Floor standers or Monitors?



I'd very much like to have things simple. simple is best IMO. it's not always that easy though.

I'm finding more often than not so called 'full range' speakers, aren't quite so full range. OK. 30hz is fine by me. Maybe even 40hz. but flat at, not -3db or more off at that point.

Also with Eff in mind I'm about give up on finding reasonably high eff floorstanders to provide full range sonics and am seriously considering going the monitor + sub route. Figuring a pair of 2K - 3K monitors should surpass 2k - 3k floor units, save for the lowest octaves.

Then what have been other's considerations here in selecting monitors vs. floorstanders, or vice versa?

Only esthetics?

I feel personally a set of monitors and sub (s), for the same money being spent on a pair of uprights, should surpass the performance of a pair of floor standers, shouldn't they?

Or am I being too simplistic?
blindjim
Optarchie

thanks. Again, any press on the Pinions? 'cause the freemonts are too high for me. Probably the Pinions too... I've not seen any used here on the 'gone.
No reviews, however a regular search turned up a few sites
selling them with some descriptions. www.gamutaudio.com/products yields some more stuff. Reviews I've found are not in english.

A friend who lives too far away for me to have heard his
actual system with new L-3's, dragged me into the Gamut room at RMAF and they (the L-3's) just flatout impressed me (and toward the end of the show at that- many great systems showed up there which had already raised the "good sound" bar a bit).

I'm of no affiliation, I know no dealers, I wanted to hear what a buddies new speakers sounded like and I just plain like a good stand mounted monitor every bit as much as the bleeding edge monsters FS designs. Even more maybe, dragging full sound out of a small box has physical limitations, and the consequential design balancing act that the really good speaker designers have to dance is gloriously laden with nasty pitfalls. At least the crossovers are generally easier, but really good stand mounts are just plain really good speakers.

I considered buying some L-3's new at full retail myself. No minimonitor aside from the large Sonus Fabers had ever been as emotionally involving, I think that's where the difference between accurate monitors and wonderful speakers
lies when your talking stand mounts. I still have some LS3/5A's, and as wonderful as they are in the nearfield, there ultimately is a lack of impact and body that becomes
tiring after a few weeks and I have to swap them out for
floorstanders. I can't imagine the L-3's would produce that same restlessness from lack of bottom fullness. Obviously they only go so far down, but I was very suprised at how little they lacked.

I thought I had heard Escalante's, but the ones I heard
didn't look like the ones on their website so I can't comment. I thought the ones I heard had horn shaped side panel insets.

Sorry to ramble,
RFG
Rf_gumby

Thanks... yep... saw the same Danish review... couldn't make much of it though.. other than I believe they liked it. I think. ha

Wonder if you can copy and paste it into bablefish...??

It will be way important for me to have a mon that can get down flat to 40hz. Absolutely. Transparency in the mids, sweet on top, and great imaging, otherwise wil do. Add in a bit of jump to it and i'm there as I listen to a number of genres... not just females & acoustical.

Whatever the name on it is, ain't real important to me.
Well I want to thank everone that shared their thoughts here with and for me and anyone else, for that matter.

I decided to go with floorstanders. Sonata IIIs. Two reasons:

1 I want to try some lower powered amps and they seem to have the numbers necessary for that purpose.

2 I really want to not have to use a sub. the VSA JRs weren't too bad without a sub so maybe the Sonata IIIs will do well too.

We'll see soon enough... again, thanks so very much.