One of the best pieces of advice I've ever gotten from a dealer was not to think of speakers in terms of monitor or floorstanding. Just find a speaker you enjoy listening to and don't worry about the design. Sounds simple, but very few people think that way. They assume a floor-stander has more bass or deeper bass, which isn't necessarily true. Frankly, if you listen to mostly hard rock and metal, I would seriously consider a pro-sound speaker like a JBL Professional or EAW with a 15" woofer and a horn or 2-12"s and a bullet tweeter, or even the JBL 3-way with the 18" woofer. These will give you much more impact and sound pressure than comparable high-end speakers. In a perfect world, a speaker should be able to reproduce all types of music, but in the real world of budgets and design compromises, some speakers are definitely better suited towards certain genres of music.
Floorstanding speakers vs. Standmount speakers&sub
I`m just curious as to what your thoughts are on this topic. I know this has been debated before but I couldn`t find much out there on this. The reason I ask is I`m currently using PMC FB1i`s with an Esoteric AI-10 integrated amp and a Bryston BCD-1 cd player in a small to mid size room, 16x13x8 with an open staircase. The room is fully furnished and carpeted and the speakers must be place about a foot off the wall. I realize that standmounts will not go as low in the base extension but paired with a good sub could sound as good or better than some smaller floorstanding speakers. I`m looking for a wider soundstage /dispersion and a fuller sound . The bass and clarity is pretty good on the PMC`s. If you have any suggestions for good standmount & sub combos that may better the PMC FB1i`s or any other small floorstanders that may sound better with my situation please suggest some. I did demo Dynaudio Contour 1.4`s, they were nice sounding. Thanks in advance.