Why Cheap Floorstanding Speakers are a Better Deal Than Satellite Speakers

That’s a tough choice and oftentimes our spouse makes the rules. After all, nobody wants to clutter their living room with huge boxes and long wires. But let’s put the visual aspects aside for a moment. Let me tell you that many audiophiles have false assumptions about bookshelf speakers.

First of all, you need a stable speaker stand for bookshelf speakers which doesn’t come cheap. If the speaker drops, the membranes could easily be damaged although this can be fixed with speaker repair kits that are widely available.

A floorstanding speaker doesn’t need a stable base as it is supposed to be used as it is. And to get the best sound quality from small speaker boxes (because this is what we’re after, right?), you shouldn’t push the small speakers into a corner or even onto a bookshelf although the name may suggest so. You would lose all sense of auditory spaciousness and fight with nasty vibrations and boomy bass in effect. That means you better position your speakers free standing. As you can probably guess, there is practically no economical or quality advantage to small speakers. It’s a common myth, that smaller speakers equal less amplifier power which is not true according to my experience. Low impedance and difficult to drive woofers can become a hard load for your amplifier – even in a small box.

There’s even another disadvantage of bookshelf speakers which is the smaller cabinet size. For a good bass response, a larger cabinet size with decent internal volume is almost inevitable. These are the laws of physics.

Of course, I am not telling you that small speakers are not any good. They are perfect for near-field listening and in extremely small rooms or tabletop setups in order to get good sound out of your computer system.