[Ultralight]

Background.  5 years ago, heard a $20-30K system for the first time. NEVER in my life thought reproduced music could so move my emotions.  Wow! (Sonus Fabers & McIntosh Tubes)

Fast forward.  1 year ago, finally saved enough to put together a system on a budget. Not the $20K type system but still credible.  I wanted to do it right the first time through so that I do not waste $ to keep upgrading.

I am in the process of trying to pick out another pair of speakers that will have greater synergy with the rest of my system.

Question:

What is the rational for monitors with stands?  There are many smallish towers that have the same footprint as the stands, so they do not occupy any more floor space.  Since they are small towers, they have more bass extension plus can have the same drivers as the monitors for the mids and highs.

So why monitors with stands?  Why not just small towers of similar configuration?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

Thanks!
UL

[mresseguie]

Hello, UL.

I'll take a stab at answering your question as it pertains to my situation.

My rationale for wanting to buy monitors/standmounts has to do with my lack of a dedicated listening room, my wife's acceptance factor (WAF), and my wanting to have very mobile speakers. In my office, my speakers are in a near-field set up. Floor standing speakers wouldn't work. In our family room our furniture makes trying to fit floor standing speakers very difficult. [I have tried.] Monitors fit much more easily and do not create the dreadful complaints. I want to easily move my speakers to other rooms for special occasions. [My wife returns to Taiwan to see family and friends leaving me all alone for 6 to 8 weeks.] I do suffer without her near me, but I move my entire system into the living room and all the furniture gets crammed into the dining room. Bliss!

I own a very nice subwoofer that gives me the low bass that I would get with floor standing speakers. Sure, I must tune the subwoofer to the monitors (and hope I don't do it improperly). Even so, I am pretty content with the outcome.

Ultimately, I will have two dedicated Double eight inch powered subwoofers mated to my monitors. These subs will be my monitors' stands. This set up will easily match or beat any comparable floor standers IMHO.

The house we are in now makes having a dedicated listening room difficult. We may move in a year or two, and I will try to buy a house that allows a dedicated listening room.

Anyway, this pretty much sums up my reasons for going with monitors. BTW I was in Pearl Audio in Portland a couple months ago and spent an afternoon listening to Sonus Faber Olympica II floor standing speakers powered by McIntosh separates. I agree with your assessment. I also got to listen to the Olympica monitors paired with a REL sub. The sound was almost as good and a few grand cheaper. I knew right then that I could live with monitors paired to subs.

Michael

[Photon46]

I've wondered the same thing Ultralight. Unless one has similar issues that mresseguie lists or one lusts after the particular sound of a specific monitor, I always thought a small footprint floorstanding speaker made more sense in general. However, there are some expensive speaker brands whose monitors might offer someone an affordable entry point as opposed to that brand's floorstanders being financial unobtanium.

[JLM]

Reasons for stand mounts:

- Cheaper to build
- Cheaper to ship
- Less shipping damage
- Easier to integrate into domestic bliss
- Works for all but the largest residential rooms (dependent primarily on woofer size)
- Easier to design well (being relatively long with bottom ports floor standers typically behave as transmission lines/pipes)
- Less chance of overloading a small room with too much bass
- Bass behaves in-room differently than higher frequencies, so using same number/location to generate bass is far less than ideal (search AC for "swarm")
- Most active/powered speakers (much superior design to typical audiophile passive designs) are stand mounts


Reasons for floor standers:

- Less top heavy/tippy (kids/pets)
- More of a purist approach (to avoid subwoofers, additional wiring, crossovers)
- 3-way designs take load off what would be the woofer and opens up the sound
- Can be cheaper overall if attractive/substantial stands are used with stand mounts
- Could save on cost/clutter if eliminates need for subwoofers
- Impressive (not a good acoustical reason, but lets be honest)

[JackD201]

For some reason I do not know, 2-way floorstanders are not popular in the US. They are fairly popular in Europe and Asia. Compact floorstanders are very popular.

Personally, I had a pretty cool collection of bookshelves. One thing I didn't enjoy was finding the right stands and prepping the stands optimally. If cost is not an issue I would go for compact floor standers most of the time.

[Doublej]

For some reason I do not know, 2-way floorstanders are not popular in the US. They are fairly popular in Europe and Asia. Compact floorstanders are very popular.

Personally, I had a pretty cool collection of bookshelves. One thing I didn't enjoy was finding the right stands and prepping the stands optimally. If cost is not an issue I would go for compact floor standers most of the time.

I think they are popular in the US. I am in the US and most of my audio friends have at least one pair of floorstanding speakers. I think it's easier to make a monitor disappear sonically which is one reason why some folks prefer the monitors plus subwoofers vs a pair of floorstanders.

[FireGuy]

I think they are popular in the US. I am in the US and most of my audio friends have at least one pair of floorstanding speakers. I think it's easier to make a monitor disappear sonically which is one reason why some folks prefer the monitors plus subwoofers vs a pair of floorstanders.

Imaging and transparency are the two important reasons I will always own monitors (w/quality sub).   Moreover, usually with "small" tower you're going to need a sub anyway to achieve those subterranean depths.  In a small to medium space monitors make the most sense.    Installing a tower in this type of environment (to me) so underachieves the tower design parameters.   

[Vapor Audio]

If you're talking 2-way monitors, the reality is a 6" woofer typically need .4-.5cu/ft for max bass extension ... a 7" woofer around .6-.75cu/ft.  Putting those drivers in more volume won't buy you any more bass extension.  In fact, you can get more issues like greatly reduced SPL capability from  having drivers in too much volume (too high Q). 

So what I'm saying is with a 2-way monitor, there's no functional reason to make it a floorstander.  If you do, you'll likely just end up having an internal divider inside the cabinet so the woofer doesn't see the full internal volume. 

[Photon46]

JLM did touch on an issue that we don't think of until it's time to purchase, sell, or send for repair: expense of shipping floor standing speakers. My last pair of speakers were a large pair of ACI floor standers and I got lucky when I sold them, a local sale. Otherwise, it would have meant putting them on a palette and sending them truck freight to the next owner. My current speakers (Tidal) came in a large rolling flight case. Not only did they have to come truck freight, I had to figure out where to store the flight case in the garage. A compact pair of monitors would definitely cut down on the hassle factor.

[Tyson]

Monitors plus subs (3 or 4) is an elegant way to get optimal imaging and optimal bass in a domestic space.  Plus 2 way speakers have fewer and smaller caps and coils in the crossover, generally speaking, which is usually a good thing.

[bladesmith]

Can you get a pair of small two way monitors, that work good down to 200 Hz ?

And still be powerful enough to work with 3 or 4 subs ?

[Tyson]

You really want them to go to 100hz to avoid location/directionality issues from the subs.  Most say 80hz, but 100 is fine in my experience.

[mcgsxr]

I think there are likely 2 streams here, and I happen to fall victim to both!  Neither are really logical either...

First there is the allure of speakers that image well, and truly disappear in the room.  I have owned Totem Rokks in the past, and for the 10 years I owned them, they never failed to do that so well.  They also "fool the eye" some.  I like that dynamic too.  You look at a set of small stand mounts, and are amazed that they can fill a room with music.

The other stream for me is the idea that it is easier to build a small inert box, vs a larger one.  I get that most small towers (I am using Totem Sttaf now) are internally truncated (ie the entire box is not being used to create volume for the drivers) but even having more box means more veneer labor and potentially other "buried" labor.

Absolutely agree that when considering the true high end, small 2 ways are a great gateway drug.  They often offer great value, and almost always deliver great sound in order to inspire your upgraditis.

I lust after 2 small stand mounts, and will have to own them some year.  Totem Model 1, and the Focus Audio FS6SE.  Both have beautiful cabinets, and deliver great sound.

Sure, they need a set of excellent stands that will set me back a couple 100, and once situated in the room will take up no more pr less space than my current Sttafs, but there is just something about small speakers that gets my goat.  I don't listen loud, so any headroom advantage to a floorstander is lost on me.

Anyone who has been in the game for a while now has regrets.  One of my major regrets is selling off my Atlantis Reference 24 inch stands when I got into OB speakers.  I should have just put them in a corner of the basement and ignored them, as I will in the future no doubt have another set of speakers at some point that would have perfect for them.

I look everyday at the classifieds, someone will sell a set at some point!

[mresseguie]

mcgsxr,

"One of my major regrets is selling off my Atlantis Reference 24 inch stands when I got into OB speakers.  I should have just put them in a corner of the basement and ignored them, as I will in the future no doubt have another set of speakers at some point that would have perfect for them.

I look everyday at the classifieds, someone will sell a set at some point!"

Did they look like the stand in this picture?

[firedog]

Generally, monitors are considered to give better imaging and soundstage, and "disappear" better, especially in  a small room.

I had good monitors (Sonus Faber) in a small home office. Added a sub with DRC and was pretty happy. For various reasons, I changed my system and found small floorstanders (Devore Super 8's) that sounded good in the room, along with adding bass traps and acoustic panels. They new speakers didn't go as low in bass as the sub, but had better quality bass, so I ditched the sub.

Over time I wanted more bass and a bit bigger sound (I listen to a fair amount of orchestral music) so I upgraded to a somewhat larger - medium sized - floorstander from the same company (Devore 9's). These also work well.  I think I would have trouble finding many other medium size floorstanders that would sound good in the small room. If I ever decide to invest the fairly considerable sums needed to make a significant speaker upgrade, I might very well go back to stand mounts - but only with a sub and DRC for the bass.

[anwar1965]

Stand mount speakers augmented with audiophile grade sub-woofer(s) allow repositioning (crawl) of the sub(s) to handle frequency peaks and dips due to room mode so that flat frequency response can be obtained.  I don't think that's possible with full range floorstanding speakers since the placement options will be limited.  However, a good quality crossover is required to 'integrate' the stand mount speakers and sub-woofer(s).

[JLM]

Can you get a pair of small two way monitors, that work good down to 200 Hz ?

And still be powerful enough to work with 3 or 4 subs ?

Good question.  On the surface this is easy to do as any "serious" speaker (not tiny plastic iPod plug ins) can reach 200Hz.  "Work good" is a highly subjective term, perhaps you're thinking of "room filling".  That's where I'd normally look for roughly a 6 inch woofer if being used in a larger room (more than say 3,000 cubic feet).  Note that I'm not a MTM fan for home audio use and that a pair of 4.5 inch drivers have the about same surface area as a 6 inch and that two 5 inch drivers have close to the same area as a 6.5 inch driver.  But sometimes larger drivers/cabinets just muddy up the sound, so all this should be taken on a generic basis.

But "powerful enough" is a another issue.  With crossover at say 150 Hz you're still asking the monitor to reach below 100 Hz and the sub to go above 200 Hz, which puts you right in the meaty mid-bass range, where so much music occurs.  So my preference would be to crossover lower and leave that range to the single (larger if necessary) monitor woofer.  The purpose of most multi-sub (swarm) setups is not to reach 10Hz or rattle furniture, but to eliminate even out in-room response at any location/frequency.  If you look, those subs have meager specifications with musical, not HT, intentions so powerful enough IMO should relate more to mid-bass performance than ultimate sound pressure (volume) levels.


Lots of good advice in this thread!

[mcgsxr]

Mresseguie those look really close.  Mine had a small water bubble style level on the base, but those chunky 4 posters look darn near them.

Here's a pic of the system from 2002 or so, with my old Sony Vega 32. 

[Wayner]

I like many of the answers here. Smaller enclosures usually only have 2 drivers, and thus less complicated cross-overs. Then they have a smaller front baffle which now days is proving to be pretty important for imaging. I also like the idea that you can space the monitors where you like to obtain the best soundstage/sweetspot(s) and then locate the woofer for maximum bass extension.

I would add that the monitor gives you more flexibility for placement. You may upgrade at some point and want to start another system, and the monitors can move to that new location, even a bookshelf, if need be, whereas the floorstanders will have limited placement opportunities.

[bladesmith]

It seems logical that a set of two way monitors on stands and a set of woofer/subs would give you more flexibility in creating a better overall sound image. ( )