Bookshelf vs Tower Help for my area

[Azagoth1313]

I have three Klipsch RP6000f speakers for LCR. I know it is best to match all 3 speakers in the front. I find myself wanting to upgrade those three but I am limited by my available space. There is no real back wall just an enclosure for the AC and then the vent..enclosed...that runs across the ceiling so the room gets broken up in a weird way and the where the TV is there is a stair case behind the wall. At any rate I'm running a Denon X3700h and then an Anthem MDX 8 to get a full 11.2. I have one sub in front and another in the back of the room opposite corner. I attached a picture for reference but ai already know there an issue with the corner but it's what I have to work with. Less than ideal but overall it actually sounds very good. Mainly home theater use. Not alot of two channel music. I have been told Inwould benefit more from high quality bookshelves but also that towers afford more Dynamics and range overall. The TV is fine where it is. Its a CX77 and we love having it elevated. I have messed with the idea of upgrading to an Anthem receiver with HDMI 2.1. I do game alot on Xbox series X so that's a consideration but I am after the best sound possible for my area. The 6000fs do not sound bad by any stretch but I wonder about more Dynamic speakers with a better Soundstage. Budget would be about $3000 max but of course less would be better. As an example I see ascend acoustics and the higher end bookshelves are about $800 a piece where as the towers are about $2000 a piece. Then you have SVS Prime Pinnacles at about $900 a piece or some Revel models at about $1000 a piece. Im open to advice on upgrading and always looking for sales lol

 

[everettT]

I have three Klipsch RP6000f speakers for LCR. I know it is best to match all 3 speakers in the front. I find myself wanting to upgrade those three but I am limited by my available space. There is no real back wall just an enclosure for the AC and then the vent..enclosed...that runs across the ceiling so the room gets broken up in a weird way and the where the TV is there is a stair case behind the wall. At any rate I'm running a Denon X3700h and then an Anthem MDX 8 to get a full 11.2. I have one sub in front and another in the back of the room opposite corner. I attached a picture for reference but ai already know there an issue with the corner but it's what I have to work with. Less than ideal but overall it actually sounds very good. Mainly home theater use. Not alot of two channel music. I have been told Inwould benefit more from high quality bookshelves but also that towers afford more Dynamics and range overall. The TV is fine where it is. Its a CX77 and we love having it elevated. I have messed with the idea of upgrading to an Anthem receiver with HDMI 2.1. I do game alot on Xbox series X so that's a consideration but I am after the best sound possible for my area. The 6000fs do not sound bad by any stretch but I wonder about more Dynamic speakers with a better Soundstage. Budget would be about $3000 max but of course less would be better. As an example I see ascend acoustics and the higher end bookshelves are about $800 a piece where as the towers are about $2000 a piece. Then you have SVS Prime Pinnacles at about $900 a piece or some Revel models at about $1000 a piece. Im open to advice on upgrading and always looking for sales lol

You're probably not gonna gain anything with the Anthem FWIW, so I'd put that money towards better speakers. In your size room I'd contemplate doing all active from Genelec or Neumann, perfect measurements and will play loud and clean in your space.

What subwoofers are you using?

 

[Azagoth1313]

I have 2 SVS PB2000 Pros. We moved recently and I went from a basically rectangular even spaced open room to this one so I don't want to buy all new speakers just the fronts that will play better in this area...the rest aren't nearly as important. Thank you for your suggestion. I'll look into those....never heard of them actually.

 

[kini]

I have 2 SVS PB2000 Pros. We moved recently and I went from a basically rectangular even spaced open room to this one so I don't want to buy all new speakers just the fronts that will play better in this area...the rest aren't nearly as important. Thank you for your suggestion. I'll look into those....never heard of them actually.

With that room and layout, especially the left speaker, you're not going to be able to get much if any difference in the soundstage. You need to keep with speakers with a more narrow dispersion. That said, I went from klipsch RF62IIs to Kef Q750s and noticed a big difference in soundstage width and height. But I don't have my speakers up against any walls.

You could try a pair of Kefs either towers or bookshelf from Crutchfield with minimum risk.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Something else to consider is lowering the sides and putting them at 90°. I can’t tell where the FH’s are, but imo the sides are too high for best performance.

 

[everettT]

I have 2 SVS PB2000 Pros. We moved recently and I went from a basically rectangular even spaced open room to this one so I don't want to buy all new speakers just the fronts that will play better in this area...the rest aren't nearly as important. Thank you for your suggestion. I'll look into those....never heard of them actually.

For the Genelec I'd consider the 8030c + their GLM speaker management kit. It's has a really good room correction/speaker setup. Notice how low the distortion is until you start to get to it's lower limit and for a 5" driver it is very solid especially with a crossover set at around 100hz. It's their least expensive SAM monitor that works with small home theaters.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/genelec-8030c-studio-monitor-review.14795/

The Neumann is very similar in performance and the speaker to look at in your budget is the KH120 + their automatic alignment kit. Here is some measurement data on it.

Neumann KH 120A - spinorama and misc measurements

Hello all, This will be a summary of (many :)) measurements I did with the Neumann KH 120A that I recently purchased. The pair were manufactured in 2013 and sport the older, IMO slightly industrial looking finish: A few notes on measurement methodology: The loudspeaker has been measured at...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Active monitors give so much more flexibility, from EQ to placement. The next round of speakers I purchase will be fully active.

 

[MalVeauX]

Hi,

Could you explain what you think better dynamics is/are to us since that's your motivator?

You're 6~8 feet from the speakers. Also, you're using a crossover most likely for the sub and bass management. So what dynamics are your towers affording you that bookshelves cannot? Your towers are literally operating as bookshelves on their own built in stand since you're using a crossover. The additional sensitivity of cabinet volume is also largely irrelevant because of the listening distance, you have plenty of power.

Your Klipsch are "suggested" to be 96db sensitive, but they're likely less. But they're at least 90~92db sensitive. Let's just use 92db as a safe baseline for sensitivity on them, at 8 feet distance (also generous in your space). Let's ignore several speakers and boundaries and just look at 1 speaker's potential if it were in an anechoic chamber basically (so lower output than in an actual room near a wall). For just 10 watts, your single speaker will output 94.3db. That's loud! You get +3db for every doubling of power. So 20 watts gets you to 97.3db. 40 watts gets you to 100.3db. This is very loud! 80 watts gets you to 103.3db. 160 watts gets you to 106.3db and that's louder than THX reference peak levels and will damage your hearing. So at this distance, you simply don't need big towers. This is where "dynamics" comes from, having a relationship of sensivitiy, distance, power and resulting SPL at listening position so that you're not clipping. The more sensitive the speakers, the more SPL they can manage for a given amount of power. Since you're at 8 feet, you can use nearly any speaker and get loud. It becomes, how loud do you need to be? Is 85~95db loud enough? Or do you need 105db THX reference peaks? This question is how you figure out what you actually need for "dynamics."

At $3k you could go end-game on nice bookshelves ($1k each as a budget). If you want real increase in dynamic range potential, it would be with something with the highest sensitivity such as DIY 1099's or PowerSoundAudio 210-M's. If you just want higher quality in general at your budget limit, it will come from an excellent bookshelf or mini-tower, such as Philharmonic BMR's (get 3) or Ascend Acoustics Sierra 2EX's (get 3), all of those have RAAL tweeters.

Very best,

 

[Azagoth1313]

So I should clarify what I mean. Volume is not what I'm after. I almost never go past -10db when watching movies...thats plenty loud and I can't imagine 0db "reference". I got most of my speakers before we moved and now I'm making due with the new area. The klipsch towers are more directional and sometimes they sound overly harsh and don't have a great deal of separation. I guess by dynamics I mean really being able to hear little nuances in movies or music and feeling it immersively. My budget is way different than it has been but I certainly don't want to spend that much I just think higher quality bookshelves may give better immersion for the price point. What really got me thinking was when I got rid of a center speaker and matched all three speakers as towers. The RP 6000f 2 came out and the RP 6000f was reduced to $300 locally so I took a chance and got one since I have read countless times that ideally you should match all 3 front speakers and a center speaker that is different is usually due to most people needing a shorter speaker to fit under the TV or in a entertainment center. Anyway once I changed I started noticing things I've never heard in movies. The 6000f just performed better than the center and I had centers from Klipsch, Bowers and Wilkins and Sony at different points. It got me thinking what else I may be missing if I had a higher quality speakers and I certainly don't need towers on my set up. Towers may give a better Soundstage or handle midrange better if you have a tower version of a bookshelf which makes sense but I'm wondering if a higher quality bookshelf would improve on a decent tower. I just don't want to change and feel like I lost something but volume really isn't what I'm after. Feeling immersed in what I'm listening to or watching is my main goal.

 

[MalVeauX]

Hi,

So you really just need a better quality speaker. Budget towers get loud but they're not using quality components. A budget Klipsch is a harsh bright speaker frankly. Any budget big-box brand will generally just be ok. Sounds good loud, but when you experience a higher quality system, as you stated,you begin to wonder what else is being lost due to cheap budget components in the system.

Towers are not going to have a better sound stage or mid-range than a bookshelf unless they're just a better speaker. Being a tower offers no advantage in that way. Quite frankly the biggest improvement you'll get on most speakers is to have the highest quality tweeter and a quality crossover. A mid-woofer can be inexpensive and you'd never know it was cheap and sound great. Cheap tweeters are easy to spot, they make or break speakers. A cheaper speaker with a higher quality tweeter and a better crossover is in another class.

So in general, if you want more of what you've described, you'll get it from simply higher quality speakers with better tweeters. I will refer you again to my suggestions above with RAAL tweeters. For the money, you simply will not get better than what they do. Your space is great for monitor or mini-tower size bookshelf speakers on stands. And since you're not looking for 105db THX spec volume, again, you're set. Just get a high quality speaker with a really great tweeter and you'll never need to be curious about another speaker for upgrade purposes again for 20 years. So again, Philharmonic BMR and Sierra 2EX, two very strong options with the incredible RAAL tweeter.

Very best,

 

[NINaudio]

I will second that RAAL tweeters are incredible. When I was auditioning speakers I listened to the following brands: Focal, Klipsch, KEF, Paradigm, and a few others that I don't remember. I was least impressed by the Klipsch's by far. My favorite of those previously mentioned brands were the Paradigm Premier 800F's, followed by KEF Q750's. I'd recommend either of them over the Klipsch. I then went and auditioned some Salk Song 3's with a RAAL tweeter, and I heard details in songs I've been listening to for 25+ years that I hadn't heard before.

I agree with @MalVeauX, BMR's, Sierra 2EX's , or any of the Salk offerings will likely blow you away in terms of detail compared to your current front 3. Unfortunately the Salk RAAL offerings will be out of your budget for all 3, but they do offer lower priced options with other tweeters.

 

[kini]

So I should clarify what I mean. Volume is not what I'm after. I almost never go past -10db when watching movies...thats plenty loud and I can't imagine 0db "reference". I got most of my speakers before we moved and now I'm making due with the new area. The klipsch towers are more directional and sometimes they sound overly harsh and don't have a great deal of separation. I guess by dynamics I mean really being able to hear little nuances in movies or music and feeling it immersively. My budget is way different than it has been but I certainly don't want to spend that much I just think higher quality bookshelves may give better immersion for the price point. What really got me thinking was when I got rid of a center speaker and matched all three speakers as towers. The RP 6000f 2 came out and the RP 6000f was reduced to $300 locally so I took a chance and got one since I have read countless times that ideally you should match all 3 front speakers and a center speaker that is different is usually due to most people needing a shorter speaker to fit under the TV or in a entertainment center. Anyway once I changed I started noticing things I've never heard in movies. The 6000f just performed better than the center and I had centers from Klipsch, Bowers and Wilkins and Sony at different points. It got me thinking what else I may be missing if I had a higher quality speakers and I certainly don't need towers on my set up. Towers may give a better Soundstage or handle midrange better if you have a tower version of a bookshelf which makes sense but I'm wondering if a higher quality bookshelf would improve on a decent tower. I just don't want to change and feel like I lost something but volume really isn't what I'm after. Feeling immersed in what I'm listening to or watching is my main goal.

You could try 3 Kef LS50metas with little risk from Crutchfield. IMO based on the soundstage I get with my Q750s they would provide you with what you're looking for in terms of soundstage and detail.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Definitely agree with the upgrade suggestions.

Still need to lower the sides…

 

[lovinthehd]

Another vote for better speakers (and than can go either way as to towers/bookshelves, but do like the bookshelf suggestions so far) than worrying about the electronics particularly.