[mresseguie]

Open question to anyone who cares to answer:

What led you to decide to buy a tower instead of a monitor? [Allow me to clarify a bit. I'm not asking why you chose a SS8 over a Silk monitor. I'm asking why an SS8 over the M7 monitor; Silk Tower over the Silk monitor; Veracity HT-1 TL over Veracity HT-1, etc.]  Did you feel there was a difference in sound? Was it purely esthetics? Was it a space limitation? Greater efficiency? Heck, did ego play a part?

There is, of course, a flip side question here: Why did you go for monitors over a tower?

Once enough folks have piped up, I will tell you what I am considering for myself, and why.
Thanks in advance. I look forward to your input.

[WGH]

Bass, HT2-TL = more bass, and base.

Wayne

[PSB Guy]

My SongBirds take up the same floor space in my small living room as a pair of  monitors with stands, but with the TL cabinets the bass is much better than monitors could ever be.

Cornelis

[fsimms]

Not only do you get more bass with towers, you don’t have the extra expense of stands.  If you use a sub then the more bass means that the phase angle changes in the low bass region are lower which makes crossovers to the sub work more like they were designed.  For none techies, that means that you will get a smoother transition to the sub in the crossover region.

Bob

[ccotenj]

because my wife wanted towers.   left up to me, i would have purchased monitors...   there are any number of good "real audio" reasons why a monitors/subwoofers are likely a better choice...

properly crossed over to a sub, monitors are way to go, imo...   

[Austin08]

No monitor for me. I found out that tower speakers work well in many application and easier to integrate with sub if I design to do so. On top of that, put in the price of good speaker stands will pump the price up quite a bit and no more heart dropping everytime my kids are next to the speakers.

[mcgsxr]

I actually let the budget decide for me.  I was shopping in a specific price range, and reviewing everything that appeared locally to me in that price range.  When the Paradigm Studio Reference 20's with matching stands appeared, I jumped.  Not saying I would not have entertained Reference 60 floorstanders if they were in the price, but they never are in my range.

The 20's run full range, and my DIY 2x12 sub kicks in at 50Hz.  Works a treat for music, and a mild twist of the gain on the sub makes movies just pound.

I understand why some folks go for floorstanders, and I may indeed in the future, but the only reason I will is if they are a good deal in my price range at that time.

[Vulcan00]

This is a very interesting question for me. I have HT2-TL speakers and I am considering a change in the near future. My choice of towers match many of the replies here, more bass mainly. Also with the beautiful cabnits why not have more to see, I thought the towers were more impressive to be honest. I had a full 5.1 setup of M&K speakers which if anyone remembers these they have set of smaller monitors L,C, R which read dipole or regular speakers, and of course their 2 woofer design subwoofer. The M&K speaker strong suit was HT, I didn't think playing these in stereo was up to my expectations. Now let me add this because its important to this post. The 2ch performance was not due to integration of the sub,rather it was the sound quality of the speaker drivers, IMO. Now I did not realize this of course until I experienced my Salks.

With that little bit of background on to my thoughts on the choice now. I would love to have a set of SoundScape speakers. But, when considering my present living arrangement and somewhat my future plans I have to say the new top drivers from Seas are very intriguing. Beautiful sound stage and image plus quite dynamic in their on way. Chief advantage much more portable, they don't over power a room and HIGHER Sensitivity. Higher sensitivity means great choice of amps at a lower price. Of course I would add a sub or two. The stand situation is a negative(IMO), so I have an idea for that.

Anyway that's my take, even with that opinion I would love SS8 or SS10. Great topic mresseguire, I will await your reasons.

[Big Red Machine]

Because ostentatious means big, bad, floor-standing 3 way brutes!  And why not be ostentatious?!!

When I graduated college and started spending real money on stereo gear I started with bookshelf JBL L96's and subwoofers.  It was a blast.  That's why I always jab the guys today using subs with floorstanders as blasphemers because a bookshelf and sub is okay per Rule 3.b, Article 6 of the Rules of Stereo Guidebook.  But 3-way or better floorstanders can never be "...augmented outside an HT environment with a sub/subs" per Rule 27.k, Article 9, otherwise they are deemed inadequate and you are less of a man for having failed to purchase properly or worse have bad listening skills (see also Appendix III, paragraph 18 - Eunuchs).


 

[Photon46]

As mentioned in earlier posts, the greater bass extension of towers has always led me buy towers. After you factor in the footprint of the monitors on stands, all you gain in trade for the loss of a tower's low frequency extension is the potentially better imaging of monitors. However, unless you can set the monitors up with open space between the speakers, no gear, televisions, racks, etc., you're not likely to realize the the monitor's potential advantage of better imaging. However, I've not had the difficulty getting subs well integrated that others have warned of. My Fathom F112 integrates extremely well with my current towers and an inexpensive Sunfire Sub Jr. integrated well with my Magnepan 1.6's. One thing that weighs on my mind is that if something goes awry in a tower speaker, you've got an expensive return trip back to the maker. Especially so in my case: back to Germany in the event of a malfunction! After hearing the performance of Joesph Audio's Pulsars, I'd definitely consider a pair of those or other high performance monitors combined with a pair of REL or JL Audio Fathom subs. Much easier to manage for me. (Living not too far from JL Audio, I can easily manage a return to the factory should the need arise.)

[rollo]

All about the bass. Period. If you like your bass you can keep it.


charles

[ccotenj]

if its all about the bass, monitors/subwoofers are an even better choice, as you use a tool designed for the job (a subwoofer) and can properly implement that tool (placement/eq)...

imnsho, even with towers with good extension, a good subwoofer with a pretty high xover gives better results...   

my ht2-tls's have good in-room extension/response...   however, they cannot hold a candle to my submersive there...

[rollo]

  I run multiple subs with my Pipedreams. Yes monitors and or so called full range speakers can sound better with a sub or multiple subs. Just a royal PITA for most. Room mostly. WAF another.
   For me I'll take a pair of true full range speakers over the other combos. Both solutions work just prefer  a one box affair.


charles

[ccotenj]

from an acoustics perspective, one way (and it's not the "all in one box" way) definitely "works" better than the other...   

[mresseguie]

Many thanks to all of you for replying.

I had actually anticipated most of the choices would be for towers/TL designs (and that is how it happened here).

When I consider speakers, I must consider a few things:

A huge one is WAF if the speakers are going to be used in the HT setup. It is located in our family room, which is located to the left side of the front door. My dear wife's sense of esthetics is just a WEE little bit different from mine. [I'm sure that's a new concept to you. ] If the speakers are to be used in my home office space, towers would get in the way (blasphemy?) given how the office is set up.

Another consideration is my back and the likelihood that speakers will be moved from one room to another for this or that get together. [It has happened a few times.] There's also a good chance we will move in the next couple years.

Another, lesser reason, is I spent much of my adult life as an expat in/near Taipei, Taiwan in condos/apartments that are not exactly large by North American standards. Over the years this tends to influence one's thinking.

I already own a pair of (very heavy steal) speaker stands which will handily fit Silks or M7s (or my Response D2s).

For the above reasons (perhaps others) I am leaning toward buying a pair of monitor speakers. What currently stumps me is whether I want a two-way, a three-way, or an MTM design. An MTM would be more efficient, but would also be heavier and more expensive. I already own an okay subwoofer, PSB 300, but I can upgrade that later.

I guess that is where my head is at the moment.

Thanks again!

[billmcc]

I chose the SongTowers over a monitor speaker for the additional bass output for music. I had one sub at the time and now have two. I much prefer listening to 2 channel music without a sub(s) using a Parasound 2100. I find in my room that the STs have plenty of bass output. As I type I'm listening to The Peter Malick Group with Norah Jones New York City SACD and the bass output is excellent .

Bill

[PETE6737]

I was fortunate to hear the silks before they had a name last year in Florida.  I have to say that between the song towers, silks and Ss8 speakers with material without super low bass, all three sounded fantastic. With the speaker switcher Jim used, the speakers were seamlessly switched without any pop or click, you had to pay attention when the speakers were switched since they all sounded great and distguishing one from the other took some some attentiveness.  I had planned on SS8s but waivered a bit because the other two speakers were so good at about half the price. With deep bass, the SS8s made my decision easily. I chose the Ss8s so I could get a full sound from top to bottom without a sub in a two channel system. I am very happy with my choice. 

[Photon46]

The degree to which you have problems with bass room nodes can also be a factor in the tower or monitor and sub/s equation. The upper end subs from Velodyne, JL Audio, and maybe others, have onboard automatic room correction equalization to deal with the worst of room problems and it works well in my experience. I'm able to get much flatter in room response with the JL Audio in my system than I am with just tower speakers alone. (The towers without subs are down -3db at 32hz.) FWIW, I also have six GIK bass traps and a Spatial Computer Black Hole to provide additional room correction.

[dflee]

I prefer each side to have it's own bass and for that reason I prefer towers. Haven't heard
the monitor / single sub that was right for me.

Don

[ccotenj]

bass doesn't care about "sides", unless your listening room is the size of an auditorium...  and even then, likely not in the way that some are thinking...

basic room acoustics at work here...