Towers or not?

[P-Dub]

Okay, are towers really the way to go for hometheater applications?

If I'm using the receiver's bass management, if it Xovers from 60-90, then a good set of bookshelf speakers with a good sub would be the perfect combination.




Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.

[Greg Stone]

I asked that same question when I decided to "get into" home theater last year. And with space a problem, and the wife acceptance factor a problem, I went with bookshelf speakers that would fit into my entertainment center.

My Denon does the bass management, my sub punches out the bass, and the wife is happy our living room has not been taken over with "stereo stuff".

I love the way my system sounds, probably not near as good as others here, but for what I spent I am really happy with my bookshelf speakers.




Greg's DVD's

[DanB]

Paul-
I personally use 4 Studio 100's along with a Servo-15 and couldn't be happier. I use an MC-1, and I have set it up to lower the bass when I use music modes, and bump it up a little for movies..ya know, for impact.. LOL.
I cross the 100's over at 40 hz, the center at 120, and the sub at 40...I find that in my room that combo is excellent, giving me deep bass and still keeping my midrange nice and clear.
Nothing wrong with bookshelf speakers, of course...I just like to have a speaker with some bottom end.
Just my .02 cents.




_____________________________________________

[Ken McDaniel]

Paul, I for one believe there are definite advantages to using towers. Take two speakers with identical drivers; one a tower, the other a bookshelf (Grand Piano and Concerto anyone?). There are always benefits to having larger cabinets. If you crossed over both speakers at around 60 Hz, I believe you'd find that the tower would provide a little more 'air' than its little brother.




Ken

[ThomasW]

One would be hard pressed to get the same performance from a big tower, that is available from a mid height state of the art MMT or MTM design combined with a good sub. Even the largest towers aren't large enough to be competitive in the lowest octaves with something like a large tube sub, even if the tower has say 15" drivers. Also they (towers) end up being 250-350 lbs. Not an insignificant weight when it comes to portability

An example of this is JonMarsh's X1-SLAMM klones,



Even with a 12" and 15" /side these still need a sub to get the lowest octaves.




theAudioWorx
Klone-Audio

[Bing Fung]

You know how some people are always trying to define what is a true HT? (I don't care, or subcribe to this type of bining)... However I do have to say those define what is a tower and what isn't! Kidding LoL

What I don't understand is; if supposedly the best HT sound comes from setting all speakers to small and letting the sub handle 80 and down, whats' the point of having a speaker that can go lower than 80hz?

Why don't we all just buy bookshelf's for the mains and surrounds?

My Denon crosses over @ 80hz.




Bing

[SiliGoose]

What I don't understand is; if supposedly the best HT sound comes from setting all speakers to small and letting the sub handle 80 and down, whats' the point of having a speaker that can go lower than 80hz?

Music. It just sounds better (generally) with a good pair of full range towers and no sub.

Though I really don't subscribe to letting the sub handle everything from 80 and down.




-Sili

[Lexman]

Paul, I like to see a speaker capable of lower than it's actually desigated to perform. That way, if you want to call it into duty, you can.

Some bookshelf speakers are very competent. Such as the Concertos and even the Concertinos from Sonus faber. I have ran the Concertos as mains for 2 weeks before, and really liked them. But again, your talking 2K worth of 2 ways. The Grand Pianos are rated a little lower, though still a 2 way design. So, a good bookshelf speaker is capable of performing well with sub support. But a tower makes a statement, and is a good thing. But again, this does depend on the speaker.

Lex

[John Holmes]

I have used both in my setup. I think that it really comes down to what's comfortable for your room and associated furnishings, what is more important(theater or music) for freq response(small vs. large setting) and of course the wallet.

For me, I like the THX standard thus I ended up with the bookshelf. I lean more towards movies in my system. However, I feel that my THX speakers do quite well on music too.

I have towers in my bedroom which I don't plan to change anytime soon.




"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's

[Bing Fung]

Ahhhh..... Music, of course




Bing

[Andrew Pratt]

I think a lot depends on what pre amp you have to work with. If your receiver will only do fixed crossover at say 80 then going to towers might not make sense....at least for HT. In music again it depends on what you're listening to and how well the towers can reproduce bass. If you like the impact of a sub on music then a quality sub and good bookshelf speakers are the way to go. If you have adjustable crossovers then I can see the benefits of towers so you can take advantage of their upper bass region but most of us don't. That said crossovers aren't rock solid and there's considerable overlap above and below the crossover point so if you set your receiver to 80 the mains will still try to play bass below that...and micro bookshelf speakers aren't going to be able to do that well so large bookshelfs may be more versatile. (for what its worth all my "towers" are set to small for HT, in music the subs on and the mains switch to large)

[Wireless]

I will say after having owned a book shelf system with sub and now having full range towers with no sub, there is a coherence to the soundstage that wasn't there before. Could be that my towers are of much better quality than the sat/sub system I had before. Just my 2cents.




John
My HT Picts

[P-Dub]

Initially I've beleived that towers were always the way to go, but recently, I've wondered about it, hence the topic. There's something cool about having some nice looking towers. Now I did try to limit it to home theater reproduction. For music, I'm outa my league. But yes, there is music in movies, so I guess a more musical speaker should perform better.

I had one salesman tell me the B&W's go way above 20Khz, he stated that us humans can't hear above 20Khz, but that in doing so, B&W has assured that the speakers would be able to reproduce 20Khz sound without any problems. Others that are designed to just hit 20Khz may not perform as well. Okay I buy that, I think of this as I don't need to hit the redline in my engine to reproduce the highs.

Now the lows, I've seen there's always that pesky +-3db rating at the 40hz level. Now if I read this right, this means the speaker can hit a low of 40hz, with a drop of -3db from the other freq. So what is the measure of hz at 0db? Is it 60hz or is it 90hz? This is where I see the bass management coming in. If I have a flat response to 20Khz, then I'd like to try and get a flat response to under my crossover. So if my cross over is at 60hz, then a speaker that will go down to 40hz, would be in order. Maybe this is too simplistic?

I'm of the opinion that the lower the crossover, the better, or at least something with an adjustable crossover.

Actually, the whole picture needs to be looked at in order to determine what is best for the situation.




Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.

[MRWILLL]

In the "bass heavy" HT'ers of today, I use all full range tower spks (down to 35Hz/25Hz), with my double center spk set-up at 120Hz in 7.2 (two subs). I get an even flow of powerful, dynamic, bass and LF effects.


In some movies when I switch to the EX/ES setting, too much LF effects, and the even flow dissappears. My tower spks become small (setting) spks.




STOP!!...LOOK!!...LISTEN!!
DVD...Hear it from the people who
mixed and mastered it "LEXICON".

[ThomasW]

Paul

Regarding FR specs, there's no such thing as + and - at one frequency. FR rating are usually something like +2/-3 20-20Khz. This of course means that the FR can basically vary as much a 5db from 20-20Khz, the spread being no more than +2 above or -3 below 0db anywhere along the response curve.

Now this too can be deceptive because speaker measurement curves can have "smoothing" applied. This makes the curve much "flatter". Also the FR plots are made under "ideal" conditions usually in an anachoic chamber, so the in-home performance will vary significantly




theAudioWorx
Klone-Audio

[P-Dub]

Ahh, I see I can't just look at the bottom number in isolation. The specs I was looking at was +-3db 38-21,Khz. So I see now that this covers the whole range. I guess specs are just a starting point.




Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.