Satellites vs. Floorstanders

[gte697h]

Hi! I was wondering if anyone had an opinion on whether Floorstanders were better than satellites? For what I've demoed at Circuit City, it seemed like the floorstanders provide better directional bass than a satellites + subwoofer combo.

Specifications for my setup are, small room, 5.1 home theater, onkyo 705 receiver. Any opinions on pros and cons of satellites vs. floorstanders would be appreciated!

[Zero]

Honestly gte, it is going to all boils down to what you are looking for. I'm guessing this system is going to be designed mostly around HT-type applications.. If your looking for a solid HT experience, I'd encourage you to go with floor standing loudspeakers.

Typically, a good visceral HT sound experience entails speakers that are capable of delivering copious levels of clean, dynamic, distortion free sound. Towers are what will get you there.

Now monitors have their advantages. Usually, you can expect to get wider sound-staging and superior driver integration. From a general sound quality stand point, they will likely work better in your small room. However, they just wont be able to deliver the same raw, believable impact that larger towers can deliver. Since it appears you're going for HT goodness, I say - go towers.

[Dennis Gardner]

Basically a minitruck/fullsize debate..............depends on how big of job you need done.

[Early B.]

What are your room dimensions?

[Midnite Mick]

I have really been liking a lot of 2 way floorstanders lately.

[zingo]

I have really been liking a lot of 2 way floorstanders lately.

I agree. I have really been blown away by some two-way two driver floorstands and bookshelves. There is something to be said for simplicity.

[ben62670]

Some good sized floor standers. No need for brackets. You can place them off the back wall for better SQ. They just have way more oomph than satellites. Keep in mind if you go large on floor standers you may need to improve amplification. Don't be shay about asking here before you buy.
Ben

[pearsall001]

Just remember...no bass from a pair of floorstanders will beat a dedicated sub.

Quality monitors & a great sub are the combo that can't be beat.

[Midnite Mick]

I agree. I have really been blown away by some two-way two driver floorstands and bookshelves. There is something to be said for simplicity.

Coherence!
Coherence!
Coherence!

makes for sound nice.:)

[pearsall001]

Hey Mike, a little off topic but Stephen at Quest just took on the Acoustic Zen line. I'm going to get my ears on them as soon as they arrive. Mainly interested in the Adiago Jr's. A little competition for my AAD's ;)

[SlowcarIX]

Just remember...no bass from a pair of floorstanders will beat a dedicated sub.

Quality monitors & a great sub are the combo that can't be beat.

+1 :)

[ben62670]

Bass is directional. I had my big speakers up front, and used my RTA15RDO's as rears. Huge step up from sats. This required external amplification. Just an example if you had jets thundering up from behind you felt it coming from behind.

[Midnite Mick]

Hey Mike, a little off topic but Stephen at Quest just took on the Acoustic Zen line. I'm going to get my ears on them as soon as they arrive. Mainly interested in the Adiago Jr's. A little competition for my AAD's ;)

The finish on them is purty. I am sure they will sound very good.

Mike

[pearsall001]

Bass is directional. I had my big speakers up front, and used my RTA15RDO's as rears. Huge step up from sats. This required external amplification. Just an example if you had jets thundering up from behind you felt it coming from behind.

Not if you added more subs!

[ben62670]

Not if you added more subs!

Very rarely do I ever disagree with Phil, but there is always an exception. You can add as many subs as you want, but when the rears are sent a full signal it is not sent to the sub. I am talking about the localized bass that is recorded into most DTS tracks. What I am saying is if the jets are coming from behind you, and you have speakers that can belt out some good bass then you can hear/feel the bass transition coming from behind you, and seamlessly transferring to the front.

[pearsall001]

Very rarely do I ever disagree with Phil, but there is always an exception. You can add as many subs as you want, but when the rears are sent a full signal it is not sent to the sub. I am talking about the localized bass that is recorded into most DTS tracks. What I am saying is if the jets are coming from behind you, and you have speakers that can belt out some good bass then you can hear/feel the bass transition coming from behind you, and seamlessly transferring to the front.

If you're running all speakers set to large than yes you are correct. However if you set all speakers to small & let the subs do what they do best...& let your FL do what they do best (and that ain't bass reproduction) I think the outcome might be a tad different. Just remember, there is no floorstander that can compete with a dedicated sub when it comes to bass performance.

Now your personal preference plays a big role here. As long as we enjoy our system, that's all that matters.

[Music Joe]

I know this is small speakers vs floorstanders...but I have this nifty article, just food for thought, and may be germaine in some way to the discussion.

An interesting sidebar in this months 5th Element column by John Marks titled "2.5 Cheers For Stand Mounted Speakers".
The article points out that stand mounted loudspeakers have an advantage coming out of the gate.

The article focused on wavelengths of 3 major internal resonances, wall to wall, side to side, top to bottom. An example cited was the 2 cubic foot BBC large monitor 24"x12"x12" yielding 3456 cubic inches. A top to bottom resonance of 282.5Hz, s2s of 565Hz, f2b of 565Hz.

A 2 cubic foot tall narrow floorstanding cabinet by design starts out with a hurdle. At about H42"xW6"xD13.71" with a top to bottom resonance of about 161Hz, s2s of 1130Hz, f2b of 494Hz.

That 161 is low enough to be difficult to deal with. John Marks aticle says that even 6" of fiberglass or wool would have little effect. And that the 161 would effect "clarity and intelligibility". That in turn would need to be egineered around at extra cost.

He points out that in comparision the BBC was a large stand mount, and typical short stand mounted would have much higher (Hz) internal resonances if built decent.

Many a time I've heard an overall coherence from small stand mounteds that just sticks with me.

I'm no engineer but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express :)

[ben62670]

If you're running all speakers set to large than yes you are correct. However if you set all speakers to small & let the subs do what they do best...& let your FL do what they do best (and that ain't bass reproduction) I think the outcome might be a tad different. Just remember, there is no floorstander that can compete with a dedicated sub when it comes to bass performance.

Now your personal preference plays a big role here. As long as we enjoy our system, that's all that matters.

You have seen my sonosub I'm sure, so I am not saying that anyone should omit a decicated sub, but full range speakers all the way around is the cats meow;)

[Midnite Mick]

Of what I have heard I find 2 way floorstanders to be superior to a 2 way bookshelf. I find a lot of book shelfs that go deep to sound muddy to me.

[treitz3]

Hi! I was wondering if anyone had an opinion on whether Floor standers were better than satellites?
To me? That's the most loaded question of the year. It SO totally depends on what your musical genre is and how loud you listen to it, what your room dimensions are, not to mention what you have feeding it. Then there is that question that might throw a wrench into things....do you want a sub?

Answer this, we can move on.

[OmegaSupreme]

I have a 12x12x8 bedroom 5.1 used mostly for movies and I went with the medium size Energy C5 fronts due to small room and have a 300W subwoofer and rti4s for surrounds and a medium sized B&W center. Love the sound. To me it seems like a good amount of sound that definately fills the room and doesn't take up too much space. Using large bookshelf type speakers along with two subs can probably work great though. I say use floorstanders if possible and small satellites only when absolutely necessary. And don't use a small center speaker. And, and stay away from Bose. Muahahaha...

[reeltrouble1]

Introduction of a sub pretty much sucks for a musical system, you need them for HT. If you have speakers which can dig to 30hz you are pretty much set, even at 40hz you are not missing much if any bass in most recordings. If you just want to hear bass, well, disconnect your tweeters and mids j/k. Adding a sub to music to boost the bass signal is the same as cranking a tone control. If loud bass is your thing then go for it and enjoy.

You see when you add a sub your adding another connect or wires, you have a different crossover, another volume pot, your typical sub plate amp is no musical wonder, your amp slope/slew rates are different, you have different speaker material/design, different caps/resistors, introduction of a different pcb board with who knows what type of circuits but generally they are on the low end, none of this good news for an audio signal, then you have to place the sub and dont buy into the non-directional hype about sub waves, you can and will be able to tell where they are coming from. Sometimes a sub is a necessary compromise because of room configs, waf, and so on, but it is a compromise to any musical rig.

Whether you choose b/s or floorstander for your music system is simply a matter of taste.

RT1

[tonyb]

Well said from the depths of the "woodshed".:)

[jm1]

Introduction of a sub pretty much sucks for a musical system, you need them for HT. If you have speakers which can dig to 30hz you are pretty much set, even at 40hz you are not missing much if any bass in most recordings. If you just want to hear bass, well, disconnect your tweeters and mids j/k. Adding a sub to music to boost the bass signal is the same as cranking a tone control. If loud bass is your thing then go for it and enjoy.

You see when you add a sub your adding another connect or wires, you have a different crossover, another volume pot, your typical sub plate amp is no musical wonder, your amp slope/slew rates are different, you have different speaker material/design, different caps/resistors, introduction of a different pcb board with who knows what type of circuits but generally they are on the low end, none of this good news for an audio signal, then you have to place the sub and dont buy into the non-directional hype about sub waves, you can and will be able to tell where they are coming from. Sometimes a sub is a necessary compromise because of room configs, waf, and so on, but it is a compromise to any musical rig.

Whether you choose b/s or floorstander for your music system is simply a matter of taste.

RT1

WOW! I'm certainly glad I don't share your philosophy on this subject. I might not have ended up with the Dynaudio C1 monitors, dbx active crossover and two SVS PC-Ultra subs in my system.

Without question, there is certainly more to selecting and integrating a sub within a music system than just placing it in the room and expecting it to sound good. This take some initial knowledge and experimentation, but the end results are outstanding if you are able to integrate the two.

[Midnite Mick]

Introduction of a sub pretty much sucks for a musical system, you need them for HT. If you have speakers which can dig to 30hz you are pretty much set, even at 40hz you are not missing much if any bass in most recordings. If you just want to hear bass, well, disconnect your tweeters and mids j/k. Adding a sub to music to boost the bass signal is the same as cranking a tone control. If loud bass is your thing then go for it and enjoy.

You see when you add a sub your adding another connect or wires, you have a different crossover, another volume pot, your typical sub plate amp is no musical wonder, your amp slope/slew rates are different, you have different speaker material/design, different caps/resistors, introduction of a different pcb board with who knows what type of circuits but generally they are on the low end, none of this good news for an audio signal, then you have to place the sub and dont buy into the non-directional hype about sub waves, you can and will be able to tell where they are coming from. Sometimes a sub is a necessary compromise because of room configs, waf, and so on, but it is a compromise to any musical rig.

Whether you choose b/s or floorstander for your music system is simply a matter of taste.

RT1

I am not all that knowledgeable how one incorporates a sub but does this assume that you are running your mains through the sub as well? What if the sub has nothing to do with the mains and your preamp has separate output RCA's for the sub. Can't you cross the sub at the appropriate point and play with the phase. etc.?

I mean if your mains are flat down to 40hz or so can't just have the sub fill in the bottom octave?

[mantis]

I agree. I have really been blown away by some two-way two driver floorstands and bookshelves. There is something to be said for simplicity.
Less crossover points. Crossovers is what kills speaker performance.

[reeltrouble1]

yes jm quite a shame actually since if you did you would have Dyn's Focus 220's or the Contour S 5.4's say oooh la la, l know, I am completely impossible.;)

RT1

[jm1]

yes jm quite a shame actually since if you did you would have Dyn's Focus 220's or the Contour S 5.4's say oooh la la, l know, I am completely impossible.;)

RT1

No thanks! I will take the C1's any day as they provide a significant level of refinement well beyond the two you indicate. Sadly, this gives me more insight into the erroneous perception of monitor/sub configurations.

I have also listened to the C4's and have no inclination to upgrade from the monitor/sub configuration I currently utilize.

[pearsall001]

Introduction of a sub pretty much sucks for a musical system, you need them for HT. If you have speakers which can dig to 30hz you are pretty much set, even at 40hz you are not missing much if any bass in most recordings. If you just want to hear bass, well, disconnect your tweeters and mids j/k. Adding a sub to music to boost the bass signal is the same as cranking a tone control. If loud bass is your thing then go for it and enjoy.

You see when you add a sub your adding another connect or wires, you have a different crossover, another volume pot, your typical sub plate amp is no musical wonder, your amp slope/slew rates are different, you have different speaker material/design, different caps/resistors, introduction of a different pcb board with who knows what type of circuits but generally they are on the low end, none of this good news for an audio signal, then you have to place the sub and dont buy into the non-directional hype about sub waves, you can and will be able to tell where they are coming from. Sometimes a sub is a necessary compromise because of room configs, waf, and so on, but it is a compromise to any musical rig.

Whether you choose b/s or floorstander for your music system is simply a matter of taste.

RT1

Remember that old saying: "What you don't know...won't hurt you" Well that certainly applies here. For those that are happy with the incomplete performance of their floorstandres...they don't know, therefore they'll never reach that pinacle of music reproduction.

Now for those who do know...a monitor/sub combo or adding a sub to your floorstanders is the only way to reach the true musical presentation in it's entirety. And it's not just about hitting down to 20Hz, not even close. There's a lot more to it than that. No if and's or but's about it. And who said anything about playing loud? Bass is a lot more complex than that & volumn is a non issue. Thare's a whole new music foundation just waiting to be discovered. You can only find it with a sub. Sorry, floorstanders need not apply for this job.

And that mumbo jumbo about extra cables, inferior amps, crossovers, slew rates, yadda, yadda is the biggest bunch of poo-who BS!

If one is satisfied with sub (no pun intended) par floorstander performance...by all means, carry on.

But I want to relish in all the glory of the music...so bring on the sub!!

In the end it's all about the music, & a floorstander isn't going to get you there...not by a long shot.

[reeltrouble1]

I am not all that knowledgeable how one incorporates a sub but does this assume that you are running your mains through the sub as well? What if the sub has nothing to do with the mains and your preamp has separate output RCA's for the sub. Can't you cross the sub at the appropriate point and play with the phase. etc.?

I mean if your mains are flat down to 40hz or so can't just have the sub fill in the bottom octave?

sure you can, I do just that for my RTT, works great for HT the Polk CSW's are awesome boomers and you should cross around 80hz. The benefit of the loud booming noises outweighs the compromise of the signal for HT and the Polks are customed EQ'd with the Polk SWA500 sub amp.

To answer your question, No, the signal is compromised (degraded) whether its sent first to the sub then to the mains or to the sub out, any electrical circuit/connection can only take away from the signal. The sub just amplifies the signal and plays it, of course its been degraded a bit. No matter how you spin it when integrating a sub you must introduce more variables to the audio signal, still not good news.

RT1

[treitz3]

Unless you have an SMS-1. :D

[reeltrouble1]

well I guess you can sum it up Phil by saying that a good little man (satellite) can beat a bad big man (floorstander), but a good little man can never beat a good big man.

long live the floorstander!!!!!!!!!!!!

of course the OP is now totally confused and we went from Circuit City to Esoteric, but it is what we do.:eek:

RT1

[Midnite Mick]

Okay, maybe I am confused about something. What I am saying is running speaker cables from the amp directly to the speakers like you do when you do not have a sub in play. Then from your second outputs from the preamp running to stereo subs. That sub circuitry would have zero effect on your mains because it is not in the signal path. Then one would have to dial in the subs to work with your mains so at get the very bottom only.

I have never ran a sub but is this not one way to do it?

Thanks,
Mike

[pearsall001]

well I guess you can sum it up Phil by saying that a good little man (satellite) can beat a bad big man (floorstander), but a good little man can never beat a good big man.

long live the floorstander!!!!!!!!!!!!

of course the OP is now totally confused and we went from Circuit City to Esoteric, but it is what we do.:eek:

RT1

Almost true Ted, but you left out one very inportant variable. The sub!!!!

Now it goes like this:

A good little man along with a good little sub will kick the living sheeeeet out of a good floorstander. The FS wouldn't make it past the 1st round.

Yeah that poor OP...he probably just went out & bought a Bose system. He probably figured out that we're all nuts around here.

[Midnite Mick]

You bunch of crazies.

If the OP was smart he'd get the hell out of here before it is too late. Run man run, this is no good for you.:p

[jm1]

To answer your question, No, the signal is compromised (degraded) whether its sent first to the sub then to the mains or to the sub out, any electrical circuit/connection can only take away from the signal. The sub just amplifies the signal and plays it, of course its been degraded a bit. No matter how you spin it when integrating a sub you must introduce more variables to the audio signal, still not good news.

You should have a look at the pro/cons between active and passive crossover implementations. I would rather have an external active crossover rather than an internal passive crossover commonly found in speakers.

[tonyb]

Gotta love the 'ol Polk back and forth.I personnaly agree with Ted,but to a point.Yes you can have monitors and subs and have a kick ass system,heard plenty myself.As in everything audio,comes down to personal taste,waf,your room,budget,yada,yada.Ted is just going down to the nuts and bolts of things,in a purist state of mind,and you guys know he's right.Now,whether you can hear the differences or not,wether you give 2 craps or not,this all may not matter to you anyway,except for what your ears are telling you.So if monitors and subs get your stick up,or be it floorstanders,rock out with your c#$k out boys.:D

[jm1]

Ted is just going down to the nuts and bolts of things,in a purist state of mind,and you guys know he's right.

That the funniest thing I have heard in a long time. Thanks! I needed that.

[Midnite Mick]

Really? I thought this was much funnier.

rock out with your c#$k out boys.:D

[pearsall001]

To each his own...but floorstanders are nothing more than monitor wanna be's trying (I mean that very loosely) to kick out some real bass!! :D:D:D

[SlowcarIX]

Unless you have an SMS-1. :D

the sms-1 is no substitude for good sub placement/good sitting position...

my room bass response was so messed up - it was unfixable with the sms-1...so i moved the mic around and found this :):p:D

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff172/slowcarIX/DSC01318.jpg

sms-1 has since gone to a new home to help the new owner find the good placement/sitting position

[reeltrouble1]

audio geeks.............go figure....

RT1

[jm1]

audio geeks.............go figure....

RT1

Thanks, considering this is an audio forum.............go figure....

[reeltrouble1]

your welcome. although its hard to hear you with those loud noise banging sub thingies mucking things up.

RT1

[kuntasensei]

Hi! I was wondering if anyone had an opinion on whether Floorstanders were better than satellites? For what I've demoed at Circuit City, it seemed like the floorstanders provide better directional bass than a satellites + subwoofer combo.

Specifications for my setup are, small room, 5.1 home theater, onkyo 705 receiver. Any opinions on pros and cons of satellites vs. floorstanders would be appreciated!

As you can see from all the previous posts, opinions very wildly on the subject. I'll add my two cents:

I'm running the Onkyo 705 as well. I went from Polk RTi28 mains (bookshelves) to RTi70 floorstanders when I decided to move the 28s to rear surround duty. However, I would still recommend using a subwoofer with floorstanders. The 705 is a very flexible receiver in that it lets you select crossover points in increments of 10Hz starting down at 40Hz. There is a delicate balance between music performance and movie performance, however, I do feel that there is an advantage to using floorstanders that makes them great for both.

To get the best blend of deep bass to your subwoofer, look at the low -3dB point of floorstanding speakers and multiply that times 1.5. That gives you a half-octave above the speaker's natural rolloff for the subwoofer to take over bass duties. This point should be well below the crossovers in the speaker itself, so you shouldn't have any overlap. For instance, I'm running my RTi70s at a 60Hz crossover on the 705. This keeps the directionality of musical bass as well as the improved tone, which is the advantage of floorstanders. It also keeps significant sound down to 50Hz in the speaker itself. With most music, I notice little difference between running the 70s full range or running them at 60Hz and letting my SVS 20-39CS+/Samson 1000 rig pick up the slack. With movies, however, there's a vast difference in performance, and I wouldn't run full range floorstanders for that purpose. Because the 705 has such a flexible crossover setting, you can get the most out of floorstanders and still get great movie performance down below their capabilities.

The other thing that makes the 705 work really well for this is that it has Audyssey MultEQ XT. It will do a very fine equalization of each speaker based on its in-room response across the full range of its capabilities, giving you a great blend to the subwoofer. It also does a good job of detecting acoustic distance to keep the speakers as close in phase with the subwoofer as possible. Something to keep in mind with the 705, however: Onkyo chose to use a 80Hz threshold during Audyssey's crossover detection as "FULL RANGE"... so most bookshelf speakers will likely detect as full range on the Onkyos. After running Audyssey setup, manually change any crossover set to "full range" to 1.5x the speaker's lower -3dB point if you have a subwoofer.

All that said, you don't "need" floorstanders, especially if your primary use is for movies. I do strongly recommend at least using bookshelf sized speakers instead of "satellites", which are normally small speakers whose specs require them to be run above an 80Hz crossover (which means you will lose bass directionality and hear bass coming from the sub instead of from its corresponding channel, known as "localization"). Most Polk bookshelf speakers work well down to 60Hz, making them ideal for a system with an 80Hz crossover.

[gte697h]

Thanks to All for some really good answers. As you'll guessed, I didn't understand half of it which makes me want to learn more :)


To me? That's the most loaded question of the year. It SO totally depends on what your musical genre is and how loud you listen to it, what your room dimensions are, not to mention what you have feeding it. Then there is that question that might throw a wrench into things....do you want a sub?

Answer this, we can move on.

Trietz, I like to listen to classic rock, a lot of Led Zep, rolling stones etc. I like to listen to it fairly loud as well :D My living room is probably 300-350-sqft. I'm inching towards a RTi8 fronts, Csi3 center and Fxi3 for the rears WITH a sub (not sure which one yet :) I will also be using this setup mainly for movies.

How does this setup sound guys?!

[ArdyAr]

I have my Acoustic Zens with a Sunfire sw crossed at 32hz.Sub is hidden and nobody guesses where it's at.Only time you run into directional problems is when you cross over too high.With some speakers you don't have a choice...