What's the point of floorstanding when we have subwoofers?

[ZolaIII]

Doesn't save any space going with flor stand towers and they all need sub's. I use two sub's with bookshelf's mont on them and isolated with silicone seater between them. Every crossover is a make or brake thing and it's not a simple task to make a good one but it still ain't that hard either. I use Butterwort model to natural in room slope order trough DSP in 2.2 stereo crossed at 120 Hz, plug the port's on mains and shape response to model with additional PEQ's if need be. My personal reason for going this way is equal loudness compensation with a knew at 105 Hz to ensure it stays on sub's and doesn't spill to mid bass woofers in when there is a significant bass bust there. With floor stand ones you get usually multiple woofers doing the same job so they can do it louder or with less distortion and sometimes more capable (regarding SPL and cooling) tweeters. When you learn how to do crossovers good you realise that one's in speakers aren't either on the purposely right spot you would want them to be nor really done all that good (there are some with very good ones but that's still rare). It's not for everyone either way.

 

[terryforsythe]

If you need subwoofers anyway (for optimal results), wouldn't floorstanding be more interesting due to their lower price point?

Yeah I meant bookshelves sorry.

It depends. Price and aesthetics aside, some tower speakers will extend lower in frequency before compression and distortion become an issue. Thus, you can use a lower speaker/subwoofer crossover frequency while still maintaining low compression and distortion. Generally speaking, the lower in frequency a subwoofer is crossed over, the less attention it brings to audible awareness of its location. However, if the subwoofer is positoned in proximity to the speakers, this becomes less of an issue.

As an example, if you are using a subwoofer with high harmonic distortion crossed over at 120Hz using a 2nd order crossover, and place it behind you, you probably are going to be able to hear where it is located.

In my family room my subwoofer is placed near the front wall. It has very low distortion, and I have it crossed over at roughly 100Hz using an 8th order crossover. I do not audibly detect the subwoofer's location. To me, all of the music appears to becoming from the sound stage created by the speakers.

 

[Talisman]

Doesn't save any space going with flor stand towers and they all need sub's.

Not all need subs because not all have a fetish for audible 20hz.
You can enjoy 99% of the music very well with towers that go below 40hz at F3 and often it is a very acceptable compromise instead of finding room for those horrible black cubes.
This is said by someone who has a listening system with 4 subs but in the living room only two towers, and I live very well.

 

[Multicore]

You answered your question in the OP itself so I'll just mention my own priorities.

1. I can't fit them. In the living room I was able to fit towers and they work real well. In the office there's just nowhere so I get by without sub bass there.

2. Not having to be responsible for the integration and crossover is a big deal. If I were to get a system that uses subs it would be one of those that comes with its own measurement mic and software to set up its own DSP.

3. Sub bass isn't super important to me. It's nice to have but not super important in most of my listening.

But really #1 is Ockham's razor to the rest.

 

[Mnyb]

With a crossover at 80 Hz, the subs need response to ~160 Hz, and main speakers need to go down to ~40 Hz, a one-octave overlap. Even at 80 Hz, few bookshelf speakers can product sufficient bass without high distortion, and with a 100 Hz or higher crossover it is easy to localize the sub. Below is my ancient long post on "Why Subs" but you can read into it why I prefer larger mains as well.

FWIWFM - Don

Why Subs?

I use subs, and have for decades, for all the usual reasons:

- Very (perhaps extremely) few "large" speakers actually play well below 40 Hz let alone 20 Hz. They distort heavily when presented with large bass signals (which most are -- see Fletcher-Munson) and driving them hard down low robs headroom for higher frequencies and causes distortion well above the fundamental signal frequency (harmonic and nasty intermodulation). Subs typically enable the mains to operate with much lower distortion.

- Very rare is the room setup such that the best place for stereo imaging and soundfield is the best place for the subs (or deep bass drivers) to counter room modes and such. Having independent subs provides placement options to smooth the in-room response. It is almost impossible to counter a null without subs (typically must move the MLP or change the room's dimensions though there are purpose-built panels that can also work). This is one of the things that led me to subs despite having quite capable mains.

- Powered subs offload the main amplifiers of the need to provide deep bass energy, providing more headroom and cleaner sound from the amplifiers.

- Music (let alone action movies) often contains deep bass content even if it is not real obvious. Kick drums, tympani, organ, sure, but also piano hammer strikes, plucked strings, beat patterns from instruments playing together, etc. May not really notice when they are there but usually obvious when they are taken away. Having subs fill in the bottom octave or three can make a difference.

- Purpose-built subs can provide high output cleanly at relatively low cost. The amplifiers and drivers need only cover a fairly limited frequency range so have fewer constraints upon them than woofers in a full-range system.

I do prefer main speakers with fairly deep bass and always have. Crossovers are not brick walls so a fair amount of energy still comes from the mains an octave below the crossover frequency. Higher-order crossovers allow you to reduce the overlap, but I still like having the capability. I have never really understood the idea of running "passive" bi-amping as implemented by an AVR (sending full-range signals to multiple channels and letting the speaker's crossovers separate frequency bands -- wastes amplifier headroom and seems to me of little benefit). Nor do I agree with the "plus" setting putting subs and mains in parallel; again, my idea has always been to isolate the two for the reasons above.

My first sub was a DIY design using an Infinity IRS woofer with my own control box to provide the crossover and a servo circuit using the second voice coil of the woofer. I had a Hafler DH-220 around so also incorporated a circuit to bridge it for use as a subwoofer amp. It worked well and the -3 dB point was ~16 Hz. I now run four small (F12) Rythmik subs using a similar (but updated) servo design with my Revel Salon2's and am happy with the result.

FWIWFM/IME/IMO/my 0.000001 cent (microcent) - Don


Stereo subs:

I have gone back and forth on stereo subs over many years (since ~1979/1980 when I built my first sub) and ultimately decided it is not worth it. It limits placement and correction options, almost no stereo content exits at sub frequencies (remember a wavelength is >11 feet at 100 Hz, >22 feet at 50 Hz, just how much stereo separation can there be in a normal listening situation?), and the end result was always much better when I ran the subs mono and placed them optimally for best in-room bass response. If your crossover is so high and/or filter roll-off so low that your subs intrude into the lower midrange you might appreciate stereo but I have always rolled off well below the point at which I could localize the subs. For years I ran stereo subs but many tests blind and otherwise convinced me stereo subs are just an unnecessary hassle that actually reduced my system's performance and sound.

yes you possibly need floostanders and subs , many bookshelf speakers are to small to integrate properly anyway my xover to dual subs are at 65hz and i use PEQ .
I would argue that tower speakers also uses the same floorspace as a speaker on stands . So if you don't have your small speakers in or on furniture or on wall mounts you can rather buy the floor standing model .

 

[terryforsythe]

With a crossover at 80 Hz, the subs need response to ~160 Hz, and main speakers need to go down to ~40 Hz, a one-octave overlap.

Certainly that is the case if using relatively shallow crossover slopes and no DSP. But, miniDSP provides up to 8th order crossover slopes, and with CamillaDSP you have even more flexibility.

As a case in point, I have my speaker ports plugged, so they start to roll off at 90Hz. I have them crossed over around 100Hz using 8th order crossover slopes and it works well, regardless of whether I manually tune it with DSP or use Dirac Live.

Even at 80 Hz, few bookshelf speakers can product sufficient bass without high distortion

I agree.

with a 100 Hz or higher crossover it is easy to localize the sub.

It depends on numerous factors - see my post #22 above.

 

[sigbergaudio]

Not all need subs because not all have a fetish for audible 20hz.
You can enjoy 99% of the music very well with towers that go below 40hz at F3 and often it is a very acceptable compromise instead of finding room for those horrible black cubes.
This is said by someone who has a listening system with 4 subs but in the living room only two towers, and I live very well.

From my perspective the deep bass is not really even the main point. It's just as much about a balanced response and more capacity/headroom in the 30-100hz area.

But certainly one can live very well with two towers.

 

[ZolaIII]

Not all need subs because not all have a fetish for audible 20hz.
You can enjoy 99% of the music very well with towers that go below 40hz at F3 and often it is a very acceptable compromise instead of finding room for those horrible black cubes.
This is said by someone who has a listening system with 4 subs but in the living room only two towers, and I live very well.

I don't need 20 Hz it's just a little bit more tale, however I need strong and good compliance for low bass true peeks in mid 30's to 40's and in materials with such. Still purposely reinforce woofers do that better than what you find in towers. It's hard to find aesthetically pleasing sub's to their purpose and design limitations that come with it but not impossible. You can always pay someone to wrap them into finish that you like or goes with your other things (same as it's done with speakers) and that doesn't even cost that much.

 

[DonH56]

Certainly that is the case if using relatively shallow crossover slopes and no DSP. But, miniDSP provides up to 8th order crossover slopes, and with CamillaDSP you have even more flexibility.

Most AVRs use 12 or 24 dB/oct crossovers, so an octave away the signal is still only about -10 dB or so. One=tenth power, but abouit half loudness, so relevant IME/IMO. Few users have miniDSP or other processors offering higher crossover orders.

As a case in point, I have my speaker ports plugged, so they start to roll off at 90Hz. I have them crossed over around 100Hz using 8th order crossover slopes and it works well, regardless of whether I manually tune it with DSP or use Dirac Live.

I would argue that is (you are) a special case of (for) an advanced user. I have used 100 Hz and up crossovers and had localization problems, but that was not 8th-order, only 4th order, so not a good comparison.

A lot of bookshelf speakers are not happy even at 100 Hz in terms of distortion for loud bass signals.

 

[Mojo Warrior]

I agree with the previous posts.

However, people must consider what types of music they listen to. Most classical music doesn't require deep thunderous bass.

Most jazz can be reproduced with a bookshelf model.

Many of us have a spouse or roommate that dislikes deep bass notes because they are more sensitive to bass.

Then there are restrictions imposed by our neighbors when we start rattling the walls and floors with deep bass.

YMMV

 

[FrantzM]

I agree with the previous posts.

However, people must consider what types of music they listen to. Most classical music doesn't require deep thunderous bass.

Most jazz can be reproduced with a bookshelf model.

Many of us have a spouse or roommate that dislikes deep bass notes because they are more sensitive to bass.

Then there are restrictions imposed by our neighbors when we start rattling the walls and floors with deep bass.

YMMV

Subwoofers are not about "thunderous bass". Properly integrated with the mains, subwoferS (insisting on the plural, as in "more than one", and on roperly integrated" ), provide a level of fidelity that is very difficult if not impossible to achieve without.
and ...
Jazz has bass, lot of it. I mean a drums set will not be heard as such if bass is not properly reproduced ... Or an upright bass without ... bass?? A tuba.. without .. bass? A Piano ... without bass?? Hammond B-3 Organ? without bass... ?? I am not sure .. they lack that .. maybe not 20 Hz , then again some piano do... but the nethger regions dow50 to 150 must be well covered.. else ...
As for Classical with no bass.. Not organ piece.. Take a piano concerto, say Rachmaninoff's any of his pieces. if you don't go below 60 Hz with cleanliness and authority? You're missing a lot.. Or the Edgard Cello Concert in E Minor with no bass .. if you don't go below 100 Hz with any authority you would not be listening to a cello...
Real music requires clean, bass .. yeah even rap ..

More about the OP ... later, need to work

Peace.

 

[Oddball]

Not sure what is your use case - stereo or HT? Might be some differences in approach, but still, lots of things will be common.

Also understand you are not looking for comments for active vs. passive. Lots of small-er passive monitors are different breed than the passive ones. But they generally come at the price premium.

Passive towers will generally give you higher SPL with lower distortion even with the subs, compared to passive bookshelves. There are some seriously bad ass passive bookshelves but understand you are looking into the smaller kind, thus the comment. This might or might not be relevant to you depending on the SPL you are expecting from the system.

Not sure why people are so adverse to sub integration. If you have the tools and skills that is not so difficult, albeit it will never be perfect. But will have all the benefits of the subs as you noted and as noted in the thread. Unless you have big subs integrated in mains, it is unlikely that they will reach down to 40hz at e.g. 110dB with confidence. Truly full range speakers are rare (and even more expensive) and definitively not the ones that you noted.

There are many advanced bass management stuff you can do in HT with towers but can't do with bookshelves, but not sure how relevant to your use case. Benefits might also not be commensurate with the cost in view of many though.

 

[Mart68]

Hi there!

(Let's preface this by saying that, as some of you may have seen, I'm currently asking a lot of questions about audio on the forum ; I want to be sure I understand everything before spending actual money on serious gear)

From what I understand, the main benefit or floorstanding speakers over bookshelf speakers is the low-end part of the spectrum. For instance, if we take KEF's R3 Meta vs R11 Meta, or Monitor's Audio Gold 50/100 vs 200/300/500, or Mofi's Sourcepoint 8 vs 888, the main point of having bigger speakers seems to be the bass.

But subwoofers can achieve even deeper bass, especially thanks to huge drivers, and as someone pointed out in another thread, they can be positioned freely in the room to find the best position in order to avoid having too much problems with the room's acoustics.

Also, if we take KEF's example, the R3 Meta sell for 2200 €. The R11 Meta, on the other hand, are 6500 €. 3 times as expensive ! They are of course way bigger, with bigger woofers, but they seem to work in a similar fashion. Same goes for Monitor Audio : the Gold 50 are 2000 €, the Gold 500 are 6500 €. More than 3 times the price.

For way less than that price difference, you can get yourself a really high-end subwoofer, or two high-quality subwoofers to place wherever you want.

So, my question is:

Why do floorstanding exist when we can just use bookshelves with (one or two) subwoofers?

Especially given:

* Subwoofers can go lower
* Bookshelves + subwoofer = cheaper
* You need way less power for bookshelves

Some of the reasons I can think of are:

* Subwoofers take some additional place in addition to the speakers themselves
* You need an amp with one or even two (that's a lot less common) subwoofers output
* Floorstanding may be nicer-looking to some people
* Floorstanding don't require a stand (and custom stands are often ridiculously expensive)
* Some people may not want to have super deep bass if they live in appartment

But even with these, it seems like the vast majority of people should prefer bookshelves over floorstandings.

Any idea on that subject?

* Subwoofers can go lower - true but many don't go lower than a large tower.
* Bookshelves + subwoofer = cheaper - it can be but there are cheap tower speakers that are still objectively good.
* You need way less power for bookshelves - small speakers tend to have lower sensitivity than large speakers so mostly not true

* Subwoofers take some additional place in addition to the speakers themselves - true and for optimal you need three or four
* You need an amp with one or even two (that's a lot less common) subwoofers output - no, there's ways round that
* Floorstanding may be nicer-looking to some people - true
* Floorstanding don't require a stand (and custom stands are often ridiculously expensive) - all a stand needs to do is get the speaker to the right height. No need for expensive ones. But speaker on stand takes up same floorspace as a tower.
* Some people may not want to have super deep bass if they live in appartment - true.

I did look at going with a full active system with four subs. No real constraints. Just seemed like it would be a lot of effort to get it all dialled in right. Some enjoy that process, I wouldn't. So in the end went traditional 2 channel. But my room does accommodate that solution, in a more difficult acoustic I would have gone with the active subwoofer system and smaller mains.

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

In the living room 3.1 system I use small speakers and a subwoofer because my in-house interior design department insists on invisible speakers but will accept 8" high or under. With room calibration the sound is fine by my subjective judgement. I'm sure it could be objectively a lot better. TV audio (HDMI from cable box) is inherently variable quality. Music is good.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

In the living room 3.1 system I use small speakers and a subwoofer because my in-house interior design department insists on invisible speakers but will accept 8" high or under. With room calibration the sound is fine by my subjective judgement. I'm sure it could be objectively a lot better. TV audio (HDMI from cable box) is inherently variable quality. Music is good.

Ah, that reminds me: My "in-house interior design department" forbids stand-mounted speakers.

 

[terryforsythe]

Most AVRs use 12 or 24 dB/oct crossovers, so an octave away the signal is still only about -10 dB or so. One=tenth power, but abouit half loudness, so relevant IME/IMO. Few users have miniDSP or other processors offering higher crossover orders.

Remember, though, that using a Linkwitz-Riley (LR) crossover the speaker already is down -6dB at the crossover frequency, or -3dB if using a textbook Butterworth. Thus, using a LR crossover, the speaker's SPL already is down by 50% at the crossover frequency, or down 29% if using a Butterworth (Butterworth's do not sum flat, and I generally do not use them).

2nd order LR filters will be down around -12dB at one octave, and 4th order LR crossovers will be down about -24dB at one octave. -12dB is one-fourth of the SPL, and -24dB is one-sixteenth of the SPL.

Below are theortical slopes of 2nd order LR and Butterworth crossovers.

The below graph depicts theoretical slopes of 2nd order and 4th order LR crossovers:

A lot of bookshelf speakers are not happy even at 100 Hz in terms of distortion for loud bass signals.

Many are not. That is something to which not enough people pay attention when selecting bookshelf speakers. Nonetheless, when being used with a subwoofer and an appropriate crossover, the compression and distortion measurements of the speaker at the crossover frequency will be better due to the reduction in SPL of the speaker at that frequency, and significantly improved below that frequency.

 

[ZolaIII]

LR theoretically sum flat in practice you will have lack of energy on crossover point and neither do Butterwort and you will have far less than +3 dB. So you use microphone and give your best effort that's why it's a make or brake thing in first place and you can PEQ crossover point as long it is peak.

 

[Waxx]

Well, the best sound comes from big speakers most think. But modern design choices in interiors don't allow that anymore. And thin floorstanders came in as compromise (also easier and cheaper to build right). Bookshelfs are even more compromised but smaller, and then a subwoofer that you can hide under something (like a desk) or in/next to something (a tv furniure) became relevant, especially for HT setups.

The setup of a bookshelf and a sub is not easy, and many set them wrong. So a floorstander, altough big for modern design fashion, is a way easier solution with less cables and less problems to set up and less floorspace. And the sound can be good, almost as good as a well tuned big speaker that is to big for modern interior designs. But power compression sets in earlier, distortion in general is higher and sometimes the speaker sounds more stressed. Modern tech on speaker and driver design did minimise that altough, so it's not a big porblem at all for most.

So speakers are always a matter of compromises, and you need to find out what fit you the best. For some that will be a big JBL M2, and for other a Neumann KH150 or Genelec 8030C with a sub, while the third want Revel Salon's. And some with the big speakers will still add subs for various reasons (room integration, more volume, ...).

There is no one size fits it all, there are many variations of very good that may fit your case or not.

 

[terryforsythe]

LR theoretically sum flat in practice you will have lack of energy on crossover point and neither do Butterwort and you will have far less than +3 dB.

As with a lot of things in audio, it depends.

If the drivers are correctly time aligned, group delay is not a significant issue, and the drivers have a flat frequency response in the crossover region, then LR crossovers do sum flat and Butterworth crossovers do sum to +3dB.

However, especially when trying to integrate a subwoofer with a speaker, there always are time alignment and group delay issues. Group delay can be especially problematic when using a bass reflex speaker and trying to cross it over too close to its tuning frequency. For those reasons, I try to avoid using bass reflex speakers with a subwoofer (if the speakers are bass reflex, I plug the ports), and I time align the subwoofer with the speakers. That is what has worked best for me. More recently, though, I have just been letting Dirac Live handle it after I do some preliminary tuning.

 

[MattHooper]

Doesn't save any space going with flor stand towers

Yes you do.

and they all need sub's.

No they don’t.