Back to the towers, I prefer discrete midrange to push the crossover points out past the main vocal range, because crossovers inevitably have error no matter how well designed. They literally can't sum flat over all angles as I recall. And very few bookshelf speakers are 3-way.
- Then yes, some little 5" woofer is going to be strained trying to reproduce midbass at high levels; 6.5" somewhat less so. Because of bass limitations the bookshelf speakers are almost always ported, and not to a super low frequency, so they cannot reproduce the lowest bass. And the port complicates the phase for integrating to a subwoofer
- Because yeah, integrating a sub really well takes work and/or software like Audyssey or Dirac etc.
- For the lowest frequencies you just need a sub(s) or ginormous towers, period. This interesting research summarizes as "if you can't play the lowest frequencies pretty dang loud, it is useless, because you literally cannot hear it."
https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=5147 (Caveat: harmonics be they natural and/or distortion may give an
impression of bass-indeed there is DSP for this-but not "da real BASS")
- As reference, the Focal 936 we run tune down to 40 Hz. But they are pretty big, like 4' tall. Low enough for any regular music; not for movie explosions or long organ pipes or some electronica. An SVS SB2000 Pro definitely enhances the bottom. And these days, who doesn't want their bottom enhanced?