Full-Range to Monitors

Erik has already nailed IMO some very valid points so I won’t repeat,

”What I have learned is that the smaller speakers stay away from the biggest problems in music and rooms: Bass.

Integrating a true "full range" speaker without EQ into a room is nearly bonkers.

The idea that small speakers are "fast" and big drivers are "slow" is 100% horse hockey. What matters is how well you'll get the bass integration into the room and speakers done.”

It’s been about 6yrs that I had Dynaudio confidence c1’s but that was a monitor speaker that worked very well in a smaller room but also very well in my main system that was in a very large room and Offcourse had 2subs Intergrated with them.

Nowdays using a game changing all in one Lyngdorf 2170 with Room perfect correction helps with taking the room out of the equation and makes it so easy for intergration with any speaker or sub combo I have.

Enjoy,
Kenny.

Lots of great points already made. I’m not a big subwoofer fan maybe because I’ve never owned a very high end make/model so standmount monitors never gave me the sense of completeness that I like for my mostly low/mid volume music listening levels. My favorite size now is midsize floor standers, like 35” tall, on a short stand to bring it up to the 42”- 45” listening height. 

I recently had a pair of Paradigm Prestige 95Fs and McIntosh XR100s. In the end I dumped the floorstanders for a pair of Focal Sopra 1s. Initially it was for the silly reason of us having a small child and I figured it would be easier to replace banged up speaker stands then fix tower speaker cabinets, but that ended up being a non issue. In the end I’m thrilled with their soundstage and imaging. For monitors they went down reasonably low, but I ultimately ended up adding a pair of JL Audio Fathom subs and after that I don’t see me ever going back to full range speakers. In all honesty a friend has Focal Sopra 3s and I prefer the sound of my 1s with the subs over the 3s. Given they are in different rooms , with different electronics, but I’m definitely in no rush to swap my Sopra 1s for 3s. Unfortunately due to my initial concern, I do have a brand new pair of Focal sopra speaker stands collecting dust in my garage in case my original pair see any damage.

chachi -

The JL audio has the single feature I admire most: great self-calibrating software.

Otherwise I think they are way too expensive.

But besides that, they are pretty awesome and I like how you are thinking.

Best,

E

I also want to point out how much technology has really changed. Honestly the sub/satellite system from M&K was awful.  The sub was under powered, and in the room, without any EQ or room acoustics, it was either feast or famine. There was no good combination of settings which let me have a wonderful, immersive sound.

Now, a little miniDSP and the right measurement software and I'm in absolute musical and HT heaven. Of course, I make loudspeakers so what I consider easy may be a royal PITA for a lot of audiophiles. My point is just, the state of the art for the old satellite/sub concept has improved by decades. Not to mention vendors like Hsu putting out AMAZING hardware for dirt cheap prices.