Bookshelf Speakers

... are meant to be heard on bookshelves. For years, years, years, years, years my main speakers have been Polk Audio Monitor 4s--bookshelf speakers. I used the a pair of Baby Advent IIs in my office for about 2 years. Recently I brought them home and refurbished them. They are nice sounding speakers.

Tonight I swapped my trusty M4s out for the Baby Advent IIs in the living room bookshelves, where they sound anemic and hollow. I think part of the problem is the acoustic suspension cabinets. Those bass reflex speakers sound much better on the bookshelves.

My intention was to take the M4s downstairs and reunite them with the LF-14 subwoofer; but I don't think I can stand these Baby Advents IIs in the living room. Not enough ooomph.

I could take the Advents back to work. Ooomph is actually a bad thing in the office. The little 30 NAD amplifier drives these guys pretty nicely. Oh--I have both amps at home now--I could do a rematch of the speaker shootout that Bill and I did. That's something fun to do tonight. In many ways, it won't be a fair fight, as the newer Polks are at work and these Advents would have to compete against 1st generation M4s (better build, nicer xover, and much better tweeter). Still, that sound like a fun thing to do.

You see, the Polks are much more efficient than the Advents, so using a single amp to compare the two isn't fair--the Polks are much louder at the same volume. So I'll set up two pair of speakers with two amps, get the volume the same and switch back and forth.

I have an exciting life, don't I?