This is just my two cents worth. My room is a converted dining room. It is not large and I wanted to hear full orchestra and rock out to The Who as well. I found most large speakers, capable of such output have very little or no adjustability in the bass. As a result, I have found, common wisdom is you have to match the speaker to the room, or use EQ and big bass traps. I have enjoyed a number of satellite speakers with subwoofers of various brands, and carefully executed, they work well but I always found a disconnect in tonal accuracy. Recently I walked into a dealer that introduced me to Vandersteen speakers with built-in and adjustable subwoofers. Since I have never seen this idea in an analog based speaker, I decided to give them a try and ended up buying a pair of Quatro CTs, after trying them at home. I was pleased to see that my room measures well in most low frequencies, but I did have to boost a bit at 20 hertz and take out a bit at 80 hertz. The speaker made it possible. EQ's have a bad name with purists because of phase shifts. Since Vandersteen has put so much effort into being phase correct and devoloping the necessary driver technology to make that possible, I am certian they would not "mess it up" with the controls in the bass. So far so good. I am into them for a few months now. This is one answer to your question and the right one for me. I hope you find your solution as well.
