Bookshelf and Floorstanding Speakers (1 Viewer)

[Nick L]

Which do you prefer? I have been doing alot of listening lately in the sub $700/pair category. I have to say I think in this price range the smaller bookshelf speakers sound much better than the floorstanders of the same price. I have been listening to a fairly wide variety of speakers six or seven different brands and have come to that conclusion on all of them. What do you think? Do you have a preference to floorstanders or bookshelves?

Nick L

 

[John Garcia]

Bookshelf just does a better job for HT for me. LFE handled by the sub, as it is intended, freeing up headroom on the receiver to drive the smaller bookshelf units better. For MUSIC, I feel a good floorstander cannot be beat, but I am still pleased with the performance of my bookshelf & sub setup for music.

 

[Mark Austin]

I prefer bookshelf speakers to floorstanders up to about the $2000 price point.

 

[Chad Isaacs]

Well,is that amount just for one pair of speakers?Will they be used for music or just movies?If music,what is your main style of music?If you like rock and roll and watch alot of movies,I strongly suggest a pair of Klipsch SF-2.They go for around $650,floor standers with dual 6 1/2 drivers.I have a pair of them and just love them.They are super efficent (96db) so just about any amp or reciever will be more than enough.I use mine with an older Onkyo txds575 and I think they are a great team.I also have the matching center (sc-1) and I use the sb-1(bookshelfs) for surrounds.I bought them all together and got the set for $1006.I also have a SVs 25-31cs and for movies you cannot go wrong.For music,it took a while to get used to them but now I will never be able to go with another brand of speakers.

 

[BryanZ]

I prefer the bookshelf type speakers. In that range you are looking at the ACI Emerald, DIY ACI Jaguar (actually a little above but if you have the tools readily available this is the one to get), nOrh marble 4.0 or SM 6.1, Dynaudio Audience 42, plus the Swan Diva 4.1.

 

[NicholasF]

At that price I agree, bookshelf will sound better, if you have a nice sub.
I have a pair of NHT super one's, a sealed box design. They are great for HT and surprising good for music. My sub is a Sunfire. At lower freq. the sub is great, but unfortunately my rec. xover is at 90Hz, and the Sunfire isn't so great around that region. IMHO, Getting a sub matched perfectly with the mains is a lot harder than it seems at first. I'm still tweaking mine! Another point in favor of small speakers is that they are easier to correctly place in most rooms.
The main advantage I see in a full range floor standing speaker (one that can play at least 25Hz - 20kHz without a sub) is that someone with years of speaker building experience has handled all the crossovers and driver matching for you. But like Mark said, good full range floor standers usually don't start until you spend in the thousands. I also have a pair of Vandersteen 2ce's, they can't quite go down to 25Hz but they sound great for music and don't really need a sub. Unfortunately I don't get to listen to them too often.
Bryan, have you heard any of the ACI stuff? If I ever upgrade the NHTs these speakers look very interesting, especially the kits. As I understand it they are by mail only so there aren't dealers where I could audition them :frowning:
-Nicholas