Pro/Con Floorstanding VS Monitor, which's better?

DEPENDING ON HOW HIGH YOU HAVE TO CROSSOVER...SAT/SUB SYSTEMS CAN BE DIFFICULT TO INTERGRATE TOGETHER FOR SEAMLESS SOUND...BASS BECOMES OMNI-DIRECTIONAL AT 40HZ...CROSSING OVER HIGHER THAN THIS DRAWS ATTENTION TO THE SUB PLACEMENT...IN SMALLER ROOMS..WHERE THE LISTENER WILL BE IN THE SINE WAVE CREATED BY THE SUB...THIS IS LESS PROBLEMATIC...EITHER WAY...DECENT SUBS ARE PRICEY...AND ANY SUB IS TRICKY TO INTERGRATE...IN LARGER ROOMS...I LIKE THE COHESION OF LARGE STANDMOUNTS...SUCH AS THE NEW QUAD 12L..WHICH HAS VERY TIGHT,QUICK,ARTICULATE BASS...AND SOUND MUCH DEEPER THAN THEIR SPECS WOULD INDICATE(40HZ)...PLUS YOU STILL GET THE PRECISION IMAGING MONITORS ARE KNOWN FOR...WITHOUT DISTRUPTING THE CRITCAL MIDBAND AREA..AND IF YOU WANT TO ADD A SUB...YOU CROSSOVER AT 40 INSTEAD OF 60...ETC...

I debated the same issue when it came tiem to purchase speakers. For me the most sonically annoying aspect of any system is bass boom and bass sloppiness. With a monior and sub (preferably subS) combo I can place the monitors in their ideal location in terms of transparency and soundstaging and place the subs in ideal ocations thrpughout my room and tune the bass to my liking. With the floorstander you have no such option in terms of bass tuning. The closest I have seen is speakers like Meadowlark who have different crossovers built into the speaker, one for lower bass one for more. I think Vandersteen does the same type of thing in the Vandy 5. However these speakers cost upward of 6k (estimating). My monitors cost 2k used and use better drivers (if that matters to your ears) and has the flexible placement properties mentioned earlier. Besides I can actually live in the room with my Dyn 1.3se rather than build a room for a set of comparable floorstanders.

Depends on your room..for transparency,out of box imaging,and few difraction issues monitors will prevail in a small room...in larger rooms the added bass of a floorstander will fill out the sound...few monitors have enough low end to compete...they will end up sounding very lean...case your wondering...not a good thing..

Davetherave, What Hi-Fi did this last year. They liked the B&W CDM7 over the CDM1. I remember because all others they liked monitor over floorstander.

Good question... since we're talking about speakers with comparable performance, I'd probably go with monitors with a good set of speaker stands, in large part because I prefer the aesthetics of monitors. But having good monitors pretty much calls for having good speaker stands--the stands have a big effect on performance.

One of the audio magazines (I forget which, but I think it was British) recently did a comparison of comparable models within 4 or 5 major speaker brands; that is, for example, they compared a Proac monitor to the Proac floorstander with similar speaker elements. In all the cases, the reviewer preferred the monitor, and the monitor cost less. Sorry I can't pinpoint the publication; perhaps you can find it online.

I've had both. Monitors are easier on the eyes. Well made ones are elegant. Floorstanders dominate the space they populate. They're more dynamic. All I can suggest is walk the walk and discover which you prefer for your environment.