Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

Go big or go home! That's what I say!

Nah, just go with a pair of bookshelf's and a subwoofer if you want to get the most of your money. I like the sound of tower speakers, but I could go with a pair of bookshelf's and a sub if I wanted to get the most from my money.

Now, trucks, that's when you have to go big!

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

Some good, rather complete feedback from Lance.

Crap. When did I say any floor standers under $1,500 were crap? I didn't. Someone else came in, twisted my words and said that, then I satirized it. Does anyone have a sense of humor anymore?

You want to know what? The system I listen to the most is a pair of Minimus 7s and a passive sub, both from Radio Shack, at a total cost of about $200. They are powered by an H/K 590i (great 2 channel receiver) I got off ebay for an absolute steal. They are hooked up to a decent sound card (iMic) and fed from iTunes. OK, I convert at 256KB with LAME.

Am I amazed when I listen to my Thiels? Hell yeah. But I don't get to that much. I just like music.

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

Now that's the kind of answer I was looking for!

I've been reading up on the Minimus 7s (and found GREAT reviews) and it seems they've gone through a lot of name changes (Optimus, etc)... are these speakers still being produced and sold, and if so, under what name now? I would consider buying them on your advice. Also, what sort of sub would I need to get a good 2.1 setup from my Pioneer SX-205 receiver? Never done a 2.1 setup before.

Thanks!

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

You'd need a sub with "high level" inputs. Essentially, the subwoofer is connected to the receiver, the speakers are daisy chained off the high level outputs. Most subwoofers have these inputs, a few, (SVS?) do not.

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

The two channel system I'm listening to right now is the front pair of an Athena Point 5 set, a Dayton 10" sub and a 5 year old H/K 520. I just gave a pair of "Optimus" branded speakers to my brother that were in the closet for years but didn't look too closely at them. I do remember that they had a 5" woofer and a 1" tweeter in a metal cabinet. I bought them about 6 years ago at RS on sale for $49 a pair. Pretty good sound but the bass was just a little bit boomey. I'm pretty sure they aren't being made anymore but they (and other RS speakers) can usually be found on Ebay for a song. Other small speakers to consider would be the Athena AS.B2's or the Infinity 140/150's for around $100, give or take 20 bucks. Add a small sub from Sony, BIC, Dayton, etc. and you should be quite pleased.

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

I own a pair of black Minimus 7 speakers, but they have an "RCA" badge on them. Unfortunately I haven't seen these at a RadShak for at least three years (I bought mine five years ago). Their normal price was $160/pair. They have a nice mellow quality to them, that while not highly detailed, makes it easy to have a long term listening session. A lot of people over the years bought these and their little brother - exactly the same but with a 4" woofer - for use as satellites for their HT system.

Yea they do have some boom to them, probably because of that port they stuck on there. This series was originally acoustic-suspension and that cabinet is just too small to be ported properly IMO.

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

I have at least 4 pair of Minimus 7s sitting around. They were indeed very nice speakers for the price. I always bought them on sale (first pair probably in the early 80s) and they probably ranged from $40-$80/pair through the years. None of the ones I own are ported and are not at all boomy.

Bobby, you have just committed the ultimate irony. That pic of the SVS sub. I shot it. I did the first professional photos they had done. That one, some shots of their cylinder subs on a white sweep and some more cylinder subs set up in Ron Stimpson's house. There were some others along the line. Unfortunately, I live 150 miles away or maybe I'd still be doing their photography. Most likely Ron was just unhappy with me...

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

Now I am the newbie here, but I think you may be confused. From what I've been reading today, it's the 7's that have the 4" woofer, and retailed for around $120/pair. They have a big brother called the 77 with a 5" woofer... maybe that's what you have?

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

My bad John. I thought you were serious. Good to know that even when you upgrade into the audiophile world that you can still find pleasure in budget sound systems (albeit carefully chosen ones).

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

My opinion is select a thin speaker for matching the future flat TV, certainly, the speaker can use as bookshelf, I recommend the Soundon audio k4202, the f3 is 45Hz. and the tweeter is ribbon.

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

Some of the SVS don't have high level inputs
Like the SVS PB10

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

150 miles away? Your location says Colorado and I thought SVS was in Ohio...or is that just where their factory is and their main operations are in Colorado?

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

The facilities are in Ohio and I believe that is where Tom V lives, but Ron Stimpson (the first "S" in "SVS") lives in Colorado Springs. The last I knew, their financial operations were handled out of somewhere like Minnesota. That's the way of some modern businesses these days. I suspect Ron likes Colorado so much, he'd rather have to make regular trips to Ohio than move.

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

SoundVision has the Athena Technologies AS-B2.2 Bookshelf Speakers on sale for 149 bucks for a pair; go get them and buy a good sub later down the road.

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

Thanks for the info Greg, I will consider that. What is soundvision? I googled it and got a bunch of variations, none of which seem relevant. Any pointers to their site?

Thanks!

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

Thanks for the correction - starting in the late 80s I guess, Radio Shack began to stop using their own brand names on their audio gear & substituted "normal" brand names on them and so I lost track of specific RS model names/numbers.

Minimus trivia: I'm guessing there were probably about a dozen models total in the Minimus line, going all the way up to a model which used a 6.5" woofer & still used that signature metal enclosure. There were all-wood variations too, pretty walnut with chocolate brown cloth grills.

Nowadays RS stores look like miniature Best Buys with all the various big-name brands and they've almost stopped stocking any audio gear period and several years ago they finally stopped stocking raw drivers i.e. woofers, tweeters, etc in their brick-n-mortar stores. The first two speaker systems I built in the early 80s were from RS, the first a practice set of little bookshelves with a single 4" fullrange driver (from a design in a book they sold.......and I still have the book and the speakers!) and then a 3-way system built from a kit with a 12" woofer. Unfortunately during a year-long stint in a non-climate controlled public storage facility, the foam on the four year old woofer completely disintegrated and at the time I didn't know that could be replaced for only $20. So I kept the soft-dome/ferrofluid tweeters, ferrofluid 5" mids and full 12dB/octave crossovers, gave the enclosures to a teenaged neighbor and since I had no access to wood working equipment, eventually also gave away the rest to a car audio guy I worked with.

'Shack memories from the 1970s (disclaimer: contents of memories may have shifted during shipping and handling ): they used to sell a LOT of different speaker systems, from entry-level gear to fully respectable/Buick-level models. Their designs were all over the place and as a kid loved going to their stores and checking them out.

A few of their more memorable models, in no particular chronilogical order: they sold a transmission line model using an 8" woofer and 1" soft-dome tweeter (transmission lines are notoriously tricky to design but if done correctly have very extended bass with even small drivers like this); using the same driver combination they sold a more conventional model but instead used a 10" passive radiator for bass reinforcement and this one used a huge wrinkly felt dust cap - a "mass loading device" - to enable it to go even lower (PRs always fascinated me as a kid, though others referred to them as "fake woofers"); the classic Mach One 3-way with its signature horn midrange and tweeters but especially its acoustic-suspension 15" thick-coned woofer which had a huge deep-rolled surround, much like today's car audio sub drivers, to allow extended cone travel (the later Mach series in the 80s were totally different and I didn't like them); and lots of conventional designs that used basic but still good quality designs and drivers. And in the late 60s they sold a hybrid model that used an array of electostatic panels for the mids/highs and a conventional woofer for the bass (in addition to the speaker connection, you had to literally plug them in to a wall outlet to get them to work since the electostatic panels required a high voltage energy source - cool!!).

And off-topic, had to mention their entry into the Monster Receiver War going on at the time. I clearly remember that huge stereo receiver when it showed up, rated at 120 watts per channel. And this was a TRUE 120 watts, not the watts that many of today's A/V amps use with all kinds of caveats (.9% THD, at 1kHz and measured with a 6ohm load ). That thing must have weighed 60lbs and was maybe 18" deep. Enormous flywheel tuning knob - remember, back then radio was still a source of good music - along with signal strength and center-tuning meters; a huge toroid power transformer you could see through the grill on top; real walnut side panels and silver aluminum faceplate with beautiful lighted dials; a groovy power button that changed from red to green when the speaker protection turn-on relay finally clicked; and.......hell it was just full of knobs and switches, the 70s equivalent to the onscreen display of the typical modern $1,000 A/V receiver.

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

I think time can sometimes change things too.

In the late 90s, when I first got big into home theater, I went through numerous setups. My first real setup was:

Infinity Overture 3 Front, Overture 1 Rear, Overture Center, Infinity Sub. I used a Denon 3600 (I believe) which I had custom modded from MSB to support DTS on Laserdisc, which was finally starting to come around. My CLD99 was a thing of beauty.

It was a very nice setup, when I bought it, about $4k, and I loved it for a long time. but, when we moved into a new house a year or two later, I had more room for bigger and better. So, I traded those off and went with

VonSchweikert VR4 Fronts, VR3s for rears, VonSchweikert Center and a Sunfire Sub. I used all MK Monoblocks and a Rotel Preamp.

Loved that setup.

Then our son was born, and I needed to lower the volume, so to speak, and so I traded that home theater off, went with Mirage front/center/rears. Less money. Smaller. But, I was generally OK with it.

Now, years later, the theater I'm putting together now is very different. We had a housefire last year (boo!) so I'm replacing everything, and I ended up going back with Infinity Beta 50s and Beta 20s for 3 in the rear (6.1) and a Beta360 Center.

Now, is that setup as "good" as the VonSchweikert? No. But, the Denon 3808CI I'm using is probably better then any preamp/amp combo I had in the past - including monoblocks, because it's decoding capability is better. Connections are simpler. And in the end, I'm very happy with the output.

That's the most important thing. Lots of people here have "favorites" things that they will sing the praises of, and there are some universal truth of "what's crap". But while I can tell you for stereo, I've never had any speakers as effective as the VonSchweikerts, which I still miss, I don't regret the setup I have now, and find it pretty effective for what I plan to do most of the time (watch movies).

I'll find out for sure when home construction is done and I can actually set this stuff up But having listened in a closed environment already, I'm satisfied that for what I spent for the setup (about $1000 in speaks not counting Sub) I feel as though I have something that is at least "decent" enough to handle what I want from it on a daily basis.

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

I can tell you this much. IF you go out and buy a great speaker for highs, like the optimus pro lx 5,8,10 series and hook them up to a great sub, right now I'm using mirage top sub, because I like the clean sound of there bass, you will get amazing sound. The optimus speakers you can only find used, but if you find a pair someone has taken care of, I can live with decent mid range sounds, to get incrediable highs and lows. Just an opinon here.

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

John
I have to say everytime you hit the nail right on the head, I have to agree with you. I can't understand what people expect from $175.00 Speakers, I just spend $412.00 on a Verastarr HDMI cable..Manufacturing cost on a $100.00 speaker is way less than $20.00, From Far East to Wholesaler to distributor to Store and everybody is making money.

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

They expect $175 in performance. You don't have to spend a fortune to get a good quality system. Keep your expectations in line with your budget and and you can enjoy whatever it is you have. $412 on an HDMI cable? You just made those manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, retailers and everone else very happy!

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

Avrant #55 included a short segment on HDMI cables The gist was to buy the cheapest cable that can transmit the required bitrate over the required distance. Some of the cheaper cables can't. If you absolutely need to transmit a HDMI 1.3 signal (with deep colour, 1080p, yadda yadda yadda) over 15 metres, it will cost you.

Re: Are tower (floor) speakers still popular among audiophiles?

The point was, what do you get for $175.-- in speakers, let's get real here..Quality sound, you tell me, if it's noise you're looking for thats fine, I'll agree with that.