I hate subwoofers what full range speakers to try?

[AH_123]

I am in the market for speakers and I am looking for proper full range speakers NO subwoofer not interested been down the skinny tower and subwoofer thing no bueno. I hate subwoofers with a passion and the complicated engineering it seems to take to get them to sound right with main speakers for 2 channel. Primary interest is 2 channel with 5.1 being distant second maybe hovering around $1500-$2000 for the pair of mains. Anyone have any hands on classic rock, Stones, Beatles, Floyd with the SVS Prime Pinnacles? Do these things "party" without a stinking sub and Audessy trickery? Heck I am tempted to buy a set of professional stage PA speakers at this point.

 

[TLS Guy]

I am in the market for speakers and I am looking for proper full range speakers NO subwoofer not interested been down the skinny tower and subwoofer thing no bueno. I hate subwoofers with a passion and the complicated engineering it seems to take to get them to sound right with main speakers for 2 channel. Primary interest is 2 channel with 5.1 being distant second maybe hovering around $1500-$2000 for the pair of mains. Anyone have any hands on classic rock, Stones, Beatles, Floyd with the SVS Prime Pinnacles? Do these things "party" without a stinking sub and Audessy trickery? Heck I am tempted to buy a set of professional stage PA speakers at this point.

That is a tough one these days. Speakers have become narrower to minimise diffraction effects, and so the drivers are smaller. So you are not going to get a really low F3 however many smaller drivers you add.

The next issue is that a lot of material, even audio only is mixed and presented with a sub channel and that includes some streams now. So your points are well taken, but if you really want to cover the last octave without a sub, then you will be in DIY territory. That is the way I went, but then I always have. So I do have integrated speakers but the sub channel is still captured, but you can't do that without the speaker being active to some degree.

These are truly full range triamped speakers.

So you would have to look for something like vintage TDL speakers. However their owners very seldom part with them, so they don't come up often, and I think would be out of your budget.

The KEF B139 driver is being manufactured again by Falcon acoustics and the power increased from 100 to 200 watts. I think it always was a 200 watts speaker, but Raymond Cooke just rated them conservatively. I have driven B 139s hard and never blown one up.

I do have a design, very preliminary, for a TL using the Falcon acoustics B139 and the Volt dome midrange, now available in the US from Madisound, probably would use the Hiquphon 3/4" dome tweeter. However, even if you built it, it would be outside your price range. Speakers like you are looking for barely exists and would be way outside your price range anyway.

 

[AH_123]

Hi thanks and nice setup and I appreciate the recommendations. They don't have to cover every frequency down to the minute degree as an example the low E string on a bass guitar is just over 41Hz. It is just I can never seem to get a sub to blend well. It will sound ok with some music or very boomy or thin with others. I know there are differences in recordings but the difference compared to a more old school setup is night and day.

 

[TLS Guy]

Hi thanks and nice setup and I appreciate the recommendations. They don't have to cover every frequency down to the minute degree as an example the low E string on a bass guitar is just over 41Hz. It is just I can never seem to get a sub to blend well. It will sound ok with some music or very boomy or thin with others. I know there are differences in recordings but the difference compared to a more old school setup is night and day.

So you looking for an F3 in the high thirties then. Even that is difficult these days, as cross to a sub at 80 is usually assumed. But there are speakers out there that meet your specification. Look at the KEF range.

 

[ryanosaur]

Philharmonic Audio BMR Towers.

Philharmonic BMR Tower Review

We were pretty stunned at what Philharmonic Audio delivered for the cost in our review of the BMR Philharmonitors a couple of years ago: a phenomenal bookshelf speaker with true full-range extension and near-perfect response on and off-axis. Needless to say, the BMR Philharmonitor has its fans...

forums.audioholics.com

 

[shadyJ]

Philharmonic Audio BMR Towers.

Philharmonic BMR Tower Review

We were pretty stunned at what Philharmonic Audio delivered for the cost in our review of the BMR Philharmonitors a couple of years ago: a phenomenal bookshelf speaker with true full-range extension and near-perfect response on and off-axis. Needless to say, the BMR Philharmonitor has its fans...

forums.audioholics.com

Great speakers, but they are double the OP's budget.

At a 2k budget, for a full range speaker, I might stretch for a pair of Polk Reserve R700s. If you don't need thunderous dynamic range, look at the Philharmonic BMR Philharmonitor.

 

[ryanosaur]

Great speakers, but they are double the OP's budget.

At a 2k budget, for a full range speaker, I might stretch for a pair of Polk Reserve R700s. If you don't need thunderous dynamic range, look at the Philharmonic BMR Philharmonitor.

Ah… the cost of skimming.

+1 to the BMR Monitors. For affordable stand mounts, they crush many towers in capability.

 

[Matt34]

Kef Q11 Meta.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/q-series-with-mat-white-paper-1-1-compressed-pdf.400697/

 

[Bobby Bass]

I am in the market for speakers and I am looking for proper full range speakers NO subwoofer not interested been down the skinny tower and subwoofer thing no bueno. I hate subwoofers with a passion and the complicated engineering it seems to take to get them to sound right with main speakers for 2 channel. Primary interest is 2 channel with 5.1 being distant second maybe hovering around $1500-$2000 for the pair of mains. Anyone have any hands on classic rock, Stones, Beatles, Floyd with the SVS Prime Pinnacles? Do these things "party" without a stinking sub and Audessy trickery? Heck I am tempted to buy a set of professional stage PA speakers at this point.

Yes I had a pair of Prime Pinnacles and listen to classic rock. The bass was really good with the 3 rear ports each tuned to a different frequency. I also had the Polk R700 and the bass was fuller and deeper with the Polks. If I was choosing on bass alone I would choose the Polk R700. Both companies have a buy, try and return for free in the US if you’re not happy so worth trying out.

 

[Isosevodes]

R700’s hands down! Often on sale for $769 each.

 

[dolynick]

Polk R700s seem like a solid recomendation in that price range.

These are a little more at $3k per pair, but generally review well and are noted as being authoritative on the lower end:

''

The DALI OBERON 9 merges refinement and effortless power to reproduce genuine concert and cinema experiences at real-life volume levels. Learn more.

www.dali-speakers.com

I've been looking at them as a potential replacement in my living room. Haven't had a chance to actually go listen in person myself yet. I would expect the two 9" woofers to reach down into the mid 20Hz range in room.

 

[shadyJ]

Polk R700s seem like a solid recomendation in that price range.

These are a little more at $3k per pair, but generally review well and are noted as being authoritative on the lower end:

''

The DALI OBERON 9 merges refinement and effortless power to reproduce genuine concert and cinema experiences at real-life volume levels. Learn more.

www.dali-speakers.com

I've been looking at them as a potential replacement in my living room. Haven't had a chance to actually go listen in person myself yet. I would expect the two 9" woofers to reach down into the mid 20Hz range in room.

The diameter of the woofers have nothing to do with how deep in low frequency extension the speakers have. I wouldn't expect mid-20Hz in-room with speakers that have a +/-3dB window that only extends down to 35Hz.

 

[TLS Guy]

The diameter of the woofers have nothing to do with how deep in low frequency extension the speakers have. I wouldn't expect mid-20Hz in-room with speakers that have a +/-3dB window that only extends down to 35Hz.

That is only partially true Shady. A smaller cone is lighter for one thing which makes a lower F3 difficult. To get much power requires a much larger xmax, and therefore suspension design difficult. Also you will have a large sensitivity penalty. The best way to get a narrow enclosure and low F3 is with an oval driver. Raymond Cooke knew this when he designed the KEF B139. This wonderful driver is back in production again from Falcon Acoustics. In the UK designs are appearing again, built round this driver, including slim TLs. The B139 is ideal for TLs, and you can get good output down into the 20 Hz range without a sub.

The Volt range of wide band dome mids that cover the whole speech discrimination band are now available from Madisound. So they can mate with 3/4" domes for much improved HF dispersion. The big problem is extreme lack of good 3/4" domes. This is because almost all so called mid range drivers really are not.

The KEF B139 was first on the market in 1962. That is 63 years ago. It seems we have learned remarkably little since, and in so many ways gone backwards.

 

[dolynick]

The diameter of the woofers have nothing to do with how deep in low frequency extension the speakers have. I wouldn't expect mid-20Hz in-room with speakers that have a +/-3dB window that only extends down to 35Hz.

Pretty much every review of these speakers mentions that they behaved as pretty much full-range all the way down in use, some including basic measurements. I didn't mention it without having at least some minimal anecdotal support for it.

 

[highfigh]

I am in the market for speakers and I am looking for proper full range speakers NO subwoofer not interested been down the skinny tower and subwoofer thing no bueno. I hate subwoofers with a passion and the complicated engineering it seems to take to get them to sound right with main speakers for 2 channel. Primary interest is 2 channel with 5.1 being distant second maybe hovering around $1500-$2000 for the pair of mains. Anyone have any hands on classic rock, Stones, Beatles, Floyd with the SVS Prime Pinnacles? Do these things "party" without a stinking sub and Audessy trickery? Heck I am tempted to buy a set of professional stage PA speakers at this point.

Some low frequency problems are caused by speaker location, listening position and the room's dimensions- if none of these can change, some treatment can help. I had problems and installed some panels- the problems are gone. Opinions about treatment vary, but I used Room EQ Wizard with Pink noise while I positioned them and SAW the changes in real time, as well as the cumulative effects of the panels.

Subwoofer integration can be a royal PITA, especially if the only choices for phase are 0° and 180°. If the sub has a phase control that's variable, it's much easier. I have also used the .1 foot increment in Denon AVRs to adjust the internal equalizer WITHOUT Audyssey and it makes a measurable AND audible difference. Still, the variable phase control has worked better, IME. I started using my subwoofer whwich has this control, more than ten years after building the speakers I built, with crossover design by TLS Guy. The low end is excellent, especially when the fact that it's produced by two 6-1/2" drivers in each cabinet.

The difference in sound before and after the panels was drastic- gaps in the response were easy to hear, and were annoying and listening to instruments playing decending notes resulted in some being louder than others, even when the instrument was a synthesizer, which can produce very consistent output. I also used a tone generator to verify this.

After, the level of the low frequencies isn't noticeable at all during casual listening and difficult when I'm listening critically.

I started using my sub just to compare the sound with/without and it definitely adds fullness but to be honest, I wasn't expecting the same bass sounds as if I were using large woofers- they do very well and sound great, but I had great bass and what I had isn't likely to happen again.

If possible, look for subs with the variable control and if it works, a lot of the work will be done. Also try the small increments in the AVR's equalizer.

 

[highfigh]

The diameter of the woofers have nothing to do with how deep in low frequency extension the speakers have. I wouldn't expect mid-20Hz in-room with speakers that have a +/-3dB window that only extends down to 35Hz.

Small drivers can definitely produce low frequencies, but room size and proximity make a big difference. I would never expect impressive performance from small woofers in a large space/outdoors unless multiple drivers were used.

 

[highfigh]

That is only partially true Shady. A smaller cone is lighter for one thing which makes a lower F3 difficult. To get much power requires a much larger xmax, and therefore suspension design difficult. Also you will have a large sensitivity penalty. The best way to get a narrow enclosure and low F3 is with an oval driver. Raymond Cooke knew this when he designed the KEF B139. This wonderful driver is back in production again from Falcon Acoustics. In the UK designs are appearing again, built round this driver, including slim TLs. The B139 is ideal for TLs, and you can get good output down into the 20 Hz range without a sub.

The Volt range of wide band dome mids that cover the whole speech discrimination band are now available from Madisound. So they can mate with 3/4" domes for much improved HF dispersion. The big problem is extreme lack of good 3/4" domes. This is because almost all so called mid range drivers really are not.

The KEF B139 was first on the market in 1962. That is 63 years ago. It seems we have learned remarkably little since, and in so many ways gone backwards.

Do you remember my comments about marketing departments? They have stated that some new & different woofer technology is the latest & greatest, yet it rarely meets that description.

 

[Out-Of-Phase]

I am in the market for speakers and I am looking for proper full range speakers NO subwoofer not interested been down the skinny tower and subwoofer thing no bueno. I hate subwoofers with a passion and the complicated engineering it seems to take to get them to sound right with main speakers for 2 channel. Primary interest is 2 channel with 5.1 being distant second maybe hovering around $1500-$2000 for the pair of mains. Anyone have any hands on classic rock, Stones, Beatles, Floyd with the SVS Prime Pinnacles? Do these things "party" without a stinking sub and Audessy trickery? Heck I am tempted to buy a set of professional stage PA speakers at this point.

Hello, I used to own these:

B&W Matrix 801 Series 2 loudspeaker

Since the introduction of the original B&W 801 monitor loudspeaker in 1980, it has been adopted as a reference by several recording studios around the world, Over the past five years, I have seen 801s present in just about every recording session with which I have been artistically involved...

www.stereophile.com

I didn't need a sub. You can still find them out there.

 

[Golfx]

You have run into a logical dilemma. Your budget is too low to allow purchasing many full range speakers with authoritative bass. Shady’s recommendation for the Polk R700 gets you closest for your budget.

Another alternative is to set aside your emotional dislike of subs and then just add bookshelf speakers instead.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Maybe find some used/pre-owned RBH 8300 towers with 3 x 8" Woofers and 2 x 6.5" Midrange.