Towers or Bookshelves: The debate

[haraldo]

I am also a fan of Dynaudio.

Overall, I prefer bookshelf speakers to towers. With no scientific backing, I going to go ahead and say I find most towers have too much resonance in the midrange for my taste and it's likely caused by the cabinet itself. Bookshelf speakers with their much smaller cabinet area are less prone to these resonances, especially the higher end speakers.

There's been some writing on this, and I really agree with Dave on this, even though some of my favorite speakers are floorstanders, there's a magic to some bookshelf speakers... that's hard to match

And if you look to many of Dynaudio's bookshelf speakers, they are so good and so versatile and so well designed that you'd not have any issues to match them with well performing sub's

It would be interesting to compare the Contour floorstanders to Contour Bookshelf's
(Say Contour S 1.4 against Contour S 3.4)

When I read Dave's post I suddenly remembered that I auditioned the Contour S 1.4 (bookshelf's) a year and a half ago, I can only say one thing..... fantastic speakers...

They're certainly not holding back and hard to believe that so small speakers can provide such incredible dynamic scale...

Well these are still probably above your budget, but the cheaper ones....
Very very nice too.......

 

[DD66000]

"Originally Posted by DD66000 View Post
Actually, there have been subs since '77. Its only been since the populatity of HT that there now dozens and dozen to choose from."

Subwoofers have existed since the beginning of high end audio and music amplification, which would be the 1940s or 1950s. They weren't used in home systems until later but it was definitely pre-'77. I started working in consumer audio in early '78 and they were around for years before that.

Subs were used in pro audio way before then. But I can say with no reservation, I never saw a consumer sub before '77, not disputing your statement, but that's when I first saw one, and bought that system 1 1/2 years later.

 

[haraldo]

Looks like there's some parallel threads here

 

[DD66000]

I hear ya'. I hope you don't think I was calling you out or anything. I just don't remember subs, just big *** towers. But than I was usually too drugged up to remember much anyways.

Not at all, another poster just said it was before '77, but that's when I first saw a "consumer" sub. Subs were definitely very far and very few between, back then.

 

[DD66000]

There's been some writing on this, and I really agree with Dave on this, even though some of my favorite speakers are floorstanders, there's a magic to some bookshelf speakers... that's hard to match

Well these are still probably above your budget, but the cheaper ones....
Very very nice too.......

Depends on the BS, but ya.
My PT800s and L212s if not mounted to their bases or to subs are BookShelf speakers, although quite large @ 24" tall, but only 6" deep, so also perfect for wall mounting.

 

[haraldo]

Depends on the BS, but ya.
My PT800s and L212s if not mounted to their bases or to subs are BookShelf speakers, although quite large @ 24" tall, but only 6" deep, so also perfect for wall mounting.

To my knowledge, don't know why bookshelf's are called what they are called
all bookshelf speakers that I have listened to need "breathing space", which means they need to be far from room boundaries

 

[gixxerific]

To my knowledge, don't know why bookshelf's are called what they are called
all bookshelf speakers that I have listened to need "breathing space", which means they need to be far from room boundaries

Maybe I should change the name to Towers vs. Boundryless <--- is that a word?

 

[DD66000]

To my knowledge, don't know why bookshelf's are called what they are called
all bookshelf speakers that I have listened to need "breathing space", which means they need to be far from room boundaries

Any floorstanding or a normal bookshelf speaker needs space to sound their best. Plus many BS speakers are really too large for most bookshelves, I've ever seen.

The exception would be a speaker, like the PT800 that was also designed to be wall mounted, so its design takes wall boundry in consideration.
But even then, wall mounted speakers still want to be well away from the corners to get the proper radiating pattern.

 

[FirstReflection]

Given that your room itself is medium-large, but also has openings to other rooms as well, I would certainly recommend tower speakers. As I said earlier, one issue for bookshelf speakers is simply raw output (loudness). In a large acoustic space, even with a subwoofer handling the bass, some of the mid-bass and all of the lower mid-range is still being handled by the speakers.

On a more hypothetical note though, if you were just looking for a reason to choose bookshelf speakers over towers: it would mostly be for the opportunity to have higher quality drivers for the same price point. A bookshelf speaker, being physically smaller and, in many cases, using fewer drivers, could be made with higher quality components for the same price as a physically larger tower with more drivers, but lower quality components all around.

 

[highfigh]

Are you with OSHA cuz' I always wear ear protection............. Wait what did you say, could you repeat that.

No, I'm just amazed by the number of people I talk to who are total music/gear freaks and work in incredibly loud environments without hearing protection. Just curious, that's all.

 

[highfigh]

I am also a fan of Dynaudio.

Overall, I prefer bookshelf speakers to towers. With no scientific backing, I going to go ahead and say I find most towers have too much resonance in the midrange for my taste and it's likely caused by the cabinet itself. Bookshelf speakers with their much smaller cabinet area are less prone to these resonances, especially the higher end speakers.

You may be hearing a primary reflection, if you did no acoustic treatment or room analysis. That analysis doesn't need to be scientific, at the least, it can be a matter of looking around it to see what's in the way of the sound or what will cause multiple reflections/first reflections to get to you at the main listening position.

 

[gixxerific]

No, I'm just amazed by the number of people I talk to who are total music/gear freaks and work in incredibly loud environments without hearing protection. Just curious, that's all.

You should be in my basement right now just kinda rigged up my old onkyo to my loogitech 5.1 with extra speaks making it 7.1 - 2 so still 5.1 but whatever it's wrong but very loud.

 

[highfigh]

Not at all, another poster just said it was before '77, but that's when I first saw a "consumer" sub. Subs were definitely very far and very few between, back then.

I think part of this is due to the fact that the real audio tweaks back in the old days would have whatever speakers they wanted, regardless of size. Voice of Music, Altec-Lansing, JBL, Klipsch and E-V all had huge speakers that did extremely well with the low end. In the '70s, Altec had their model 19, which had a 15" woofer and in the right space, it was very "live" sounding. E-V had their 30W woofer, used in the Patrician and separately. At 30" diameter and in the correct cabinet (48 ft³), the -3dB point was 17.5 Hz. I never saw the Voice of Music speakers but my dad used to go to the Chicago Audio Show and in the '50s, they had one that stood about 8' tall, with what he described as an 18" woofer. With drivers like those, there wasn't much need for a sub. Corner Horns, etc needed a large room but people did what it took to get them in.

Even some of the mid-line consumer speakers did well on the low end, although they tended to be pretty insensitive, like the KLH, Advent, Rectilinear and speakers like those.

Wives and decorators are responsible for the transition to smaller speakers.

 

[DD66000]

In the early '70s I had a pair of L55s, that have 14" woofers, two feet tall. The L65s were the same size. But even those wouldn't go as low as the B212 sub, which goes down to 20 htz and maybe lower.
Those first sat/subs systems were not small, certainly compared to many sats of today. Just look at that picture of the L212, 16" w. 38" h, but only 6" deep.

Still using the L55s as secondary subs.

 

[gixxerific]

Stupid wives.

My truck will hit around 10 hz you can feel it. Stupid wives agian.

 

[haraldo]

You may be hearing a primary reflection, if you did no acoustic treatment or room analysis. That analysis doesn't need to be scientific, at the least, it can be a matter of looking around it to see what's in the way of the sound or what will cause multiple reflections/first reflections to get to you at the main listening position.

I don't see why pattern of first reflection in general should be different with floorstanders as opposed to bookshelf speakers?

If you have multiple drivers, yes this will be different and if you have a large line source floorstander then first reflections will be very different, and to an extent much less noticable... but in that case we are talking about a totally different design

It is however to my knowledge obvious that some larger enclosures to an extent will have greater challenges with resonances and standing waves

 

[haraldo]

Just to make this even more difficult... a large floorstander may be designed as a two way bookshelf speaker well, this is not a joke from my side....

If you look to the Vienna Acoustics range all of their speakers are designed as strict two way designs, even the larger ones, not all of them bookshelves of course...

One of my favorite speakers of all times (very expensive thought) The Vienna Acoustics Mahler is designed as a small two way design, where they use soft dome and twin 6.5 inch scan speak woofer/mid drivers in very small cabinets. all of this sits on top of an integrated subwoofer with dual 10" Eton drivers.
Although this looks like a very large bulky speaker, the main cabinet is quite small

Common to all their designs is that they use solely two way designs, and when there is a subwoofer they always cross over very very low.

So by this nature of design you get all the benefits of a bookshelf speaker combined with a floorstander, so then you get both.

1. Crossovers are kept away from the frequency range of the human voice, no matter how well behaved a crossover is, it will never be perfect and it will be deviations and losses that will be audible with human voice. The human voice will change character depending on which driver that transmits the voice, these designs eliminate this
2. Main speakers are quite small with small cabinets that make it easier to handle and control resonances

Does this work, I certainly think so

Dynamic range, don't even thinks about it, speakers made from these design principles can play so loud they will make your ears bleed, and still don't make a sweat, and with no audible distortion...

You can say something similar to many of the Audio Physic designs where the main cabinet is physically separate from the rest and acoustically decoupled, In a way they have some of the same design, look to a speaker like Audio Physic Virgo or Tempo, bookshelf speakers put into a larger cabinet...

so now I'm contradicting myself on bookshelf speakers vs floorstanders, I guess......
There are no easy answers

And my apologies for speaking about speakers that's not within the price range at question, my point is, though, of general nature... Probably there are similar design principles for other speaker ranges....

 

[gixxerific]

NO apologies.

Just got back from the Vienna site. Woo wee they shure got some nice doomakickeys on there.

 

[haraldo]

NO apologies.

Just got back from the Vienna site. Woo wee they shure got some nice doomakickeys on there.

Oh yes indeed they have.... i have not heard their latest generation speakers, but I seriously auditioned Mahler and (previous) Bethoven, expeeeeeensive but

You can probably get similar performance as previous Beethoven generation at much lower price tag now

 

[Exit]

Hi gixxerific

I am from St. Louis too. Audio shops are listed under “Stereo Equip.-DLRS & SVCE” in the Yellowbook. I was shopping for subwoofers and I went to “The Sound Room, Inc” on Olive and “The Speaker Store’, but I didn’t see the latter listed in the phone book so maybe they are gone. The audio store in the Chesterfield mall didn’t have much on display. You might want to make a list of speakers recommended to you and then visit a few local audio stores to see if any of them carry any of the speakers on your list.