frequency response - B&W vs. Monitor Audio


I currently have a pair of B&W 685s and I am considering replacing them with a pair of Monitor Audio BR2s. The MAs freq resp gets down to 42Hz; the B&Ws only get down to 49Hz. Is this an audible difference? I would be getting the MAs through a friend who has access to wholesale prices and I will not be able to audition the MAs.
2nd issue - I am considering high-passing my bookshelfs through an active crossover in a powered sub. This will cut out frequencies below 80Hz before the signal gets to the amp and the bookshelfs. If I do this, does it matter if I upgrade to the MAs? Their high end is 30kHz, the B&Ws high end is only 22kHz. Thanks.
realremo
Don't forget the room and setup!
Also, when it comes to LF extension of above named, I see no tolerance and certainly no ref to quality of sound.
Two points: everyone is right, frequency response, in and of itself tells little about the "sound" of the speaker. Second, response above and below what we can "hear" influences out perception of the sound that is audible to us. I find that my subs make music sound more realistic even when there is supposedly no content present in the range they cover. The human perception system is fascinatingly complex and not yet completely understood. There was a recent experiment in which it appears that our sensitivity to ultra high frequency sound was not through our ears but through the body in some way. This sounds weird and it is but when the body was blocked from the sound and the ears left exposed the sound could not be perceived; when the ears were blocked and the body left exposed it could. As Haldane said'"The world is not stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine".
The lowest note on a standard piano is A1 @27.5hz, and if you double that to 55hz that is the next A up (A2), you IMHO
are missing a lot of musical sounds from below 50hz ie some low notes on a bass guitar,synths,organs etc and that last octave again IMHO is vitally important for depth, unless of course you only listen to the Triangle, Flute or solo Violin music.
The 'demo' disc that came with my sub has an organ track with a 16 2/3 hz pedal tone.
The Saint-Saens Symphony #3 with Organ is awesome.
It'll rattle everything in house. You can see the warble in window reflections.

I believe the Bosendorf Imperial Grand goes 1 octave below A1. This instrument has 97 keys, not 88.

Careful!
Magfan you are indeed correct, the Bosendorfer mental amount of $$$ Imperial (best piano on the world by a long stretch)goes down to C (additional 9 notes) to give a full 8 octaves, so A below A1 (if there was one) would have a Hz of 13.75 add a few (can't remember the multiplyer to give a semi-tone increase (been a long time since I was at musical instrument technology college), and it is still
rather lowdown Hz wise.I've only ever played on the Bosendorfer 7'+? model daily (way back), what an instrument that was! Having only tuned piano's (back in the day also) with the Standard A1 27.5hz(that is/was hard enough to do) the big fella must be a piano tuners nightmare all those additional notes in the bass, if you have a cold, forget it pack up your tuning crank, go home, you ain't gonna hear the 'beats' that low.