Should I discount floorstanders

Every room is unique! I can't think of a reason why a certain room per se would not want floorstanders.

It seems to me that the issues would be placement, placement and . . . placement.

I recently auditioned some new speakers at home, and when placed where my current ones are . . . they are boomy.  I moved them a bit and solved it.  My room itself is very 'alive' and surely this contributes some to the boominess (not much to absorb sound).  But floorstanders still work there.

Depending on which standmounts and which floorstanders, one big difference will be response below say 40Hz.  But you can get boom above that.  I think that you just need to audition in-home and find something that works.

Stand mount will/must be easier to accommodate than floor standers unless you have a really lucky room. Hardest thing in hi-fi is room interface.

Get it right and floor standers  just have the ability to get big orchestras into your room and some!

Dealer advice and home demo essential. Enjoy the chase.

Douglas

What are you using to drive your speakers? If you find quality floorstanders boomy it might be your amp isn't up to the task to control them adequately.

Floorstanders seem to me to be more finicky about placement and position, but I prefer them. I am running Dynaudio Confidence C2 Platinum in a smallish room (11 ft x 17 ft) with a pair of REL R-328 subs and they most certainly are not boomy at all. The bass response is fast, tight, detailed and richly textured. It's all about setup and using an amp with enough current to kepp them controlled.

douglas posted:

....Get it right and floor standers  just have the ability to get big orchestras into your room and some!...

This is exactly why I use floorstanders. Even with a 250 I could not get standmount monitors to sound satisfying for large scale orchestral music.

What is your room size and equipment?

Popeye posted:

What is your room size and equipment?

Sorry, missed out on that info.  Bluesound Node through Chord Qutest, Naim 282/250.2 with twin PSUs.  Room is 3m wide and 5m long.  Speakers are on the shorter wall firing down the 5m length.  Although it is a laminate floor, plenty of rugs etc and the Focus 160s do not suffer from excessive bass reflections.  

NJB posted:

Popeye posted:

What is your room size and equipment?

Sorry, missed out on that info.  Bluesound Node through Chord Qutest, Naim 282/250.2 with twin PSUs.  Room is 3m wide and 5m long.  Speakers are on the shorter wall firing down the 5m length.  Although it is a laminate floor, plenty of rugs etc and the Focus 160s do not suffer from excessive bass reflections.  

With a 282/250 (I have 282/250DR) and a 3m x 5m room you have a similar arrangement to me, and could definitely benefit from floorstanders. I have large ones plus stereo subs and it's a great listening experience for anything from quiet Renaissance lute music to big Mahler symphonies, and everything in between. I once had Contour S1.4 monitors and found them unsatisfying by comparison.

With that said, I would love to hear the forthcoming Confidence 20 monitors due out next year.

Undiminished bass across  the full spectrum dictates that the speakers be large - whether standmont (e.g. PMC MB2) or a floorstander. Small speakers inherently are more limited, though they can give the illusion of doing bass because you hear the harmonics - but that is not the same.

However, the construction cost of a big speaker capable of doing low bass well is considerably more than that of a small speaker not going so low, therefore it can be harder to find affordable good full range speakers than standmounts with limited bass. 

A common way to reduce adverse bass effects in smaller rooms is to curtail the bass output by using smaller speakers - yes, it can avoid a resonance by not ‘exciting’ it - that particular note might even be at about the right level because if the boost of that frequency by the room - but the notes either side, and particularly lower, would be much diminished, which is acceptable to some people but not to others. A better option is to use the speaker and listening positions to minimise adverse room interactions, and use room treatments to reduce room problems. But both of these can be tricky in real life room situations where the room is not a dedicated listening room. At the end of the day it is a matter of finding the best compromise that best suits your expectation of musical performance, budget and domestic acceotability.

In my view, if the full range of bass undiminished is important to you for best enjoyment of music then floirstanders could be better - but be prepared to have to pay more, and to expend more effort in optimising the room set up. I would only consider secondhand, possibly including ex-dem,  as it gives far greater buying power,  and for me transmission line designs have been the only ones that I have found pleasing in the way they present the bass.

How about Naim SBLs, really tight bass easily controlled by the distance from the rear wall, small footprint superb sound?

Nick

Have you thought of PMC floor or stand models. Not cheap but work well with 250 DR and although you'll need to play with the toe in to keep the treble balanced they will work well close to wall but keep away from corners. I don't find them boomy even though my floor standers are only about 12 inches from rear wall. Of course, what I like may well not suit you! Rich 

Unfortunately if you use full range speakers that generate significant output at 34Hz (>-6dB) firing down the length of a 5mx3m room,you will get a significant bass peak at that frequency (and you'll also get a somewhat smaller bass peak at 57Hz).  The only way to stop this occurring with full range speakers would be to position the speakers right in the middle of the room - this situation is dictated by simple physics and is unavoidable.  A substantial amount of bass trapping will reduce the peak considerably, but it won't eliminate it.

In smaller rooms there are only two viable way to get an even bass response.

The first is a complete DSP based 'room correction' system, and then you need to accept the sound quality alterations that are also imposed by the wideband processing of such systems.

The second is to use main speakers with curtailed bass response and then use a correctly aligned sub to fill in the bass peaks, using notch filters to prevent the output form excessively exciting the resonance modes.  This approach also requires that substantial bass response damping is achieved in the room - usually this requires loads of bass traps.

I'm currently trying out a set of Buchardt S400 standmounts. These are by far the most powerful standmounts I've tried (especially in their price range). While I wouldn't call the bass boomy it is so powerful that it has given me a taste of what tower speakers would sound like in my room. I live in a flat and have a fairly large living room with 10' ceilings. They have a nice full sound and are very musical but unfortunately I will have no choice but to return them if I want to stay on good terms with my downstairs neighbors. I'm now looking at something less muscular like Tablette 10 or Totem Sky (which I've already tried at home). If I had my own house I wouldn't need to compromise and would most likely keep the S400s.

So basically you need to chose speakers according to your environment or be ready to modify your environment to accommodate your speakers. 

Iconoclast posted:

I'm currently trying out a set of Buchardt S400 standmounts. These are by far the most powerful standmounts I've tried (especially in their price range). While I wouldn't call the bass boomy it is so powerful that it has given me a taste of what tower speakers would sound like in my room. I live in a flat and have a fairly large living room with 10' ceilings. They have a nice full sound and are very musical but unfortunately I will have no choice but to return them if I want to stay on good terms with my downstairs neighbors. I'm now looking at something less muscular... 

I'm sure you have a volume control, so don't need to change the speakers to reduce volume...

However, I assume that by 'muscular' you don't mean either max volume capability or efficiency, but bass extension? Flats can be a problem, neighbour-wise, and the options limited: suffer no bass, limit to very quiet listening, move home, or soundproofing (not cheap, and limited capability unless you own it - but at least with  a large room to start with there may be scope).

NJB posted:

Popeye posted:

What is your room size and equipment?

Sorry, missed out on that info.  Bluesound Node through Chord Qutest, Naim 282/250.2 with twin PSUs.  Room is 3m wide and 5m long.  Speakers are on the shorter wall firing down the 5m length.  Although it is a laminate floor, plenty of rugs etc and the Focus 160s do not suffer from excessive bass reflections.  

With a 282/250.2 you could try the Confidence C1s before using floorstanders.

Innocent Bystander posted:

Iconoclast posted:

I'm currently trying out a set of Buchardt S400 standmounts. These are by far the most powerful standmounts I've tried (especially in their price range). While I wouldn't call the bass boomy it is so powerful that it has given me a taste of what tower speakers would sound like in my room. I live in a flat and have a fairly large living room with 10' ceilings. They have a nice full sound and are very musical but unfortunately I will have no choice but to return them if I want to stay on good terms with my downstairs neighbors. I'm now looking at something less muscular... 

I'm sure you have a volume control, so don't need to change the speakers to reduce volume...

However, I assume that by 'muscular' you don't mean either max volume capability or efficiency, but bass extension? Flats can be a problem, neighbour-wise, and the options limited: suffer no bass, limit to very quiet listening, move home, or soundproofing (not cheap, and limited capability unless you own it - but at least with  a large room to start with there may be scope).

Even with volume at 8 o'clock on my XS 2 the bass has presence. A bit as if there was a sub in the room up...only with better timing.