One thing struck me while I was testing the excellent Acoustic Energy AE309 Mk2 floorstanding speakers recently. It was just how close they are in character and tone to their standmount siblings, the AE300 Mk2.
The consistency between the two pairs is seamless, and the jump in size brings all the benefits you’d expect from a bigger speaker while maintaining the balance and tonality of its smaller sibling.
Now I can hear some of you shout in unison, “Of course they do!”
Well, you’d think that would be the case, perhaps. But I have been testing speakers of all shapes and sizes for the best part of 20 years, and you’d be surprised at the number of times I’ve made the swap from a stand-mount to a floorstander from the same range and been left scratching my head.
I mean, surely in most cases it’s just a case of putting the drivers from the stand-mount into a bigger cabinet, adding a bit more bracing, damping, and job’s a good’un?
If only it were that simple…
All you want in this scenario is consistency between the models in a range. To be able to pick any speaker and for them to share the same sonic framework and characteristics, no matter the size.
But building a floorstander introduces a number of challenges. For starters, you are moving from a smaller, more rigid box to one that’s much bigger in volume. This makes it harder to control all the various internal vibrations.
Add to that the fact that you might be restricted on how much resource you can put into the design, the extra damping and bracing required, and you could be limited on the performance you’re going to be able to extract, especially at cheaper prices.
As price points go up, however, these potential stumbling blocks become smaller and smaller.
The drive units used in the stand-mount might not be optimised for use in a bigger box. They will have been selected to work with a given volume behind them, and going into a bigger box might not be ideal.
A manufacturer could modify a specific driver for different speakers in a range (Focal is a brand that has done this in the past), but this can ramp up the cost involved.
So what if you go up a size of driver instead? This inevitably introduces new hurdles. A new driver will have different acoustic properties and requirements from the cabinet. You also have the extra cost and complexity of designing the new driver.
Where tweeters are concerned, the jump in cabinet size tends not to be an issue. They normally operate in their own enclosure, separate from the other drivers, which operate out in the open in the main box.
Floorstanders are also trickier to get right because, in addition to the extra volume they offer, they have larger panels. Larger panels are less stiff, which means they are more susceptible to vibrations. Larger panels also have larger surface areas, which means more radiating area for any sound they produce.
If you have a driver producing a sound and one or more of the enclosing panels producing their own sound, that’s not good for audio quality. Extra bracing and damping can help, of course – but it all costs money.
Symptoms when something isn’t quite right with a floorstander include the speakers sounding less balanced, with poorer bass control; they can also suffer rhythmically.
Don’t think of this as a slight on floorstanders, though. Far from it. We all know the long list of benefits that a great pair of towers can bring to a hi-fi system. Huge positives such as greater bass weight and extension, a larger sound, and bigger-scale dynamics are all reasons to consider a pair.
And, of course, they are capable of filling much larger spaces with sound than a small stand-mount. If floorstanders make sense for your particular room layout, then, providing they are of a standard that suits the rest of your system, you’ll be sonically rewarded.
MORE:
Our pick of the best standmount speakers for every budget
And the best floorstanding speakers
Stand-mounts vs floorstanders: which speaker type should you buy?
