Shalom Larry,
Maple would have indeed been much better, but "real" wood is getting rare here and very expensive to buy. What I did, was to build two amp stands together with and for a friend, who has a pair of 75 kilo Gryphons, using a sandwhich of mfd, felt, lead, felt, mfd. The lead we could salvage from a defunct manufacturing plant for very little money. Since one Gryphon had to be placed very close to a subwoofer, we experimented with the felt to good effect. We placed the sandwich on a welded iron substructure, which again, with spikes, was placed on a big slab of granite. Overkill probably, but now, to quote Stu_pisado ( who certainly is not one...) once again, we are happily full of shit.