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John
Standmounts. I love ’em. One cardboard box, two speakers. What could be simpler? What could be easier to store? Standmount speakers have long been a better acoustic fit for my 6m x 5m lounge room than floorstanders. I had learnt the hard way (many years ago) just how easy it is to buy too much speaker for the room. Besides, a standmount’s comparatively lower physical intrusion is also a plus, especially when sat on an attractive loudspeaker stand.
But — what about that bass? How do we get our hi-fi system to go where standmounts won’t? An upgrade to floorstanders might be the obvious answer but wait: they might go lower but, just like a standmount loudspeaker, a floorstander’s bass reach is fixed at the factory.
The addition of a subwoofer makes low/er bass not only possible but flexible: free of an otherwise floorstanding cabinet, a mains-powered low bass cube can be located separately from its standmounted mains for more optimal in-room bass unit placement. Thereafter, the amount of bass can be dialled in via the sub’s gain rotary and – if we’re lucky – a DSP-powered boundary compensation dip switch.
Last month, I became curious about what kind of loudspeaker setups were being used by members of the Darko.Audio YouTube community. Were most of ’em content with just standmounts? Or had subwoofers become de rigeur in their world? How many had the space – physical and mental – for floorstanding loudspeakers? And how many of those had added a subwoofer (or two) to the mix?
With 200K+ subscribers now in tow, a poll would give us a good look at what’s going on out in the field. My thanks go out to the 13,000 people who voted in this poll — an entire Warsaw AV Show‘s worth of voters.
Here are the results (click to enlarge):
Some summary observations:
1) Just over half of all respondents are running standmounts
2) Of those standmount users, 20% have augmented their setup with at least one subwoofer
3) Roughly 40% of those polled are listening via floorstanding loudspeakers
4) A third of those floorstander users are running at least one subwoofer
5) One-third of all voters are using at least one subwoofer
That’s interesting, no?
