Can i know the differences of bookshelf and floorstanding speakers? Which is better? And for what applications? Or bookshelf speakers with a sub compared with floorstanding.

Good morning!

As you might expect, the answer is, "it depends."

I've gone a few iterations on the speaker configuration in my living/HT room. We started off with 5.1 based on a pair of M3's (bookshelf) on stands as the mains - left and right. I did this to try to minimize the 'visual impact' and please the significant other. They sounded very nice, but something was missing. So, I added a subwoofer and that helped a lot. But after some time we (well, I) decided the bookshelf speakers on the stands looked a little like peanuts in an ocean against the entertainment center and I felt there was a 'hole' in the base response - between the lower-end of the M3's and the upper end of the sub. So, I got a pair of M60's (floor-standing). Now everybody's happy - excellent, continuous frequence response and a nice appearance with the furniture.

I guess the simplistic answer to your question is, if you're going to put them on bookshelves, get bookshelf speakers. If they go on the floor, get floorstanding speakers. Bigger speakers mean deeper bass.

-Brian

Try this.

You need to give us more information regarding your environment, every situation is different.

Hmmmmmm.....Bookshelf vs floorstanders?

When we started in home theater in the old house, we started with bookshelf speakers for the front channels cuz we had a small room. We started cheap and used a moderately inexpensive 5.1 channel HTIB(home theater in a box)but fairly quickly(Hah! Quick my..uh, never mind)spent a lot of time deciding on a good set of bookshelfs, ended up with M3s!(Good stuff) Anyway; M3s for mains and HTIB speakers for the rest. All small speakers for a small room. and a small 10" sub.

Then for a birthday or Christmas or something, our youngest Daughter gave us her four kids to raise, and we suddenly needed a bigger house!! And bigger speakers cuz the M3s seemed just a bit strained in our much larger listening room when we tried to invite even moderate sized orchestras into our home.

....we may have been straining our 55WPC amp as well.

So...

We got floorstanders to take up the slack. And the more numerous drivers in bigger boxes just SING when asked to do so!!

We pushed the M3s to the back for surrounds and added another M3 up front for center duties, got a more powerfull receiver and of course added a bigger sub!

The M3 bookshelf speakers work great and never seem strained in center and surround duties, although they sure didn't seem happy as mains. As mains they had to work too hard since I insisted on crossing them at 60hz and the sub integration didn't seem to work as well as I liked. The M3s just couldn't keep up with the sub at the volume levels I was asking for.

......(speakers? Amp? Both? I dunno....)But;

My M50s keep up with no problem at all and even ask for more!!

To add an "it depends", not all subs will match well with all bookshelf speakers in all rooms. As n8wrl points out, there can be a gap between the two depending on cross-over, but placement, room size, etc. I have a largish room (23x16x9), a pair of M3 mains, VP100 center and TN-1220HO sub. I've never gone above -20dB on my receiver in HT, and usually go to -30dB, and I get decent response to 20 Hz. But I use a Rane parametric equalizer, without which there would certainly be gaps in the bass.

With well positioned floorstanding speakers, you'll get much smoother reponse down to the 50 Hz range with no equalization, than with a sub in a corner and a couple of M3s and no equalization.

So if I could be so bold, if you put an M3 on top of an EP350 in place of each M60 (same placement) I bet you'd get a better response than the M60 and a single sub in the corner.

Martin