FULL RANGE vs. SUBWOOFER+NO FULL RANGE

The previous posts are both excellent.

If your room is large enough, a full-range floor stander may be best. Your overall sound will probably be more balanced and better integrated. I don't think you'll have any trouble finding a quality used pair of floor standing speakers for $2500.

If you have a small room like me, monitors and a subwoofer is a viable alternative. At 12 x 16 feet my room isn't that tiny, but I got a ton of other stuff in there too. And that reduces the size of it considerably. In my room, a near field setup doesn't work. I'm too close to the sub, the standing bass waves are just too long, and I get no bottom end. When I can sit at least 10 feet from the sub, it sounds more natural and has much more presence. Also, dialing in a sub can be very tedious and time consuming. Finding the right spot to put it may take time. For some people it doesn't work at all. Fortunately, for me it has.

Hi all, I'd like to know what is better for symphonic music with a budget of $2500 for the speakers: full range speakers or speakers + separate subwoofer, or speakers with build in powered subwoofers. can I get high-end sound with any of this configurations within my speaker budget? which combinations would you recommend me in this budget for my musical tastes? your help on this matter will be greatly appreciated! Thanks.jair2fdc

OK well so for $2500, this is in 2001 prices = todays $4G;s.  (inflation)
So for 2500
Lets see.
W22 Graphene /$1G
+
Vox /AC!A/$2G's
yep you  got it.
$3G's
Best speaker for classical music, 2nd to none under $10G's.
See this is why I love FR
Get a  panel of thick plexiglass (ain't cheap)
cut the hiole, plop it in, worlds best looking, and super wife friendly cabinet.
Light weight and just gorgeous aesthetically
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nAZFohYTPQ

Not sure if this member is still around after 20 years , but I did get his  Q's answered.
Pity I did not know  this combo  back in 2001.

 full range speakers or speakers + separate subwoofer,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
jair
could not figure this dilemma out, AT that time, no one had the imagination to play with these ideas of FR + Sub or regular box + sub Or etc etc. 
jair knew FR may be the best option offering a  rich, full , highly detailed midrange where 80%++ of our music lies withing this fq bandwidth. 
But  jair could not put the pieces of the puzzle together. 
As I say, no one had yet worked out this equaltion before, Marrying FR with sub or sub + regular box things.
Well after I upgarded my Thors, I realized, *I'm lookin for more, something ain't right*
Then I started looking into **Point source  aka Full Range**. After soending ,,ohhh about 60 hours research, I hit on **Voxativ**, 
I was looking closely at  davidlouis drivers on ebay, but again, i did not understand what a  FR/PS is, how it works,  how it sounds.
So is tarted a  experiement of ordering various low priced drivers.
Little by little i started figuring how how these things work. 
I dumped the new Millenniums and began using vaious Point Source as midrange/highs. 
Then I started experiementing with higher sens tweets and hit on the Magnovox horn tweeter.
So little by little all these experiments have started paying off. 
I now have bass with dual W18E001's, DL 4 inch as midrange and the Magnovox horn tweeter.
The DL 4 inch *full Range*, is ok, but it was only $200 and as the chinese seller says *you GET exactly what you pay for**. WEll we all know thats not true, Sometimes we pay alottttt more and get alotttt less.
Now i am saving for a  real midrange which will voice classical music with highly detailed soundstage , with pure super high fidelity.
jair had some good ideas, its just that back in 2001, no one had even the slightest clue how to respond to his post.
fast forward 20 yrs later, There  now exist designs which intergrate a hidden woofer in with the Full range /point source driver.
Most likely I will live with the W18E001's as bass. 
But down the line after I pay off the Vox AC1A's, I'll save up and get the Seas Excel Graphene W22, I already have the xover. and sell off the 20 year old W18E001 at half price. 
This is exactly what I am going to do, as the 2 pairs of W18E001's will fetch ,,ohh say, $400, the W22;s will run me $1G, so all I need to come up with is $600, and the AC1A;'s already have some  wooffer punch.
Yep thats the golden combo. 
Might keep the Magnovox horn, not sure, we will have to see how the AC1A response is on the highs. 
I will roll off the W22 at 1200hz., this way  keeps the energy flowing to work more as a  pure bass woofer. Its sort of a waste cutting the W22 off at 1200hz,  as the Titanium VC really offers stunning clarity, purity in the 1200 all the way up to 2500hz. 
Its just that the AC1A has even a  higher fidelity in that 1200-2500 range

There will be over lap in fq's from the lows through 1200hz. 
But here's the thing.
 
 the W22 is 86db sens, = acting more as a  background bass woofer, sort of adding a  subtility, a  soft richness, a  fullness so to speak,  adding a  punchiness  which  the AC1A can not perform on its own. 
I should have this *The Frankenstein* up N running by years end/before. 
Well just the Dual W18's, not the W22,  that upgrade will have to wait til 2022 til I beef up my audio budget , which is pretty low at the moment. 

For some people it doesn't work at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
A sub would grate on my nerves, a  sub is HT only.
Now that Seas and Scanspeak has come out(past 2 years) with beefier midwoofers, a  sub for musical bass is not necessary, for the diehards who demand the 20-30hz range.

You can make it work either way but its easier with a sub or subs (especially subs).

In most rooms you run into a problem with standing waves if the room has regular dimensions. This can cause a loss of bass at the listening chair- or maybe (less common) too much bass.


If you have speakers that go to 20Hz and you place them in the ideal spot for imagining and depth this is a very likely problem. I've run into it many times!


The big problem with subs is getting them to blend but if you make sure the sub is operating only below 80Hz it will be a cinch. If its operating over that frequency you may have to place it in the same vicinity as your main speakers; if it only operates below 80Hz it won't attract attention to itself and you can place it where its audible at the listening chair. The thing is that with one sub that placement might not be very convenient. And you could still have problems with standing waves.

An easier approach is to use multiple subs set up as a Distributed Bass Array (DBA). The idea is that since bass is omnidirectional below 80Hz, you can then feed them all the same signal and place them asymmetrically in the room, thus breaking up standing waves and getting evenly distributed bass.  The advantage of this approach is that the main speakers no longer have to go down so deep. As long as they get to 50-60 Hz they harmonics of the bass notes will convince you that the note are coming from in front of you even though the fundamentals are coming from the side or even the rear of the room.


Audiokinesis has worked out an effective sub system called the Swarm which is compact, easy to set up and goes right flat to 20Hz.


This opens up the choice of speakers since there are many smaller highly resolved speakers that can handle 50Hz and above quite well- the only issue might be that the speaker behave well if it gets bass notes below its cutoff.