Bookshelf v Satellite Speakers

[Kingpin5]

OK: Dunno if this is self evident but: Are Bookshelf speakers DIFFERENT than Satellite Speakers?
Is there any difference in response or use?
One of life's mysteries that has me buffaloed this morning.

 

[Blue Shadow]

Significant difference and similarities

Bookshelf speaker is a term that came around when the acoustic suspension speaker came into existence. The AR line of bookshelf speakers, shown on bookshelves in their advertising, were a direct contrast to the speakers others were making like the Bozak, ElectroVoice, and such that were, on the small end, the size of an end table and went up to a wall of sound, 3 feet wide, 4+feet tall and a 20" deep. A statement piece in the room and by this time you needed two of them. So the term Bookshelf Speaker came about to cover this new set of speakers that were 1'x1'x2' and had good bass response because of the acoustic suspension design. Speakers this size and below kept that name.

Enter the early subwoofers and Visonik that made the David speakers. The David (D-50 or some such Visonik model number) speaker system was augmented on the bottom end by the Goliath subwoofer which was made by Miller & Kreisel because they heard the David and decided that a sub would make it a viable full range system for home use. Now the term Sub Satellite Speaker System was born. The satellite would not do bass and needed the help. The bookshelf speaker could do bass and was a stand alone speaker system.

That is generally how things got started and the naming morphed a bit but I kinda stick with the original ideas. Many small speakers today with response down to about 50Hz are sold as stand alone stand mounted speakers but these suffer from lack of bass. That is fine, there is a market for speakers like that at many price ranges, best I heard was a pair of Dynaudios at about $6,000 the pair for a small speaker. These could/should be used with subs but some decide they don't need the bass response, apartment dwellers or WAF reasons, and accept the speaker with its limitations.

Today, I guess a satellite speaker is one designed specifically to be used with a sub. Many HT systems have this. It is hard to say that some of the very small speakers designed to be used with or without a sub are satellites, just limited range small speakers. Newer technology and the market demands have caused this market segment to expand considerably in the past 20 years. Great sounding small speakers that can be but don't need to be augmented with a sub and are generally not used on a bookshelf but on stands.

 

[darkblue94]

^^^^^^^What he said.^^^^^^^

 

[Grenadeslio]

^^^^^^^What he said.^^^^^^^

That's a lot a what a he said a.

 

[Grenadeslio]

AR bookshelf



Canton satalite

 

[infullview]

So can we credit Radio Shack for having the earliest satellite speakers a la minimus?

 

[Blue Shadow]

So can we credit Radio Shack for having the earliest satellite speakers a la minimus?

I don't think so because they were marketed as little speakers big sound no sub in sight. Gotta go with what strated it the Visonik David in 77 (minimus 1 is from about 1970) and the addition of a sub to the David's which was by another company to create the Sub Sat genre. Then you have a proliferation of small speakers to be used that way or mounted with brackets in whatever cars, covered decks, boats and such. These would be the Minimus of the later 70s, the 7 and all the Japanese copies of that speaker, Vanco is one brand.

 

[Grenadeslio]

I don't think so because they were marketed as little speakers big sound no sub in sight. Gotta go with what stated it the Visonik David in 77 (minimus 1 is from about 1970) and the addition of a sub to the David's which was by another company to create the Sub Sat genre. Then you have a proliferation of small speakers to be used that way or mounted with brackets in whatever cars, covered decks, boats and such. These would be the Minimus of the later 70s, the 7 and all the Japanese copies of that speaker, Vanco is one brand.

Had Vanco Compac 50's back in the 70's, great little speaker, they were finally stolen out of my work van along with a Pioneer Component system in the mid 80's.

 

[Blue Shadow]

Had Vanco Compac 50's back in the 70's, great little speaker, they were finally stolen out of my work van along with a Pioneer Component system in the mid 80's.

Lost my Luxman CS-6 speakers from the car and replaced em with some Vancos. Not the same. But we did use the Vs for a sub-sat system for a while. Hanging the speakers in macrame plant hangers.

 

[sqlsavior]

So, how would the term 'mini-monitor' fit in?

 

[RTally]

So, how would the term 'mini-monitor' fit in?

A mini-monitor is a smaller version of a monitor. Duh!

Seriously, many of these designations are marketing hype to make one manufacturer's speaker seem as good as or different than another manufacturer's speaker. There is no industry-wide standard that we can all look to. What is really important are the speaker specifications, including size and weight.

 

[Grenadeslio]

Lost my Luxman CS-6 speakers from the car and replaced em with some Vancos. Not the same. But we did you the Vs for a sub-sat system for a while. Hanging the speakers in macrame plant hangers.

Macrame hangers, wow blast from the past with cypress wood as the table.

 

[Blue Shadow]

Bookshelf and sub/sat systems are standard terms.

Monitor is frequently a sales name to influence the buyer into thinking some pros might have used something like this. Mini-monitor, yup, just smaller.
Some monitors are that, most are not.

 

[mikeybc]

Any speakers run with a sub is technically a satellite. A Klipschorn can be labelled a satellite as long as a sub is used with it.

 

[RTally]

Bookshelf [snip] are standard terms.

There is no standard that is widely used for bookshelf speakers. The term is commonly used, but it is an imprecise descriptor.

Some small speakers are floorstanders (e.g., KLH Six - See instructions below) and most agree that they perform better when raised off the floor like a bookshelf speaker or on stands. The KLH Seventeen, which is almost the exact same size as the Six, was advertised as a bookshelf speaker (see ad below).

Many of the vintage bookshelf speakers won't fit on modern bookshelves, but instead work well with stands. They are better called stand-mounted speakers.

 

[Bodyblue]

Bookshelf speakers on a stand.

 

[Blue Shadow]

All this talk of what it is today. I don't care! I spoke to the differences and to the origins of the terms in question and explained that is how I think about them today and I don't care if a bookshelf sized speaker was designed to be on the floor or that big honking speakers run with a sub are satellites, they are not. My DQ-10s are not satellites when I run the sub(s) they are the main speakers. Get a grip folks. All examples have exceptions. We are just answering the OPs question with some info..

 

[swechsler]

I don't know if they were the first, but probably the first well-known sub-sat system was the Infinity Servo-Statik 1, released in 1968. Nobody would confuse those satellites with bookshelf speakers.

 

[Blue Shadow]

I don't know if they were the first, but probably the first well-known sub-sat system was the Infinity Servo-Statik 1, released in 1968. Nobody would confuse those satellites with bookshelf speakers.

That one was not called a Sub-Sat system but a three-way speaker system. The bass unit was part of the speaker system needed to make the speaker a full range speaker.

Other popular speakers that could be used with a sub were the LS3/5a in all its iterations (available at that time). A sub could be added but that might have been after the David and Goliath system showed the capabilities of such a combination.

 

[gkimeng]

The major difference between today's sub/sat speakers and the bigger speakers of the past is not so much that they are small vs. big cabinets, but that the designs of their drivers have changed. Instead of passive big woofers with ported or acoustic suspension configurations the standard is smaller powered subwoofers, and instead of dome or horn mid/high drivers with wider dispersion using room walls to create reverberant sound fields the standard is multiple mid/high drivers distributed around the room.

Mostly, though, today's speakers are designed to suit the sound preferences of the majority of today's customers, which are significantly different from those of the "bookshelf speaker era." If there was any indication that there was a market for a sub/sat speaker system that sounded like a pair of AR or JBL speakers from the 1970s, there's no reason why one couldn't be produced.