Budget bookshelf system for acoustic bass

I like the Vandersteen 2W suggestion. It's reputed to be very discreet and musical.

Your Classik won't drive Totems and certainly not the Mani-2's, which do indeed have great bass for any speaker and amazing bass for monitors.

I don't believe the B&Ws' efficiency is optimum for the Classik either, although Gmueller's placement advice is certainly worth taking IME. My dad recently passed on a pair of 602's in favour of the Triangle Titus ES, for use with his Classik.

( For more reading on placement try the FAQ at AA. Scroll down to "Speaker Positioning". Nothing directly on bookshelf placement, unfortunately.) http://www.AudioAsylum.com/scripts/d.pl?audio/faq.html

String bass goes very low--that's why they call it double bass. The Mani-2's can do it, I've heard them, but they need first class (expensive, clean, high-watt) amplification. Monitor speakers need to be extraordinarily well designed to put out real low bass. The Mani-2 has a second woofer inside the box. Transmission lines can work well to get low notes from a small cone, but there are not too many of these made for a bookshelf.Your best bet may indeed be a good sub, but remember matching a sub to monitors seamlessly is hard.

If you could go for small floorstanders, I'd suggest the Meadowlark Kestrel Hot Rod, used. Meadowlark did make a transmission line monitor, the Vireo, but I've never heard it.

If I were in your shoes I would take low-frequency output if I could get it, but before everything I would look for speed and accuracy. These make rhythm, and a nice bass line, easy to follow.

Let me rephrase that. It takes heroic meaures to pull it off, and such measures are not found in the $600-800 price range. I'll stick to my recommendation of a small monitor and a sub. Otherwise, you're likely to hear that bass fade out as it runs down a descending scale.

Let me comment on one other point from another post:

the 'typical' bass has a lowest frequency of about 42Hz

If I recall, that's the low end of an electric bass, but full-size acoustic basses go down into the low 30s or high 20s, I believe. You don't need a speaker that goes that low, necessarily. But one that claims to roll off at 50 Hz (and probably really rolls off a good deal higher than that--bass claims for speakers are notoriously unreliable) may not cut it for you.

A lot depends on your room and your set-up, however, and that probably goes double for bass issues. Whatever way you go, be absolutely sure to try it out at home with full return privileges. The best we can give you is general guidelines, and a speaker that couldn't cut it in your living room might be all you need in a bedroom.

Thanks for all your responses. As per Gmeuller I am really loking at monitors with 6.5" drivers not mini monitors. Cabinets in this range, either sealed or front ported are small enough for my bookshelves.

Also, I'm a bit confused about frequency response. I suppose there must be quite a difference between specs, measured response and room response. For instance the NHT SB3 is quoted to go down to 39hz and was measured at -3db at 40hz by Stereophile. The PSB B25 is quoted to go down to 45hz and measured about -5db at 40hz by Stereophile. Would Pabelson argue that -3 to 5- dB will be perceived as a major dorp off and that the response needs to be near flat at the desired frequency?
Thanks much, PDenni

And another thing I was wondering - The Classik is rated at 75 watts into 4 ohms. I know small sealed enclosures are less effeicient than larger ported enclsures but I don't play music loud. What kind of sensitivity would a speaker need to acheive modest volumes in a medium sized room with the Classik?
Thanks again, PDenni

The Classik is rated at 75W into 4 ohms and half that into 8 ohms. Linn doesn't make a point of mentioning that, perhaps because all their speakers are 4 ohm rated. But a great many good speakers are rated at 8.

35 watts into 8 ohms is not a bad figure really if the amp is high-current, but you need a lot of juice for the kind of bass you would like. ( Especially if you're driving a monitor, because the cabinet's volume plays a big role in reinforcing low-frequency output. ) In your case I would want a speaker with at least an 89 dB/watt efficiency rating.

About ratings, though: there are specs, and then there is the real world. Room factors are generally compensated out ( or eliminated, as in an anechoic setting ) when specs are derived, in an attempt to give figures which can be compared across different models. However we then have to use the unit in an actual room, and each room has its own characteristics. Every room , depending on its size, shape and decoration, will cancel or reinforce different parts of the audio spectrum. These cancellations and reinforcements will vary again according to where you place the speaker in the room. ( C heck out the info I linked in my post above. )

Practically speaking ( ouch ), a speaker with measured frequency response of say -3 dB at 50 Hz may actually start to drop off noticeably below middle C, at 250 Hz, when it is played in a system. The bass notes may well be there, but at very low volume.

Linn deal with this by proposing extra amplification and active crossovers. This kind of setup can produce surprisingly loud, clean bass from a smaller speaker but clearly the additional gear is costly.

An efficient, solidly-built monitor with a simple crossover using high-quality parts, with your amp and for the price you want to pay... will take a little finding and may still not give you all you want, but careful placement will certainly help.

My musician brother has Paradigm Titans--inexpensive small monitors. One of his sons plays double bass and when he wants to learn a bass line he twists up the bass control on the HK505 integrated. This is fine for the purpose but musicians are rarely audiophiles. Perhaps I should mention that the apparent bass output of the Titans is boosted by having one of them on the floor against the wall...