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Why not just get bookshelf speakers if even the big ones need subwoofers?

matteos said:
I've always found bookshelf/sub combos miss out on midbass and/or clarity as the smaller midrange drivers to try compensate.

...If you use a sub for all the bass, you are getting plate amp quality in your playback.
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Yes that's what my concern is if I decide to get rid of all my floor standers and go with bookshelves to save space in my small room.
I would like to get space back but not if that takes most of the sound quality.

On sub's amp, from what I read, it doesn't matter as much as amp powering speakers.
 
I'm not even going to waste my time with any well thought out, technical post.

It's as clear as a bell to me that at least 65% of the forum refuses to accept the facts about room acoustics, and the benefits subwoofers provide.

I can't get over how many times it can be explained, and it never sinks in. I'll just continue enjoying my substantially better bass, and others can live without it, because they think it's an insult to their speakers if they added subwoofers, or they heard one stupid home theater in a box with a crappy sub adjusted way to loud and now demonize all subwoofer systems.

I will however continue to help those that really want to understand this topic and want to improve their systems, but I'm not wasting any more time with people that don't want to accept reality.
 
89grand said:
I'm not even going to waste my time with any well thought out, technical post.
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Yes and lets not derail this thread.
I'm only asking specific question about sound quality from bookshelf or towers with a sub both crossed over at same point.

There are other threads to discuss about distributed bass, room acoustics etc...
 
89grand said:
It's as clear as a bell to me that at least 65% of the forum refuses to accept the facts about room acoustics, and the benefits subwoofers provide.
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There are just as many people who don't want to believe normal speakers can put out good bass regardless of the circumstances involved. The real problem is people who obsessively latch onto broad generalizations instead of using their brain and common sense.
 
Mystery said:
:scratch2: So the gist is if one is limited in space/budget, can the same sound quality be obtained by using bookshelf and sub/s or towers completely stump bookshelf even with sub/s?
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Bass extension is not the only game in town when it comes to size. You can also trade in small size for increased efficiency and/or increased SPL before compression and distortion set in.

Most people have a setup where they can turn up the volume until it becomes unpleasant, but often swapping in a more capable speaker (having matched SPL ahead of time) reveals the unpleasantness was the speaker, not the volume.
 
Chris Brown said:
There are just as many people who don't want to believe normal speakers can put out good bass regardless of the circumstances involved. The real problem is people who obsessively latch onto broad generalizations instead of using their brain and common sense.
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In a typical listening room, with little or no acoustic treatments, the bass response is going to have big dips and peaks, and maybe some people don't find that offensive sounding (I do), and because they get loud bass at some frequencies, they think they already have great bass. It's only when you really hear much smoother overall bass response do the deficiencies really show themselves.

A speakers response in an open filed is much better and flatter than it is when you put it in a typical room. Therefore, the speaker itself is not the issue no matter what response it has, it's the room.
 
dumptruck said:
Bass extension is not the only game in town when it comes to size. You can also trade in small size for increased efficiency and/or increased SPL before compression and distortion set in.

Most people have a setup where they can turn up the volume until it becomes unpleasant, but often swapping in a more capable speaker (having matched SPL ahead of time) reveals the unpleasantness was the speaker, not the volume.
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This reply is along the lines of what my question is. :thmbsp:
So towers can produce cleaner mid/highs at high levels than bookshelves.
That's a very good advantage.

Those looking info on distributed bass, please continue here: http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=291904
or http://mail.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=418293
or http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?p=6882288 and many many more...

This thread is not about that.
 
Getting rid of your floorstanders, keeping your bookshelves and adding a sub or subs does nothing concerning saving space or maintaining good sound quality. Many floorstanding "towers" have relatively small footprints and great bass quality especially in a good room.
 
Mystery said:
So towers can produce cleaner mid/highs at high levels than bookshelves. That's a very good advantage.
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Many bookshelves have the same tweeters as floorstanders, and their treble SPLs and clarity should therefore be equivalent. Ditto dome or cone midranges shared between bookshelf and floorstander models. I'm no expert, but I suspect where the real SPL difference emerges is in the area of, say, 800 Hz and below, where a large floorstander with a large woofer can move more air and generate higher SPLs.

My 4430 15" woofers run 35-1,000 Hertz and generate astounding clean SPLs. I suspect a bookshelf speaker with an 8" midbass driver could not approach those output levels. And I think that having more sensitive woofers lets you run the upper drivers with less padding, too, because the woofer sensitivity is usually the factor limiting the output for the upper drivers.
 
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Dukiedook said:
Good luck with properly matching up subs to keep up with Magnepans too, another daunting task.
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I have experience with this and the best solution I found was with a pair of open baffle H-frame subs. Sealed were better integrated with the Maggies (MMG's and MG-IIIa's) than ported, but having a dipole sub with a dipole main just flat out sounded "right".
 
Chris Brown said:
Even if you have a sub, why wouldn't you also want extra bass from your mains to the extent they are capable of producing it?
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Wouldn't that cause a major hump in midbass?

As for subwoofers in my eyes, it's something that I do need to hear all of my music (a lot of my music dives deeper than my floorstanders can reproduce). However, I do worry about the transition between the speakers and sub. I very highly doubt I'll be able to get nearly as smooth of a transition as I get with the first order Thiel crossover in my floorstanders.

As far as space goes, bookshelves and a sub will take up more space than a pair of floorstanders. Bookshelves aren't really any more space saving than floorstanders because of the stand. Not to mention the real space cost comes from placement needs.


A question for those more experienced than me, isn't the ideal placement of lower frequencies not commonly in the same place as the ideal placement for mids and highs?
 
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Lots of bitter clingers in these parts. :D

"Distributed bass? We don't need no steenking distributed bass! Sounds like a barge load of hooey! Didn't need it back in the day and don't need it now. My wide baffle monkey coffins sound just as good as they did the day I bought them back in 1963, by golly! NOW GET OFF MY LAWN!! " :grumpy:
 
Zonker92 said:
Many bookshelves have the same tweeters as floorstanders, and their treble SPLs and clarity should therefore be equivalent. Ditto dome or cone midranges shared between bookshelf and floorstander models. I'm no expert, but I suspect where the real SPL difference emerges is in the area of, say, 800 Hz and below, where a large floorstander with a large woofer can move more air and generate higher SPLs.

My 4430 15" woofers run 35-1,000 Hertz and generate astounding clean SPLs. I suspect a bookshelf speaker with an 8" midbass driver could not approach those output levels.
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I'd be in total agreement if it weren't for those incredible little 4" Phillips mid-bass couplers in my QLS-1's.....which I think are used in the Dahlquist DQ-10 as well. The little bastard simply kicks ass from 200-600 HZ. In a head to head comparison with my Altec 19's, which have a 15" driver covering that region, I never once felt like the Altecs had any advantage over the infinities wrt mid-bass reproduction.
 
tomlinmgt said:
So what you're saying is big speakers, by virtue of simply being big, are able to overcome standing waves and the nodes they create?
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You listen to the system and the room. You will most likely never be satisfied.

I listen to the music. I'm almost always satisfied.:thmbsp:
 
I'm using a sub and like the sound better than with no sub. I'm planning to add a second as well. For those who prefer not to use one that's fine with me. What I don't understand is why we get the pissy attitudes whenever these topics with different opinions are discussed. I'm mean just because I like subs doesn't mean squat. Who am I to tell someone else my way is the only way? It's gotten so we can't discuss anything around here without a bunch of attitude.

cubdog
 
This thread confounds me.


My Infinity Crescendo 3009 require no subwoofer, and sound fantastic. They have dual 10" woofers in each tower


In the same room, My Magnepan MG 1.6QR need a subwoofer.

Both systems are set up in the same room, and with the push of a button I can swap in or out either speaker, and same with the sub.


In the same room, I also have a pair of Infinity Infintesimals IV, hooked to the same system and the only difference between the Infintesimals and the crescendos is the bass and mid bass. highs and midrange highs sound identical to my ears.

What are you all arguing about?
 
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