An update.....
What a difference a great speaker stand makes. Having searched everywhere, everyday for a pair of Sanus UF30 stands I had given up. So, the day I was going to place my order for the Liedtke-Metalldesign stands from Germany I took one last look and damn, a pair on Craigslist shows up in Seattle. I quickly made arrangements for them to be picked up and shipped to me by a great guy named Jeff at Club Polk......thank you!!!
Let me tell you, going from the 5 lb. wooden Sanus NF stands with the tweeters at 37.5" to the UF30's with the tweeters at 40" and weighing in at 18 lbs. empty was one of those wow moments. Simply put, mo'better sound! I will be mass loading the stands with a combo of lead shot and sand, which will add about 35 lbs. to each stand and may just improve the sound a tad more, we'll see. I wasn't exactly displeased with these modded Pioneer bookies, but man they just went up a few notches.
The moral of this story, the right stands make all the difference and cheap ones are cheap for a reason.