Speakers, floor standing or Bookshelfs
I've been wondering, if you're to have a a pair of subwoofers does it makes sense to have full range floor standing speakers or Bookshelfs are sufficient/makes more sense?
Now, consequently, if you already have full range floor standing and a couple of Subs; do you dial the floor standing as small or large in your set up? Does it matters?
While I agree with you that even large floor standers will benefit from subs, there are good reasons to limit them from producing the lowest frequencies. 1. if the woofer does not have to reproduce the lowest frequencies, it will sound cleaner, lower distortion, within the pass band it is reproducing. It will be operating in a more linear area of its range. 2. If your amplifier does not have to reproduce the lowest frequencies, it will have an easier time reproducing the rest of the spectrum. The vast majority of the power an amplifier produces goes to preproducing bass. Make the amps job easier will result in improved dynamics, and a more effortless sound. 3. I don't believe that taking away the lowest octave will change the character of the speaker. The most audible character of a speaker is in the rest of the frequency spectrum, not the lowest octave of the bass. All my opinion, of course. |
For me, it's large towers preferably, running full range (not crossed over) and a couple of subwoofers. I'm of the mind, If you like the sound of your speakers why remove part of their character and then try to replace it using the sub? Running full range you just augment the sound with the sub without taking something away first. The reason I use subwoofers even with large speakers is because they are able to be placed where they are most effective. I like my speakers pulled way out from the wall to get the best soundstage depth, but this usually decreases bass output. Adding subs is like adding salt to dish to to enhance the flavour of the food, it changes the whole experience. So using the subs crossover, volume and its positioning you can add the right amount of "salt" to get your system sounding its best.
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+ 1565 |
Subs always subs. Buy the largest speakers you can afford. All speakers lack the dynamics of real music and getting as close to real live performance comes from dynamics. Big efficient speakers with sub and massive power is the key. Handing off from a small dynamically limited speakers to a very powerful subs never blends quite as well as a big speaker. |
YES! This is something that does not get mentioned nearly often enough. There is a lot of ambient information in the very low frequencies, that convey a sense of space, that can be missing without the sub.
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Thanks you all of you for the input. My room is a medium L shape where I always have to play with toeing the speakers due to one of the speakers having to be placed into the bottom part of the "L" wall to avoid as much reflections from the wall in front of it. I gather that bookshelf speakers (on stands) would present a little more challenging task with imaging/capacity to fill the room. So, For me, to keep full range speakers, plus two subs seems to be the best option. |
I thought about this a good bit a few years ago when I was putting my system together. My previous couple of systems consisted of floor standing speakers and subwoofers. I think that what @ghdprentice says above is mostly where I’m at now. My floor standing speakers have a 3dB down at 32 Hz, so almost full range and they are setup in a room just a bit wider than @jbuhl mentions above. My REL subwoofers come in at the bottom of their crossover range and add minimally to the overall bottom end. That said, I eliminated the baby REL, because my goal was to only move air down low and I have two subwoofers (more would be better to even out the bass in a medium/small room). Recently, Juan of @blisshifi tuned my system/room. One of the first things that he did was to turn off the subs and to my surprise, what was heard was more musical and with greater clarity. Yup, my subs volume was set too high. I thought the crossover was set at the lowest point, but that might not have been the case. When Juan was done, there was a benefit to the subs, but it was more subtle and they weren’t destroying the lower octaves produced by the main speakers.As an aside, Juan suggested that more subwoofers might be beneficial in my smallish medium size room. When it is all said and done, might I have been better to take the extra money spent on subs and gone with a better speaker? I don’t know, but it was something that I did not consider because I tried to keep cost down at each stage, without looking at the money I would be spending at the back end of the buying process. |
I have been wondering the same. Got 150W now with two full range towers and a RELT9x. Room is 12 X 24 roughly I been wondering if a couple of Dynaudio Heritage Specials with the REL would be enough. Image and staging would be the goal. They would have to do pretty dang good to best my QUAD-Z4 in place currently. |
It depends. Room size, room acoustics, and setup are are big factors. The specifics of speakers in question and how they play in your room are more critical than whether they’re floor standers or bookshelf IMO. Two subs help smooth out room nodes, and you can do more experimentation with placement. Depending on the subs, there are usually lots of options for the low pass crossover frequency, gain, and phase. I prefer to set the crossover frequency of subs at the lowest setting, run my main flloor standers full range, and set the gain of the sub very low. YMMV, but I hear a lot of subs that have both the gain and the crossover frequency set to high. IMHO it’s best not to feature the subs, but to let them just augment the bass your main speakers put out. Experimentation is the key. |
More flexibility and (usually) better bass with (at least two high quality) subs. Stand mount main speakers can image better but the output capability must be sufficient for the size of the room you are trying to fill. Puny stand mounts with subs doesn’t work for me. I would look for main speakers that legitimately cover down to 50 Hz, or a bit lower, so the subs are only covering the bass. It is better if the stand mounts are designed to operate optimally within their given frequency range and do not attempt to cover the lowest octave using their small’ish drivers, which can muck up the bass and the midrange. As @ghdprentice pointed out, it is also very important to roll the subs in carefully and not run them too high or too loud, as a little less is often just right. |
I personally prefer to have high quality full range speakers… without subs. Although I have had floor standards with two subs for about thirty years.
Good quality floor standers are designed for coherent sound across the spectrum. Then there is a question of what you want. Are you going for coherent realistic sound or highly accentuated bass to slap you I the chest. It is very typical when I go to a high end audio guys house he has the subwoofers way too high… way toooo high! This will muddy up the imaging and cover up other frequencies. But you spent a lot of money you want to hear them… But it is all a question of what you are going for. I am after musical and natural… not a cartoon or a heartless revealing system sticking details in your face. I love great imaging, and have it. But you can get great imaging cheaper (big generalization) with small stand mounted speakers with subs. But, typically there are trade offs. |
