Has either of you tried the speaker not facing up?
I presume you mean not tilted back. The matching stand is designed to tilt the XT-1 as a mechanical means of time aligning the drivers. This design also contributes to the expanive soundstage they have. No, I’ve always used the matching stands.
I spoke to the designer for Raidho at a show and asked him about the stands they make for the D-1.1 and C-1.2 which are really wobbly; I didn’t like the design being from the school of thought of using ridged metal stands filled with lead shot and sand. He was adamantly against this idea, feeling the ridgidity introduces vibration back into the speaker cabinet resulting in smeared transient detail. I presume the simple and composite wood design of the XT-1 stand is meant to accomplish—albeit, at a lesser level—the same thing. You can’t argue with the results, so I’ve not experimented.
Raidho came out with a $500 set of spikes using diamond as part of the tips for the XT-1 stand ... never tried those either.