Is this a new trend?

Lazy run of the mill reviewers who can’t be bothered to handle a heavier speaker, i.e., a floorstander. Get em in, get em out as soon as ya can, it’s a business.

Nothing looks more goofy than that cheapman audio grunt sitting around between 2 matchbox speakers the size of his palms, over and over. It’s almost like he’s striking a pose, thinks he’s Fabio or something, as he sits between 2 crap ferns (pukosaurus rex).

To be fair to Guttenberg, he looks like he might just whither away if he moved anything heavier than 10 lbs.

Aside for more affordability, nothing is better on lousy bookshelfs in undersized cabinets.

Better bass performance tech? More bookshelf+subwoofers combos?

Lot more to it than just bass...The floorstander (if it wasn’t designed by a bozo) will couple better into a room with its vertical woofer stack...floor bounce, modal response, etc. The crossover changes, cabinet volume affects every driver, the entire driver integration process changes, etc.. Never get fooled into thinking that a bookshelf and floorstander from the same series are the same speaker, and the floorstander just came with a lil extra bass, which you can easy peasy make up for with the crapbox bookshelf version + subwoofer.

Not to mention...If the speaker didn’t come with a dedicated stand that the designer spent significant time on (which he almost never will), you have introduced an unnecessary lousy variable called the stand.

The difference in sound is in the bass region because you can’t cheat physics. You need cabinet volume to create bass substantial below 30HZ and most Standmounts can NOT do this. Hell, most towers speakers can’t ’actually’ measure below 30HZ.