Are floor speakers needed? (1 Viewer)

[Brian Johnson]

Being totally new to HT and finally getting my first system I was curious about the need for floor standing speakers. Seeing as how its 'standard' to set all speakers to small to put bass(lfe i guess you call it) to the sub wouldnt that negate the need for big floor standing speakers? Right now I have a pair of older pioneer floor speakers as my mains. By setting them too small am I getting NO bass from them speakers? (I guess I could go check) What benefits are there to having large speakers in front? Seems I could get the same sound out of another pair of surrounds in the front & get a bigger TV

 

[Anthony Stephan]

You are correct.

Unless your front floor standing mains can REALLY handle low bass. If you are buying a new set of speakers you could do well by just buying book shelf speakers all around.

But here's the caveat.

Do you listen to music in 2 channel?

If so, you may just want a pair of really sweet full range speakers. Depending on your receiver or pre/pro, you could set the speakers small for movies and large for music.

 

[Brian Johnson]

Yes, how easily I forget about music ... I just went and did some testing(music/stereo) set my fronts to large & turned the sub off-lacking bass big time, set the fronts to small & turned sub back on & you could feel it. I sort of inherited these fronts from my girlfriend and I think they are like 10 years old. The mid/high range sounds great, but i think the woofers are tired. Wouldnt I get the same sound Im getting now with music with a pair of bookshelfs? I have a great spot to the right & left lower sides of my entertainment center about 8 in wide x 17 inches tall. If I could get the same sound & stuff a pair of bookshelfs in there maybe I could get my girlfriend into putting the TV back in the middle of the room so I could get more of a direct sound in movies (the whole system now is sort of in the corner at an angle) However, my girlfriend is the music lover and I dont want her to lose anything in the deal.

 

[Charles J P]

Generally speaking, there shouldnt be a huge difference between the optimal placement for the mains for movies and the optimal placement for music. Also, under $600 or so, I would say that your better off getting bookshelves and suplimenting the low end with a good sub. Cheap floorstanders make too many sacrifices IMO. I have a pair of Paradigm Monitor 7s that are right at that $600ish price range. If I had it all to do over again, I would probably go with Paradigm Studio 20s. I am very happy with the 7s, I just think I might do it differently if I could just cash in my chips and start over.