Floorstander or Bookshelf?

hello guys...

i'm thinking of buying a pair of speaker and an integrated amp to complete my budget hifi setup.

i just got a CD player from Marantz CD6002 recently and am looking forward to get one of those integrated from NAD too.

i have a few questions:
which one producing better sound quality? the floorstander or the bookshelf? or they don't pose any difference at all?

do you think it's okay to match Marantz with NAD or should i just go with Marantz amp instead?

any better suggestions are very much appreciated

FYI, i'm more into rock music

TQ

both have pros & cons
but i'll go for slim floorstander
like kef Q series

*dont really like speaker stands

Where is your listening location? Living hall? Room? Floorstander will sound boomy if placed in small and bookshelf will struggle to fill a big hall with sound. Just remember to give your speaker sufficient room to breath.

Hi bob,
I totally agree with alex, small rim for Kancil, Big alloy wheel for 4x4 & sport car.

yup, u need to justify ur location bob

yeah i got it. but sometimes kancils also got massive rims on. how about that?
well, the listening area is gonna take place in my room. approx. 4m x 6m

Hi bob,
If Kancil got massive rims on it then you should try 125/60/11 Kancil wheel for Ferrari F430

Your room is around 12ft x 18ft, it consider medium size room. It should be no problems for floorstand speaker.

Your Room size = 2000cc vehicular

Ah yeah did listening distance need to be consider? as i has a 4m*2.5m room but my listening distance only 1m

Hi Mr.Chew~
I had change my spaker cable to NAC A5, it is really a good cable
I am again into looking for a speaker for my nait 5i hope to get ur help after~ thinking to try Harbeth P3 or ATC scm7~

Hi bob,

No doubt you can place a floorstand in a small room but you are gona miss the advantage of bookshelf. To make things simple, imo a equal or below 4x4m is considered small and 4x6m is a very decent room. You could go for floorstand but keep in mind that there are many bookshelf out there which is gona eat up floorstand. Personally I prefer bookshelf as I had both before In any case you can add a sub later if you find lack of bass if you were to go for b.shelf. Go audition, choose you speaker and do report to us how you find both of them.

Hi Bob, base on ur avatar and "like of Rock music" u better get a floorstander. Loudness maybe something u really after for. Dont complain if you have muddier soundstage due to the constant echo from a small room though. But ur problem maybe solved if ur system going to sit in ur living hall.

Dont forget to match it will a powerful amp! Happy rocking!

Chewkw wrote:Hi bob,
If Kancil got massive rims on it then you should try 125/60/11 Kancil wheel for Ferrari F430

i've got the rims but for now, couldn't afford to bring a ferrari back into my porch...
would be on cloud 9 if anyone in here ever willing to let me do their ferrari a spin or two with my kancil rims

thank you guys for sharing some good stuff with me regarding this matter... think i might just go for the floorstander, but gotta hold a little longer because i've got a good deal on used audiolab amp. how about that? gotta grab this one first...

alex wrote:Hi bob,

No doubt you can place a floorstand in a small room but you are gona miss the advantage of bookshelf. To make things simple, imo a equal or below 4x4m is considered small and 4x6m is a very decent room. You could go for floorstand but keep in mind that there are many bookshelf out there which is gona eat up floorstand. Personally I prefer bookshelf as I had both before In any case you can add a sub later if you find lack of bass if you were to go for b.shelf. Go audition, choose you speaker and do report to us how you find both of them.

hi alex,
if you have a nice pair of speaker (floorstand or shelf) or the one that you had before that you might wanna let go. Please let me know, maybe we can do some business then. how about that?

Hi bob,

Too bad I had let go my previous floorstand last year. Audiolab is a good amp but not sure whether it is suitable for rock songs or not, hehe. Good luck in hifing...

sold already? aiseyman...

well, if audiolab is not suitable for rock, it's ok with me... since i am a beginner in this scene, i wanna get the experience myself of the sounds which comes out of my system and experimenting in the future. of course i will be upgrading the system later on . for now i must listen to something man... it's been a while since my micro component blown up. heavy rocking' i guess? haha...

bob, what kind of rock you listened to? Like Marilyn Manson, Metallica? If yes then you better go for floorstand with metal tweeter. IMO you do like your music to sound bright? Unlike me I prefer warm sound but sometimes I do listen to rock and my speaker lack of umph!!

i used to have a rock set-up and my set-up consists of:

amp - pioneer a-400x
cd - pioneer pds-703
dac - audio alchemy dac in the box
speaker - kef coda 9

those were the good old days until i'm tired of banging my head everyday..so i decided to change to another set-up.

for me, if you got the space...go for floorstander...if not bookshelf is sufficient...there are many good bookshelf in the market...to name a few..proac, epos etc.

small but capable bookshelf plus subwoofer can do a superb job

clean sound of bookshelf and weighty deep bass from the sub

i dont really agree bookshelf with subs
when volume is low its lack of bass,
when its high the bass will be too loud

try to search for a deep box bookshelf
rear port bass will be a good option

i listen to rock, all sorts, grind, fast, industrial etc
floorstander is too loud, even for your neighbours

im looking forward to a pair of aad c-150
anyone can advice on this? pls do

azri wrote:i dont really agree bookshelf with subs
when volume is low its lack of bass,
when its high the bass will be too loud

try to search for a deep box bookshelf
rear port bass will be a good option

i listen to rock, all sorts, grind, fast, industrial etc
floorstander is too loud, even for your neighbours

im looking forward to a pair of aad c-150
anyone can advice on this? pls do

Need to get the right placement for the sub to get punchy bass at low level. Also must be a good sub.

Too loud is because no proper room acoustic or wrong placement

I have listened many small bookshelf with either passive or active subs in a dedicated listening foom.

They can outperform many higher end floorstanders!

Hi Fi is such a complicated thing sometimes..
Everything also has contribution towards the quality of the sound.

Room, placement, cabinet, type of material etc etc.. have all been mentioned.
One more thing that I would like to add. hahaha...

The quality of the speaker driver.
This is very important as a good driver has the control of the sound reproduction.

I have to thank the person who explained to me about this.
(I wonder he is reading this... )

He used the analogy of a car as the speaker.
The car does not only need accelerator but also the brake.
Can accelerate but no brake also no use mar...

That is damping. The phase delay is causing a lot of trouble. The car is moving forward and try to reverse the gear, (because the music said so). Bookshelf is known to produce the most accurate sound reproduction but not the musics. Floorstander can fill up the room with musics but not necessary the sound reproduction. The environment can affect the gear you put in, and affect the sound reproduction and also the musics.

well bob, u just have to bring rock cds & test them out with each options
bookshelf, bookshelf plus subs, floorstanders (single, twin bass) etc

a slim floorstanders can do a good job for rock music, but twin bass is a bit too loud
unless if each drivers has different dedications like tannoy's sixers

bookshelf has precise sounding, but u i'll have to consider the size to match ur room
plus additional cost for speaker stands, suddenly when u feel not punchy enough, then u'll start hunting for a sub

hi bob, this one stands between bookshelf & a floorstander
aad s-3, not sure how much & is it available locally
but definitely a loudspeaker

for ur info, im looking for a pair of speakers too
so far its between aad or ae, since kef is pretty hard to get

let the hunting season begins..

alex wrote:bob, what kind of rock you listened to? Like Marilyn Manson, Metallica? If yes then you better go for floorstand with metal tweeter. IMO you do like your music to sound bright? Unlike me I prefer warm sound but sometimes I do listen to rock and my speaker lack of umph!!

hi alex,
i am a big fan of metallica and i used to listen to Marilyn Manson before. but now i got hooked up to In Flames & Children Of Bodom. they call it melodic death metal...
yes i like the sound to be bright and clear particularly the mid range. when i listen to rock i dont really like the bass to be heavy or too deep because i couldn't hear the voice and the drum beats clearly.
but, the bass must set to full blast when it comes to electronica or rave...
i.e the prodigy

hi azri,
it looks like centre speaker. but it comes in pair.man they're a beauty... wonder how they perform. have you tried them before?

hey azri, in your other replies, you said that you are not in malaysia. where are you now bro? is it really hard to get KEF speakers here? i was thinking of getting a pair since you said the Q series are good.

It is not hard to find KEF here, you could find them in Tong Lee at low yat plaza. IMO they mark up the price quite high and that makes them less sought after. Have you done any auditioning so far?

I own the KEF cresta 10. Recently I upgraded the crossover with Jantzen, exotic resistors and it sounded more sexy than before. Do resistors make a difference like power cord, Yes. Too bad, VCAP OIMP is sticking their nose up.

Well if you get a bookshelf, the cost of a good stand will set you near a floor stander. Btw a floor stander has a more open sound...If you those rock music lover, get a jbl with a 12" woofer...Great highs and great lows. Btw audiolab with your music taste you should stay away...try rotels...

bob wrote:
hi alex,
i am a big fan of metallica and i used to listen to Marilyn Manson before. but now i got hooked up to In Flames & Children Of Bodom. they call it melodic death metal...
yes i like the sound to be bright and clear particularly the mid range. when i listen to rock i dont really like the bass to be heavy or too deep because i couldn't hear the voice and the drum beats clearly.
but, the bass must set to full blast when it comes to electronica or rave...
i.e the prodigy

if u are into bass u might try tdl, acoustic energy, kef or even mission...not sure you can find locally but they sure rocked!

bob wrote:hi azri,
is it really hard to get KEF speakers here? i was thinking of getting a pair since you said the Q series are good.

Hi Bob,
you may visit Nova Audio at PJ. they are distributor of Kef speakers.The IQ 70 or 90 may be your cup of tea, but what Hoyhoysum said is true, get a pair of 12" driver speakers like Pioneer S-910, JBL Century 100 or Yamaha NS-1000M will be more suitable for rock music!!!
Cheers.

It is not necessary to use large drivers to deliver the bass for the 12'x18' area. Check the response of speakers, e.g. Dynaudio specs, AAD, ATC. These manufacturer dont lie on their specs sheet.

bob wrote:hi azri,
it looks like centre speaker. but it comes in pair.man they're a beauty... wonder how they perform. have you tried them before?

hey azri, in your other replies, you said that you are not in malaysia. where are you now bro? is it really hard to get KEF speakers here? i was thinking of getting a pair since you said the Q series are good.

im in brisbane, australia. the Q series is a beauty. but am not sure which models available with the distributor in PJ. bring ur own cd, & tell them u need to audition before deciding to buy. may they help u, if not tell them "go screw urself!!".. no just kidding.

dont forget to mention what amp ur using (rated power etc)

for jbl, HT5 is good, but cant stand the price for its size,
but the bi radial horn tweeters seems promising for rock music hehe
kef cresta 30 is a good choice for u to consider bob
last time i missed a chance buying this for just au140/pair

im think im going for aad c150, am already have tannoy sixers floorst
so am not goin to stuf another sets of floorstanders

as for yamaha, u can try ns-5/10 or ns-333, a bang for bucks!!
did i mention kef coda? small but loud!! hehe

but, they are bookshelf monitors
but kef coda 9 is a floorstander

I think Coda 9 is an old model, the replacement is coda 90. I personally having the coda 90 after exchanging with the iQ3 series i had it for a week or two. I went to Tong Lee for exchange something better and after comparing the highly rated iQ4 with coda 90. i took the coda home. Personally i prefer the coda 90. I am surprised as to why this coda 90 is underated. It has bass response down to 26hz sensitivity a high 91 dB. Easy to drive. I am not sure, i heard it was make by mission. It takes some time to break in especially the shrill tweeter. This speaker no need subwoofer.

mine is coda 6, old one & thinking of customizing a new box
coda 6 tweeters/woofers plus sony apm woofers them both 6ohm,
floorstanding configuration, two separate section, know any good tukang kayu??

really? what model & brands mr siva??