Both compact monitors and small floorstanders based on compact monitors have their advantages and disadvantages. The floorstanders generally have a more even tonal balance with better bass extension and a little more sensitivity and therefore better dynamic range. The monitors have dual advantages of less resonant cabinet panels and a much smaller front baffle. The lower cabinet resonances provide better resolution and low level detail. The small front baffle makes the speakers more of a point source and gives more pinpoint imaging.
It depends on what's important to you in sound reproduction, room size, and musical tastes.
Of course, a floorstander can be free of panel resonances, but it takes thicker panels, a lot more bracing, and sometimes special panel-to-panel isolation schemes, and all these raise the price exponentially even if the speaker uses the same drivers as the monitor version. To get the same minimal front baffle may require front baffle sculpting, which again raises cost.
The deeper a full range speaker reaches, the bigger the challenge to contain the bass energy without it smearing the resolution and detail of the midrange and treble. Big bass waves easily excite enclosure walls, creating panel vibrations that obscure low level detail.
And there are some compacts with outsize bass extension and dynamic range (e.g., Totem Mani-2), also at higher cost for the isobaric configuration and high excursion drivers.
One way to get the best of both is to get minimonitors and subs. The challenge is to integrate the subs to sound as one with the monitors, but if you do, you get the advantages of mini-monitors regarding clarity, resolution, and imaging while the subs fill in the bottom octave or two. Furthermore, the monitors can be placed for best imaging while the powered subs are placed for best and flattest bass response. And the bass output of the subs doesn't excite cabinet resonances in the satellites.
It depends on what's important to you in sound reproduction, room size, and musical tastes.
Of course, a floorstander can be free of panel resonances, but it takes thicker panels, a lot more bracing, and sometimes special panel-to-panel isolation schemes, and all these raise the price exponentially even if the speaker uses the same drivers as the monitor version. To get the same minimal front baffle may require front baffle sculpting, which again raises cost.
The deeper a full range speaker reaches, the bigger the challenge to contain the bass energy without it smearing the resolution and detail of the midrange and treble. Big bass waves easily excite enclosure walls, creating panel vibrations that obscure low level detail.
And there are some compacts with outsize bass extension and dynamic range (e.g., Totem Mani-2), also at higher cost for the isobaric configuration and high excursion drivers.
One way to get the best of both is to get minimonitors and subs. The challenge is to integrate the subs to sound as one with the monitors, but if you do, you get the advantages of mini-monitors regarding clarity, resolution, and imaging while the subs fill in the bottom octave or two. Furthermore, the monitors can be placed for best imaging while the powered subs are placed for best and flattest bass response. And the bass output of the subs doesn't excite cabinet resonances in the satellites.