Towers with built in subs vs separate subs

Sub positioning success is dependant on room treatment or bass nodes.

The main speakers could have the best positions for imaging and the worst for even distribution of lower bass. In which case you limited your solutions.

Treatments are in the works.  Waiting on wife approval. 

My room is L shaped. Main part which consists of living room and kitchen is 20 deep and 23 wide. To the rear of that, all open, there is a 15x12 dinning area.  Lots of hard surfaces. System backs to stairs going to 2nd floor. I put a second floor on a 1200sq' ranch and blew most of the walls out of the lower level.  I just posted some pics if anyone cares to look

I like separate subs for several reasons:

• Ability to put an EQ in line with the sub only
• Ideally, using a high pass filter for the main speaker/amp which yields lower distortion and higher dynamic range
• Ability to place sub more optimally

Don't those founder series also have the room correction built in?

if its the same ones i was listening to a couple weeks ago they are very good, I liked them better than the Focal Sopra 2's I also listened to.

The room correction system integrates the bass much better than any sub alone will. It only works on the bass section but after we took the measurements and let the software do its thing it smoothed out the bass response significantly in the smallish listening room at the dealer. made me stand up and consider them more seriously. 

A built-in subwoofer will perform better for music. The texture and pace of bass notes will better match with the main speakers.