Can you get "bookshelf sound" from a floorstander?


Listened to B&W's 6 series and much prefered the 686 and 685 to the more expensive floorstanders. I'm a junkie for clear and coherent vocals and the floorstanders seemed to muddy the sound.
Listened to Dynaudio Focus 110s and loved them. Compared them to the Contour 5.4s and I loved the top end of them even more than the Focus' but was again bothered by what I want to call an incoherence... lack of focus... integration... with the low end.

Owned Totem Arros and Dreamcatcher monitors with Dreamcatcher sub and prefered the dreamcatcher monitors over the Arros and without the sub, too.

Am I just a bookshelf guy? Was it my choice of floorstanders? Setup? Anyone have better words to describe what I'm trying to say? I certainly love the low end and dynamic grunt of the big ones but not at such expense.
128x128eyediver

Showing 4 responses by eyediver

Thanks for all of your responses guys (or gals).

I think the issue I'm having is likely a combination of all of the factors mentioned above (speaker choice, driver configuration, cabinet resonances, room acoustics...)

Sadly, most of the speakers mentioned are out of my price range at this time. I'm hoping to spend around 1K or less used.

Pryso: Yes, I should refer to them as monitor or standmount. Thanks for that.

Mapman: Can you make a recommendation for a speaker that has "as few transducers as possible and for the configuration of those drivers present to approximate a point or line source and a neutral timbre overall."?

I plan on going into specifics about speakers I've heard and asking for recommendations but I'd prefer to do that in a seperate post.

What I'm hearing so far, is that most of you believe you CAN in fact get that "monitor magic" I've been experiencing in a floorstanding speaker.
It is my hope to respond more fully and individually in the next few days to this thread. I went ahead and posted another thread with (a lot more! ;) information about what I've heard and liked/didn't like. I think this info might help steer your recommendations a bit more.
Once again, thanks for all of your responses.
Oops! Forgot the link.
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1242945815
"The great speaker quest"
I've responded to many of you in the other post.
Again: http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1242945815