What made you choose monitors over towers?

[Mathew Ward]

What made you choose monitors over towers? Budget and back order aren’t an issue. Was it a room size issue? Do monitors sound as good as towers with more drivers? I know they aren’t as efficient.

I’m currently in the process of upgrading my home theater and 2 channel. I would like to integrate them closer into one system. I’m currently running a 5.1.2 system using KEF and REL. KEF LS50s and an REL HT1508 Predator. While I do love the system I think I’m missing a fuller sound by them missing a dedicated driver. My room is 13ft deep (~4m) x 17ft wide (~5m). Im using a Denon x3600h with an Audiocontrol G4 235 watt amp for the front 3. I’ve been looking at selling the reciever and amp and getting the Arcam AV31 at 120w per channel with Dirac. I already use an Arcam CDS50 CD player and an Arcam ST60 network media player.

I’m looking at the 1723s for the front 3. I know Villaman on youtube runs them in a room similar to my size.

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[David Rojas]

For me, it was a combination of budget, room size, and general aesthetic preference. I didn’t find any real advantage to spending more for towers. My cinema room is also very small, so the added “benefit” of additional drivers is not contributing much in such a small space. Lastly, I just honestly have never loved the general look of floor-standing speakers. I much prefer the placement flexibility of a monitor in most cases (especially when they have VESA mounts like Arendal <3).

In my experience, a lack of a “fuller sound” is almost always helped by the implementation of multiple subs (at least two). If it’s a smaller room, even two small, well-built subs can do more to balance out a room than what most people realize.

[Mariusmssj]

Flexibility. Towers are great and my previous speakers were towers but getting monitors gives you that extra flexibility that should not be underestimated.

[Daniel Branton]

Hi Mathew,

For me, I wanted my LCR to be 100% identical, even down to having all three vertical. As I didn’t have room for 3x towers, and didn’t actually feel the need for towers as I’m running subs with home cinema and stereo content, I went for 3x 1723 Monitor S. I would have gone for the 8” 1723 Monitors if I had more room to play with, however, as per the below video I don’t have much space. ;-)

 

In an ideal world, I’d love to have Monitors for all of my bed layer speakers to get a seamless experience.

 

[rene-paulus]

I choose the 4 1723 monitors because a tower is included with woofer. And monitors look nice with 2 subs.

[Job Veldhuis]

<p style=”text-align: center;”>I choose bookshelfs speakers over monitor speakers because I like the look of the monitor speakers more. And if I add a subwoofer I can choose where I’ll place it.</p>

[Cyril Bourdier]

I wanted to have a 100% identical LCR and 1723 8 “… the towers were too impressive so logically the monitors were perfect. I am waiting for an order with 2 Subwoofers 1723 1s…….. in 1 month they arrive

[Mirko Cognolato]

With monitors you have more flexibility regads placement expecially in height and the extra bass and authority you get with towers will be useless in a surround system with a great sub integation.

For me towers are better for a 2.0 stereo system.

[neil-h]

For myself, I own the 1723 THX Monitors.. I didn’t have the floor space for the towers. My personal belief is you will get more bass output from the towers but the mids and highs are pretty much the same. I have an SVS sub, so there’s no loss in my opinion on any bass output. You really need a sub/subs anyway to produce low base and for proper setup in a room. Keep in mind, that even if a tower speaker (any brand) has bass drivers that can hit sub base territory, they are “stuck” in the position of your tower speakers which most of the time is not the proper room position anyway and therefore your low base can suffer greatly. This being considered, even if I had the floor space, still the Monitors would be my choice with a good sub. PS Audios own Paul McGowan said of his $28,000 speakers, that even though they could go down to the low base, the drivers were not movable so they were not the most ideal for low base and a sub was  the best alternative.

[Thomas Gunvaldsen]

I actually have the Towers, but if it was all up to me I would have chosen Monitors with two subs for better integration with the room.

It is a living room setup, so in the end, my wife and I agreed on Tower speakers and no subs.

[Mirko Cognolato]

Yeah, I agree with you Thomas, when you can’t use a sub towers are a better option.