How dificult to make a pair of floorstanders from Bookshelfs

[DYohn]

What is it about your bookshelf system that you feel is lacking?

[brubacca]

I feel that they are a bit small for my room. They struggle to pressurize the space. I also feel that they are a bit polite a bit laid back. When I'l listening to most music thats fine. Keb Mo amd others sound good.

Weh its time for pearl jam or metallica its boring.

And I've never been happy with sub integration in the room.

I never had the Rogue Cronus and Paradigm Ref Speakers at the same time. I think that this may be a good combo.

[DYohn]

Your speakers have a 7.5" X 11" footprint. Build two slim towers that are 7.5 X 11 X 24" tall. This results in about 0.75 cuft enclosure space when using 3/4" MDF. Spray paint flat black. Get a couple of inexpensive 10" subwoofers like this one and mount one in each box close to the floor on one of the 11" wide sides. Include a simple crossover such as one of these in series with each woofer. Instant cheap bass-bin. Stand your bookshelf speaker on top of it.

[teaman]

I bought 12 x 48 in 3/4 MDF prefinished shelves from Home Depot. I had the parts for a Klipsch KG-4 speaker that the cabinets were junked out. I took the horn, woofers and crossovers and used a Rotozip to cut out the speaker holes. Once I had my holes cut I simply screwed the panels together every six inches and lined the corners with caulk. Originally the tweeter sat about eighteen inches off the ground, they now sit about 44 inches up, right near ear height. Because I was incorporating a sub into the system I tossed the passive radiators and the low end didn't dig as deep, but sounded better since everything was closer to ear height. With the sub I now have three speakers built...one horizontal and two vertical in the towers. You can see them in the background of my profile picture.


Tim

[wldock]

Sub integration varies from room to room. Some rooms take more adjusting to get things right. Also, there is an argument for dual subs especially for a dual 2 channel music / theater system. Yes, large towers can do wonders for music in the right room. However well placed and integrated subs can offer something that many towers will struggle to offer if the material has intense low stuff.

Read this review on the 5.0 mated with the S-10 sub. Once the reviewer got things dialed in, he did not want to go back to life without the sub!

www.onhifi.com/product/soliloquy_50speakersandsub.htm

As good as I found the 5.0ses, they lacked ultimate bottom end impact. I love the benefits of small monitor speakers and would rather live with their subtractive deficiencies than with the thick, muddled sound of a poorly designed floorstanding loudspeaker. But that’s a personal choice -- other listeners value a physical sound far more than I do.

Of course, I’m not stupid enough to reject an extra octave or two of bottom end. And that’s exactly what the S-10 supplied once I got it set up properly, which took a little fiddling.

I didn’t have a lot of placement choice, so the S-10 went against the front wall about a third of the way into the room. After experimenting with the phase control, I found that, in my room, at that position, I needed to reverse phase by 180 degrees. And, while the subwoofer has a high-pass filter, I wound up preferring the sound when I ran the 5.0ses full-range without passing their signal through the subwoofer at all. After careful adjustment of the subwoofer’s adjustable low pass, I managed to find a point where I wasn’t doubling the speakers’ bottom end (at least not noticeably) and removed any holes in the response.

Suddenly we were in an entirely new ball game. Going back to the Herrweghe Matthäus Passion was a revelation. The venue changed entirely. It had been a large room before, now it was vast -- and that vastness was specific, not general. The basses had bodies, and their voices were fuller and rounder. Then again, so were the sopranos and altos more fully fleshed. It was enough to make me contemplate conversion -- if the Lutherans had a foreign legion, I’d have stormed the recruiting office.

So I did what any audioweenie would do -- I unplugged the subwoofer and everything just withered up and died. Keep in mind that I’d really liked the 5.0ses before hearing them with the properly set up S-10. Now I couldn’t stand ‘em -- give me back my bass!

OK, perhaps I exaggerate, but everything I liked about the 5.0ses, from the soft clarity of their top end to their just-the-facts presentation of the midrange, I liked much better with the S-10 engaged. Surprisingly, I didn’t actually feel as though I’d increased the system’s bass output (most of the time), I felt as though I’d increased everything else from tonal balance to palpability.

Of course, some discs, such as Orb’s Orbus Terraum [Island I2 24099] clearly showed how deep the S-10 was going. The synth basses on this disc weren’t even audible on the 5.0ses alone. Through the S-10, it sounded like I was spiking 30Hz pylons down to the basement -- and I live on the second floor!

The JVC XRCD of Mighty Sam McClain’s Give It Up For Love [JVCXR-0012] showed how vital the S-10 was to the delivery of full-scale musical thrills. Here Bruce Katz’s growling B3 and Kevin Barry’s Strat benefited tremendously from the added heft and body imparted to them by the sub -- they creaked and growled and screamed with true audio verité, while a very life-sized Sam moaned and shouted his blues. And a life-sized Sam is a big man.

Yup, once you’ve heard the 5.0ses with the Soliloquy S-10, you won’t be satisfied without one.

[wldock]

Consider dual subs. Some (Like myself, I like a nice low Q sealed!) like sealed some like ported. Use the right size to integrate with the mains and produce the desired output in the room. Great reading:

Summary of Main Points
For those that want the bottom line on multi-subwoofer setup and calibration, here it is.

• Choose your subs wisely - preferably all identical subs or subs with near equal f3 (3dB rolloff) points.

• Place your subs wisely - in home theater rooms, nothing is more important for achieving good bass than proper placement of your subwoofers and listening seats.

• Make sure all your subs are playing the identical signal - all of your subs should be playing a mono signal that consists of summed bass from all speakers set to "Small" plus LFE info.

• Setup bass management - in your A/V processor/receiver, set all speakers to small, use 80Hz crossover setting as a start, and defeat the internal LPF of all of your subwoofers.

• Level match all of your subs - make sure each sub is playing at the same output level. Then match their combined level to your main speakers or center channel at your listening positions.

• Vary parameters to optimize response – (ie. distance, phase, crossover setting, level, physical placement) to achieve the best measured response of your subs + main channels for your primary listening seats.

• Engage auto-EQ or use the manual EQ - to optimize your response at your primary listening seats. Remember, it's usually better to apply a single equalization correction curve for all subs simultaneously. This applies for all room correction systems, not just Audyssey. If auto EQ doesn't improve the sound of your system, disable it!

• Listen to the end results – listen at your primary listening seats and tweak level and crossover settings only if needed.

www.audioholics.com/subwoofer-setup

audiophilereview.com/subwoofers/why-i-like-stereo-subwoofers.html

www.svsound.com/blogs/svs/75040195-why-go-dual

www.highfidelityreview.com/benefits-of-stereo-subwoofers.html

audiophilereview.com/subwoofers/what-audiophiles-are-getting-wrong-about-subwoofers.html

www.soundoctor.com/whitepapers/subs.htm

www.goodsound.com/features/201001.htm

kenrockwell.com/audio/stereo-subwoofers.htm