakers is all of 4 ft. (122 cm), but they are incredibly heavy.



Here's another snapshot for perspective. And here we have it. A compact, super high performance system which actually fits in a relatively small, real-world room! Here's to Kaiser!

Louis Motek  |  LessLoss.com

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