floorstand or bookshelf

[shokhead]

That depends on your seated height. A lot of older floorstanding speakers have very squatty proportions and thus require short stands. But, the newer tower speakers are designed to position the speakers close to the correct height. 36" is a little bit shorter than some other tower speakers, but it should work fine. With the stands, my speakers are at 40", which puts the tweeters right about at ear level.

When you're talking about "factory speakers" I hope that you're not using your TV speakers for the center channel! That's an absolute no-no because of the severe timbre mismatch that you'll get between the TV speaker and the L/R mains. In that case, you're much better off going with no center speaker than trying to use the TV to handle the center channel. Just make sure that the center channel is turned off on your receiver's setup menu.

Yep,my 603's are on 9" atands to bring them to the right height.

[drseid]

Still need to put floorstanders on stands most the time to get the right level.

This is quite true. I would not be too concerned, however... It only means you need to check the floorstanders you eventually plan on buying and adjust to get the tweeter at ear level accordingly... My dad for example places the relatively short floorstanders I built for him on short stands to raise the tweeter, but by contrast I do not place my mains on stands as they are already 50 inches tall with the tweeter at ear level (as it is generally recommended to be).

---Dave

[accastil]

This question is asked often. If the bookshelf and the floorstanding model are built with the same drivers and crossover, it's an easier comparison. You'll see many companies do this too. Paradigm comes to mind. Look at the Monitor 5 and the Monitor 7. Besides the $150-$200 price difference, the only the only difference between them is about $2 in particleboard and $2 in vinyl finish to make the cabinet taller. $150 for $4 in materials, not a bad business to be in.

Tone wise, there should be absolutely no difference in "brightness or dullness". The same drivers and crossover would be used. The biggest difference comes in the bass of course. Floorstanders can play lower. Sometimes this comes at the expense of "tightness" of bass, and transient response, but that would depend on the woofer used and how much larger the floorstander cabinet is.

Bookshelfs typically have better imaging - speakers will deliver better imaging and soundstaging in smaller cabinets. Smaller cabinets will also produce less edge diffraction that introduces irregularities in the response.

How much these differences are noticeable will depend on how well the designs are implemented. I really notice the smaller speakers do image better and have somewhat better soundstage, if everything else is kept the same.

For home theater, I always recommend bookshelf speakers if available, because they are almost always much cheaper than the towers, and offer as good or better performance in the mids and highs. A subwoofer should be used for home theater anyway.

For stereo music listening though, I still prefer floorstanders quite often. The extra bass presents a more complete musical experience to me. Integrating a subwoofer with bookshelfs would be pretty difficult - especially since a lot of good integrated amps and pre-amps don't come with LFE/Bass management controls. I don't think it would be impossible to get better performance with a sub and bookshelf speakers, but it would be very difficult to do it right.

For the same budget, however, as you mentioned, you'll often get much higher quality speakers. When I bought my Paradigm Studio 20's and I almost went with Monitor 7's for fronts. The studio 20's don't have as much bottom end, but it's enough for most music, and the midrange and highs are much better, as was imaging and soundstaging. To me, better sound quality was worth more than lower bass. I knew eventually I'd add a subwoofer anyway, if I really wanted to use it.

But I can see why some people would prefer the floorstanders. Include a pair of stands, and the prices aren't that different.

hi kex. this thread really confuses me. i thought you are more into floorstanders for music since it gives you more musical experience? how come your stereo music speakers are the paradigm 20's?

[accastil]

For the type of music you will be listening to i would go with a quality
standmount.I have a set of Jm Labs cobalt 806s and my listening habits are close to yours.I do have a sub that i use with certain types of music and they blend seamlessly,i have not experienced the loss of midbass that some posters have reported,my 806's have strong output down to 50hz and maybee just a little lower.Great music speakers.

bill

exactly my thoughts musicman, no matter what tweak or component swap i do, i cannot seem to convince myself that the floorstanders sounds better than the bookshelf. i like my music slightly on the brighth side and the clarity...this one i only hear from the 20's. yes my MS is also clear but im finding its sound alittle dull.

[kexodusc]

hi kex. this thread really confuses me. i thought you are more into floorstanders for music since it gives you more musical experience? how come your stereo music speakers are the paradigm 20's?

Ha ha...Sorry.

I bought the Studio 20's to work as surround speakers, but at first I only had a 3.1 system without surrounds so I used the Studio 20's for awhile until I saved up to buy Studio 40's...I used Studio 40's as front mains in a home theater for about 2 years, and the Studio 20's for surrounds - actually 2 pairs of Studio 20's for 7.1 home theater. I still have the Studio 40's, but I sold both pairs of Studio 20's. For awhile the 40's were my stereo speakers until I built a second "Stereo Only" system. I kept the 40's when I upgraded my home theater because there a good reference for my speaker projects.

My main speakers now are a 2-way tower with a 7" Vifa XT woofer and Scan-Speak 9500 tweeter...Full range towers. They are much, much better than the Studio 20's and 40's for music.
My home theater now (what I used to replace the Studio 40's and 20's) are the EFE Ar.com DIY speaker kit. I have 2 separate systems, one in my living room where my wife watches movies (home theater), and my stereo system in my basement studio with all my guitars and audio gear.

Confused yet?