I love my Salk's and sometimes listen to them with the subwoofer off (Stereo mode w/o room correction on my Anthem). The bass is there and it is clean and refined. However, I usually have my Rythmik subwoofer on, so the bass is always there. I have spent the last few days listening to my Salk SongTower RTs next to Spirit-1s from Aether audio. The bass from the Spirit-1s is really deep compared to the Salk's. Adding in the Rythmik sub puts the SongTowers clearly ahead as the mid-range and high end on the RTs is leaps and bounds above the Spirit-1s. So, in sum, the Spirit-1s have better stand alone bass, but you would have to pry my SongTower RTs from me to get them out of here. Or, I guess I would have to sell them to buy HT-2TLs. Heh.
Shawn