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What do floor standers really bring to the table?

MattHooper

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I went through the same phase as well, enjoying the transients of my 8inch in my bookshelfs. I suspect that the perhaps the slow roll off and lack of longer wavelengths does provide a percieved improvement in sound(without subs). But once you add powerful subwoofers with drivers that can keep up with intense bass and time align them with minumim 3 subs then its a different ballgame.

My phase was due to my dual subs being entry level and light cabinets and not yet able to perfect my DSP.

I think my point is that, I understand that feeling of how adding subs distorts(whichever way it does for your application) the mains and you don't end up getting what your after. I had that for years it is a difficult stumbling block and if your mains can give you enough bass than striving for subs to integrate well is a big effort like you said. Im one of those who spent years trying to perfect it and ultimately achieved it.

Cool, I totally get and respect that and it's great you achieved it.

I'm super sensitive to tone and timbre. I have it just right in my set up. I found the subs always, to a greater or lesser degree, altered the perception of timbre and I preferred it without subs. I spent quite a while trying all sorts of things - different crossover points/phase etc/DSP to try and get "what I already liked, but with deeper bass" and it never truly gelled for me.

Whereas I could understand another person listening to my trials in my system saying "You know what? I like your system better with the subs."

I was motivated by the idea of improving the sound of my system, but I was also fine with it not working out, since I hate subwoofers - the looks, the added cabling and complexity, the hassle etc. Frankly selling it all off was a relief, aesthetically and financially.

One more thing, I'm not sure I mentioned in a previous thread about this: The subwoofers SEEMED to negatively affect the sound of my home theater system, even though they were not in use! I can't be sure, but what happened was:

I have my 2 channel speakers in the same room as my projection-based home theater. The home theater system is a 5.0 system, big center channel, good size stand mounts, which flank the screen. At some points I had both JL subs sitting where I could place them along the floor under the screen, so behind my 2 channel towers, but in between the L/C/R home theater speakers. I also at times had one sub behind my sofa.

Anyway, I often listened to music on my home theater system too. Right after I'd put the subs in my room (powered off) and I played music on my home theater speakers, the bass seemed all bloated. I was confused, because playback in the room had always been tight and clean. Then movie playback, whenever there was significant bass in a scene, it was overblown and bloated too. Like really obnoxious.

It was so puzzling because I hadn't changed any settings or anything. The ONLY thing that changed was placing the subwoofers in the room.
For the entire time I had those subwoofers in the room (a long time) bass was more bloated from the home theater system.

Of course my system was a bit unusual since the subwoofers in the room were not in use (hence woofers not controlled by their amp or a signal) while the home theater system was playing.

When I mentioned this on the AVSforum some of the subwoofer-heads there said it was quite possible the woofers in the subs were resonating sympathetically with low bass, adding to the sound hence the bass bloat.

I don't know if that was happening, but once the subs were gone from the room (when I sold them not long ago)...sound from the home theater no longer seems to have that bass problem. All sounds more even.

So...I dunno.
 

MarkS

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So many bookshelf speakers are ported, which just produces huge phase shifts that make good subwoofer integration all but impossible without DSP to fix the phase error.

Also, Amir reviews a ton of these, and they all have port resonances mucking up the sound around 1kHz. Why???

The answer, of course, is marketing: sealed-box bookshelves will sound very anemic without a properly integrated sub.
 

DanielT

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The pain is worth the gain, my friend.
No pain, no gain.

I love to fix :)

 

MattHooper

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So many bookshelf speakers are ported, which just produces huge phase shifts that make good subwoofer integration all but impossible without DSP to fix the phase error.

Also, Amir reviews a ton of these, and they all have port resonances mucking up the sound around 1kHz. Why???

The answer, of course, is marketing: sealed-box bookshelves will sound very anemic without a properly integrated sub.

I've had tons of different speakers, often at the same time, stand mounted, floor standing.

Some stand mounted speakers would sound subjectively "deep" in the bass but it was never really the same effect as a bigger speaker.
I remember this was really brought home when I had a stand mounted 2-way speaker that went down to around 40 Hz or so, and a floor standing 3 way speaker that didn't go too much lower. With lots of content (if there wasn't really deep bass) the bass depth sounded perceptually the same between them.

But there still seemed to be a different character. There was more solidity, impact "slam" acoustic power in the bass from the floor stander.
In comparison the bass of the smaller 2-way sounded a bit "fake" or "an illusion."

It was especially obvious if I was cranking the sound to listen from another room. The same music played around the same volume just seemed more powerful, solid, like a kick drum was happening in the room, the smaller speaker sounded a bit more limpid and weak.

I love bookshelf speakers and still own some, but I keep going back to floor standing speakers because of the above characteristics, as I perceive them.
 

Galliardist

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If you find mono recording good, all is possible.
Why buy expensive speakers for a use in a living room, the worst room?
I’m not the only person here, I’m sure, who can only afford or otherwise have to live in a small apartment where the living room is the only choice for speakers.
A lot of us don’t have space or money for multichannel, banks of 18 inch subs, multi-thousand LP collections, or any other of the apparent necessities of audiophile life. On a world scale, having a living room and the ability to purchase a nice stereo setup to put in it puts me in tbe privileged part of humanity. I’ll take that and enjoy it, thanks
 

dasdoing

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I'm curious whether you have measured the distortion levels? What sort of SPL did you try your 'fingers in ear' test at?

So I got this, not sure these are the best settings

a.jpg


my SPL meter showed 81dB on c rating

when I plug my ears I hear nothing.

Also imo it very easy to destinguish 20Hz to 10Hz. 20Hz is still a tone, while 10Hz is "air vibrating"...not realy a tone, since you hear to ocilations
 

JWAmerica

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When I was young and more stupid than even now, I loved the gut massage one would get standing in front of those Cerwin-Vega boxes ;)
IQ/mental acuity peaks 25-30yo. But like most of us, perhaps you've learned some lessons since then.
 

don'ttrustauthority

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I find the whole subwoofer thing too hard to get right; either overpowering or ineffective.

Floor standing speakers for me. No subwoofer.
SVS has an app that allows me to adjust from my phone sitting in the sweet spot. You can adjust db/oct of the highpass filter, q with some frequency settings, adjust frequency, .... it's very handy. And a long free return policy. Which is a con, they know I never return shit.
 

don'ttrustauthority

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Sensitivity is an outcome of all the different decisions that the manufacturer makes. Cone material, magnet size, crossover design, Cabinet volume etc. These all impact how much SPL can be generated by the speaker at 2.8v/1m. If you look at Amir's measurements they are all taken at 2.83v/1m. What you find with the floor standers vs. the bookshelf speakers, is the floorstanders almost always have much higher DB levels (90-95db) range in the frequency response slope on the Y axis than bookshelf (85-90db) range. this tends to be due to the volume of space in the cabinet. That's where my knowledge ends I'm afraid as I don't know the engineering math on cabinet volume impact on speaker SPL/efficiency.
Also, the low end falls off at low vol because of the lack of sensitivity of your ears to frequency extremes.
 

DanielT

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I’m not the only person here, I’m sure, who can only afford or otherwise have to live in a small apartment where the living room is the only choice for speakers.
A lot of us don’t have space or money for multichannel, banks of 18 inch subs, multi-thousand LP collections, or any other of the apparent necessities of audiophile life. On a world scale, having a living room and the ability to purchase a nice stereo setup to put in it puts me in tbe privileged part of humanity. I’ll take that and enjoy it, thanks
Buy used? I checked immediately found this, $ 300 for four subwoffers. See picture

This woffer
http://www.loudspeakerdatabase.com/Peerless/SLS-P830668

Not so bad. You can probability find affordable used subs in your country. :)
 

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don'ttrustauthority

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I thought that too but then what is the point of spending more in a tower speaker to high pass it at 60 or 80Hz? Then I would save and buy a bookshelf to begin with. Which is what I chose to do with my HT.
Well, you understand that the bass response is only one reason for a floorstanding speaker. Also headroom, distortion, speed, basically, look at Amir's 94 db vs 104 db distortion curves and see the benefit.
 

Galliardist

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Buy used? I checked immediately found this, $ 300 for four subwoffers. See picture

This woffer
http://www.loudspeakerdatabase.com/Peerless/SLS-P830668

Not so bad. You can probability find affordable used subs in your country. :)
You’ve missed my point completely.

I could easily afford subs, or a decent surround system, and even an LP collection. My problem is the cost of housing, alongside other personal constraints.
 
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Lots of opinions in this thread, so I'll toss mine into the pot.

TLDR: I prefer a full-range floor stander for music; I prefer a sub for movies;

Disclaimer:
My background is musical, not cinematic; short of once buying a $100 kit to complete the Dolby Pro-Logic "Surround" sound on an old 4x110Watt Technics receiver, I've only ever run audio systems with two channels. Left and Right.
My expectations for objective perfection are far lower than most 'round here. I simply expect my speakers to provide a reasonably even full range from 40 to 100dB+.


I have previously run a powered sub with these speakers, I never got it to sound better than these speakers do alone, when listening to music. Granted, I've never had the desire to listen to symphonic music at high enough volume to potentially notice missing the rumbling sub-bass that one occasionally experiences at a live performance, but I do listen to a fairly broad range of music, often at high volumes in excess of 90dB. Never missed not having a dedicated sub, except...

The odd time that I'm watching the latest blockbuster action movie. Despite an advertised frequency response down to 28Hz (at least for the newer model, I don't have the specs of the older model handy), these things do not provide the rumbling sub-bass that literally shakes the chair. In those odd moments, a few times a year when I'm into a movie in just the right way, I dream of dual 15's behind the couch. That said, these speakers and my setup are absolutely not ideal for watching movies anyway. As my big full-range speakers get both the dialog (no centre channel) and the sound effects (surround/subs), the dialog doesn't always cut through the overall mix as nicely as it does in a system with a centre channel and/or crossed-over fronts such that the source is less muddy.

But much of that could be my ears.
But it is my system for me, my ears are the ones that matter.

This old receiver is absolutely not the ideal amplifier for these speakers, it's grossly under-powered and only has 2 channels. I find that the two pairs of speakers, though the evolution of the same model, do have different tonal characteristics. I prefer to listen to both pairs running together, each contributing the same amount to the total perceived volume... I'm torn between the repair bill on a much bigger / more modern receiver I have sitting around and continuing to save for the AVR I want.

IMG_2516.JPG


But yeah, big boxes, big cones, drive 'em hard... unless you want to vibrate your floor, this works fine.

Upside: you can't knock 'em over like little bookshelfs off stands
Downside: you can break your toe running into 'em

Much past that is so tightly tied to the preference of the listener (that might even include aesthetic)... I have little opinion past what works for me.

Edit:
@Galliardist Not the only one, though I live in a small house, the space between houses is a mere 4' wall to wall.
@PierreV Cerwin Vega boxes? Probably the 2x15 model, though...
 
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Pearljam5000

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Focal must be pretty confident that the bookshelf Utopia is the better sounding of the 2,if they're selling the small Utopia for more $$$ than the much bigger and multiple drivers Kanta 3
Screenshot_20211019-041520.jpg
Screenshot_20211019-041634.jpg
 

Pearljam5000

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its just a different target.. the floorstanding utopias are expensive
But this whole thread is about bookself vs floorstander
So the question is what should you choose In this situation?
And if the Kanta were definitely better than I would assume Focal would price them higher than the small bookshelf Utopias
 

Kal Rubinson

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Focal must be pretty confident that the bookshelf Utopia is the better sounding of the 2,if they're selling the small Utopia for more $$$ than the much bigger and multiple drivers Kanta 3
No reason to say that. The prices reflect the cost and the market position. Besides, "better" is useless as a general term, especially in your specific case. Better for/at what?
 
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