Interesting perspectives on Floor standers and stand mounted speakers

[GeorgeO]

Why monitor with stands when there are small towers with same foot print?

 

[mpw]

thanks george..

it is a nice topic to exchange thoughts on..

My journey has all been standmounts ( Paradigm Titan Monitor then Epos M12i and now Merlin TSM MMM )

I do have a large room but its a hall and it is a shared space for my joint family.

I have considered small foot print floorstanders in the past and even the larger ones like Linn Majik 140 but have always gone back to standmounts :-

a. I have this mental thingy that 2 way speakers do music better as the cross over is easier to do. Ofcourse this is not a rule but one needs to get to a very high price point to have a good cross over for a 3 way or a 2.5 way

b. The 2.5 way speaker presents its own set of issues... one woofer rolls off earlier and somehow in all my auditions .... it never could get thru to me.

c. The single driver speaker while wonderful is largely suited to a certain genre of music. IMO... above 12 khz... there seems to be a serious drop off and again IMO... one driver cannot do it all.

d. Multi driver speakers are too pock marked... for my taste..:lol:

e. generally floorstanders need atleast 3 feet of space behind and around them to sound good else its another story...

I have seen folks placing rear ported floor standers backed up to a wall and claim to enjoy sound.... i dont know how ???

Some crucify speakers on the wall :lol: and claim that the speakers were meant to be put there..

The point i am trying to make is that a transducer ( with intended application of displaying its sonic / musical potential ).... needs space.... there are no 2 ways on this...

That takes me back to 2 way standmounts

I have never tried a sub largely because i havent had the chance to and largely i dither to move away from the so called "purist" 2.0 channel approach to a 2.1 or even a 2.2 approach..

I realize generalities dont apply to all cases but i thought i would share my experiences.

regards
mpw

 

[Nikhil]

This was me a couple of years ago. I like the coherence of the smaller drivers and bought a smallish tower (PSB Image T5) thinking these were basically bookshelfs with an extended base. No need to get speakers stands and there was this extra low end to be had as a bonus etc.

Of course the sound is really good but one evolves as you get more into this hobby.
Here are my thoughts and experiences:

The towers were good in the mid range and highs but there was a flabby bass that ate into the mids.
Good bass is very difficult to get right and in my room I had a nasty hump in the 100 - 120 Hz range.

Towers in mid to low end are a bit gimmicky in that the bass that is spec'd in the manuals is questionable.
In entry level towers they are worse. Again it's a matter of taste and implementation but loose flabby bass is what you get in my opinion.
I ended up sealing up the front bass reflex port (on advice from a senior FM) and that largely alleviated the problem.

All that did however was convince me in the direction of bookshelves.

My 0.02 ...

 

[GeorgeO]

Personally I'm a great believer in 2 way stand mounted monitors with powered subs, having built three pairs for my own use and many posts on that thread reinforced my belief. I don't subscribe to the view that floor mounted 3 ways are the best solution. But hey, to each his own!

 

[AVM]

Interesting. After I sold the Tannoys, I borrowed a pair of relatively unknown little bookshelves- Polk audio Lsi 9 to fill in till my next set arrives.These are 2.5 way with Bi amp able and recommended so. Coming from Tannoy, I expected these to small on presentation and just about it.
My experience so far has been these are stunning. Scale of presentation is as big as it can get and punch well in the lows. Also, this speakers has lot of design elements from back to front to allow for airflow.
After having spent a couple of months it has changed my perspective as well from being a believer in floor standers to well built book shelves. Bass management us so much more easier now. The BS sound far more dynamic and fast.
Of course the Polks need lots of power to sing and I am not doing justice to them by feed about 55 watts of class power.

This is just my observations.

Regards

 

[srisaikat]

My floorstander (cabasse MT31) is down-ported, so problem with placement is less complicated. Mid is far open and high is also better defined compared to my previous Polk RtiA7. But it lacks the capability to reproduce the real low end, I mean the real bass, do not want some kind of rounded or controlled boominess of Polk RtiA7. Strange thing is Polk's spec at lower part was near 35Hz but spec wise cabasse MT31 can go down to only 58Hz, but I never felt to miss any lower part replacing the polk with cabasse except that rounded or controlled boominess (which I enjoyed a lot previously but it felt some kind of artificial flavor after few trial time with SVS), rather cabasse reproduced (on some rare occasion) a touch of shaking feeling that SVS do more solidly and beautifully with greater authority. So underline part is do not believe in specs till you hear on own ear. A most important part of this hobby is your ear going to evolve certainly and taste will also follow it as well. Some how I am sure that there is almost no alternative to a good quality sub, so if one want full bodied sound without compromise and do not want to waste money and ignore short term benefit, my general advise would be bs is the way to go along with sub, it also fits better with different situations.

 

[hydra]

I prefer standmounts too, in general. I've not listened to too many floorstanders, but with one exception (I now use the youngest in that family, and it is a "floorstander" because it's design philosophy demands it), I've never felt drawn to the presentation or the sound of any floorstander.

I've always found standmounts to have much better imaging and staging than floorstanders. I've found bookshelves to be superior even in terms of quality and speed of bass (maybe not raw quantity).

 

[Hari Iyer]

I agree with mpw that speakers need space around them for optimal performance. My little experience with speakers and placement tells that - for larger rooms floor stander can perform well and in smaller rooms less than 250 sq.ft book shelves should be considered. Floor standers with larger mid-woofer > 6.5" can be a challenge to place in smaller rooms too.

 

[mpw]

its also interesting to see the preferences vs actual buying ...

i guess floorstanders are much in demand...

mpw

 

[sidvee]

My experience with floor standers has been that the most important location for them not to excite room modes is away from corners. One can place them closer to a rear wall so long as the corners are not close by, meaning that the width of the wall against which they are placed has to be significant. So if that kind of width is not available, stand mounters will be a better bet. However once one hears properly set up floor standers in a larger room, with balanced bass, then very few standmounters can match their extension or macro dynamics. People listening to large scale music, like western classical will feel shortchanged. Subwoofer can be added but IMO I have yet to hear a sub. that has been integrated seamlessly.
Cheers,
Sid

 

[greenhorn]

My reason for floorstanders is the same as in my choice of cars - there is no replacement of displacement
My current floorstanders are a pair of old B&W's I picked up from a college kid for cheap (20 pounds!!!) and annihilate any speakers I've ever owned, while being the cheapest too.

 

[srisaikat]

its also interesting to see the preferences vs actual buying ...

i guess floorstanders are much in demand...

mpw

The preference I mentioned what I felt best upon my experiences, like most of us at the time of starting the hobby I preferred FS for LOOKS and SIZE. I ignored some advises of some fellows, now the lesson was taught on hard way. Another reason to go for FS is, I never liked the idea of using a SUB until I hear the SVS.

Now you know it is not quite easy to make correction on such mistake selling current one (at least for speakers especially if it is FS) due to quite monetary loss & shipping problem.

 

[Hari Iyer]

Bookshelf when used with sub can some time prove to be more expensive than using a floor stander. Also most sub occupy a reasonable amount of floor space and can also be a challenge to place.
Do not buy a book shelf with the idea of using it along with the sub as some times integration of sub with the main stand mount speaker can be more challenging than actually buying the sub & BS. No amount of listening the system in demo rooms will help as your room is again going to be unique and will offer different sound signature.