I'm curious whether folks out here think that standmount speakers can reward "critical listening."Absolutely!
If you have such a speaker, you can get excellent bass in most rooms by using a set of Swarm subs, which are compact and meant to be directly against the wall. There are 4 subs in a set, and they are used to break up standing waves in the room, resulting in evenly distributed bass- no boominess, no lack. If any sub is kept below 80Hz, it will not attract attention to itself so they can blend nicely and no need for alignment with the main speakers.