IMO You can't beat the sound stage created by a large driver. My question is why on Earth did larger format speakers ever fall out of favor with consumers?
Well that one is simple ... it's because "large floor standing speakers" are well, "Large!"
Vintage Stereo, consoles to name uh one dirty cheap "large Scale" option suffer from "size" all the time! Tube Amped beauties for the most part but time has ravaged the capacitors. So now a days untouched ... they tend to sound like crap! So you know why bother?? I got a sub and I have whatever "small speakers" and it sounds "pretty freaking good" so why bother with this real estate sucking beast??
Vintage large scale speakers are rare kindy pricy and tend to need work? Consoles with tubes amps need to work but the cost for entry can be uh dirt cheap.
Places like Cambridge Audio started pushing these micro speakers with pancake subs you could hide under a couch back in the early 90's and convinced a lot of people they produced sound that was "as good as the big speakers without taking up all that space".
Aww well there's the "rub!" I think this thread started with "most people have never heard, large floor standing speakers??"
And that is the thing. One can't miss ... what they have never heard?? Large floor standing monsters can do what they do "because" they are well large??? Decades ago I bought my first sub and it goes to uh ... 16 hz?? I paired it up with Ortofon Speakers" and a monster amp and I was pretty content and good to go! I wish I still had that gear ... but "Crap Happens!"
At any rate, time goes by and I was quite content with my KG 4 sub system it went down low with that sub so I never really cared about "low bass??" Time goes by ... and one day ... I find the manger at "Century Stereo" in San Jose in CA and it's a slow day and we talk about well "stereo stuff."
And he says well ... you should heard these speakers. Well I was "lucky" cuz these monsters were well out of the range of anything I could afford or fit in my home! True Floor Standing Monsters! I was sure they were ADS?? But the I remerer a lot of woofers, mid and tweeters and a "Kilo Watt" amp installed in them?? But whatever ... what I do remember accurately ... is on vinyl on "Fresh Aire, Bach's Toccata and Fugue!" And when the low note on the organ hit ... it sent a wave of sound that blew threw my chest and pasted me to the couch! I was freaking stunned!!
I still remember that! And I'm sorry I don't think that can be done with a sub and small speakers?? Those monsters whatever they were "pressurized" the whole room!
There is no replacement for displacement! But ... live and learn as it were, and while you I don't think, you one can do that "Pressurize a room" with a room with small " speakers" regards of what they happen to be?? I do then that with enough large "Bookshelf" speakers ... you can??
The "Advent Stacks" from way back in the day. I think "pressurizing the room" was a part of the "magic??" But they made of mention of it at the time???
But it gets back into the real estate thing?? I have two "Mach One's" with a sub and well LX 5's all running together (it's what I do) and at about 80 watt's with 84.5 db peaks ... it seems that will almost "fully pressurize the room?? Well you know if two Mach One's are good ... maybe four or "gooder??"
Maybe it will but at that point your entering "freakishly large town anyway" with whatever largish bookshelf, you chose to use. Twice the weight and twice the height! Your are now gonna have a "large" stack of speakers ... so much for "saving space!!
And if you not a "bachelor??" I'm not sure you're gonna sneak that kinda crap, pass c your better half?? I replaced my Sansui SP 1200's with my Mach One's and it only took one day before before my better half have said "uh what are those??"
So two two Mach One's, did not escape her notice and four certainly would not! But yeah to the point of the thread ... "there is no replacement for displacement!" Small Speakers and a Sub are just not the same??
And justy cranking up the volume on the sub ... is npot really that same as?? I guess, I could do that I suppose but I never have. Just my 2 cents.