Are Monitor/Subs More Room Flexible?

I don't know if "flexible" is the right term, but I've certainly found my monitor/sub combo to be far more suitable for my listening environment, especially as my rooms have gotten smaller. Since I can only do minimal room treatment, I found any speakers approaching full range would completely overload my rooms. Sub placement, along with the ability to adjust the sub level independently of the monitors, has produced a far more integrated whole for me.

In larger rooms, I'd guess the advantages of monitor/sub are less or non-existent, and that full range speakers might be better. At present, I have no way to test that theory for myself. :-)

David

David -- yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. I now have a very large room, and I antipicipate getting smaller also.

I would agree with your statement generally speaking with two comments:
- more flexible yes but not necessarily better sounding due to the need for quasi-perfect integration that is often under-estimated
- if you can bi-amp and modify the power delivered to the woofers vs. the power going to medium and tweeter (e.g. Linar 10 5.1ch integrated), you can have a very flexible solution without a sub (although you virtually mess with the "cross-over" and may affect the integration as well)

The challenge for a monitor/sub combo in a large room is for the monitors to be able to fill the room with realistic sound levels. I also agree with Beheme that monitor-sub integration is non-trivial. The advantage for the combo would be the opportunity to optimize soundstage imaging with proper monitor placement and to optimize room resonance control with proper sub placement.

Large speakers without subwoofer support often require large rooms. Listeners have to be able to get far enough away from the speakers that their drivers can integrate together to provide good imaging. Too close and the distances between drivers begin to impose their own dimensionality on the sound. Of course, the complementary benefit is that bigger speakers generally can go louder, so as to generate adequate volume in a big room.

Perhaps somewhere in between is the most flexible compromise. Maybe a monitor/sub combo with larger (the old "bookshelf" sized?) monitors -- loud enough for all but the largest rooms, but not too big and retaining placement flexibilty.

I think David hit the nail on the head; however this addresses the optimization of bass levels only. In my experience, Monitors are perhaps a little more difficult to position, and integrate with subs. Some are harder than others - eg, my GMA Europas were particularly hard to optimize. IMHO, the decision to use Monitor/Sub vs Full range is nearly as room dependent as is the decision on which full range to choose.