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Floor-Standards to Monitors?

I am always tempted to try a good pair of monitors/bookshelf speakers mated with my two subs and see if I can equal or surpass a good pair of floor standing speakers ($15k to $30k) in my 20 x 16 (vaulted ceiling) treated room. The thought of being able to move and set up things without help is very appealing as I get older.  Also, with much of the price of floor standing speakers going into the large cabinet, I am thinking that that an equivalent, or better sound, less the low end should be achievable at “reasonable” prices.  With the application of DSP/room correction, does this eliminate the gap between most of these products? Once you get to a magic price point, are we just paying for company name, exotic materials that may or may not have an impact, and aesthetics?

There are so many monitors out there and the price range is staggering – I have named a few below. The magazines say they are all wonderful and clearly there is no place to hear them all. Where there are measurements, it differentiates them somewhat. I like dynamic resolving speakers (Magico/Vivid) and concerned about mid/bass impact between 80 Hz and 250 Hz when you crank them up where the subs do not help. I would also like a US presence and a company that builds more than 25 copies a year. What do you think? Can I get there? Is paying more than $5k just crazy for monitors? Does room correction level the playing field? Any thoughts or recommendations?

ELAC DEBUT 2.0 B6.2 and AS-61 – both sounded very good at AXPONA

ATC – Never heard them / multiple options

Kii – Great reviews out there but all seem to point to a small room

Revel –M126 Be

TAD – ME1 – sounded great in small room at AXPONA. Likely too small for my room and very expensive as you move up the line

Dynaudio – New Confidence 20 monitor coming out and Contour 20

Focal - Diablo Utopia Colour Evo (expensive) and Sopra 1

Dutch and Dutch – Not highly available in the US but supposed to be exceptional

B & W – 805 D3 – Would need a very treated room

Paradigm – Persona – I have found the entire line bright and lean on bass

Fritz - Carrera 7 Be- A small company but sounded excellent at AXPONA

KEF – A laid back.

Raidho – Expensive

Magico – Very Expensive and old Q design

Harbeth –Cabinet resonance built in - odd


cdj123

Showing 2 responses by audiokinesis

audiokinesis
2,764 posts
 

In my opinion, before you expect room correction to "level the playing field", you should be aware that there are two things DSP cannot fix:

1.  DSP cannot correct the dynamic limitations of a loudspeaker.  It cannot make the motors handle more wattage before overheating, and it cannot make the voice coils travel further before going into over-excursion.   

2. DSP cannot improve the radiation pattern.  For example if a speaker has a lower treble over-emphasis because the radiation pattern is very wide at the bottom end of the tweeter's range, thereby putting out too much energy into the reverberant field in that region, the best you can hope for is a compromise.  If the on-axis and off-axis responses differ significantly, you cannot fix them both at the same time via DSP.

My point being, if you're going to rely on DSP, then make intelligent initial choices in these two areas because DSP can't fix them. 

That being said, it is quite possible for a standmounts-plus-subs system to outperform many floorstanders.  It depends on the specifics - there is a lot of variation possible.  Sometimes standmounts-plus-subs is the configuration of choice, rather than the configuration of necessity. 

Duke

dealer/manufacturer

audiokinesis
2,764 posts
 

@soix said:  "First, if you’re talking about large, multi-driver speakers or line array speakers IME there is a soundstage size/scale, coherence, dynamics, and perceived effortlessness thing going on that I just don’t see a monitor and subs being able to match."

Sometimes it is the exceptions to the rules that make high-end audio interesting!

I'll be showing a monitor + subs system at RMAF 2018.  On paper at least, I think my system will theoretically compete with some six-figure floorstanders in several areas, including bandwidth and dynamics and effortlessness.  Harder to compare soundstage and coherence by making educated guesses, but I don't think these are necessarily compromised by the monitor + subs format. 

So IN GENERAL I agree with you, but I'm involved with something that aspires to be an exception to the rules. 

Duke

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