Can't make a decision to save my life........

[pierreterrier]

The more I think about the many folks here saying a sub really helps the bass for music even with the Towers is the issue could be two fold: First the obvious, the room acoustics may be lacking. Like I see many pics here with towers laying right there on tile floors, I mean how could anyone hope to achieve good sound on surfaces like that. But what also might be a huge factor in that bass evaluation of the Towers is the fact that I listen to my music on analog VINYL only while most here do so on digital CD or whatever digital feed is available nowadays. And that is a HUGE difference in sound overall, nothing digital will have the depth of analog. There is also a warmth to the sound which is significant in the bass department. Instead digital is cold, just like the tiles Plus of course what's your amp quality like? And are you using 10 gauge speaker wires? All those things will add up in overall bass reproduction. All that to say with my setup the Towers by themselves are king for bass and if they are not for some, it's most likely not because of the Towers. Hope that helps.

[RRT-NPS]

Now that I have made up my mind on the speakers, I would LOVE to save some money on the amp, since I kinda blew my wad on the RAAL Towers.
I was going to go with the Peachtree Nova125 ($1499) or The NovaPre/Nova220 ($1698). However, I see that the towers are 4 ohm speakers and the Decco65 puts out 65 in to 8ohms and 95w into 4ohms. Would that do the towers justice or should I stick with my original plan?

Thanks.

[Kisakuku]

The more I think about the many folks here saying a sub really helps the bass for music even with the Towers is the issue could be two fold: First the obvious, the room acoustics may be lacking. Like I see many pics here with towers laying right there on tile floors, I mean how could anyone hope to achieve good sound on surfaces like that. But what also might be a huge factor in that bass evaluation of the Towers is the fact that I listen to my music on analog VINYL only while most here do so on digital CD or whatever digital feed is available nowadays. And that is a HUGE difference in sound overall, nothing digital will have the depth of analog. There is also a warmth to the sound which is significant in the bass department. Instead digital is cold, just like the tiles Plus of course what's your amp quality like? And are you using 10 gauge speaker wires? All those things will add up in overall bass reproduction. All that to say with my setup the Towers by themselves are king for bass and if they are not for some, it's most likely not because of the Towers. Hope that helps.

Yes, deep analog VINYL automagically gets rid of room modes and drops F3 from 35Hz to 20Hz. How long are your 10 gauge speaker cable runs?

[pierreterrier]

15 feet each.

[curtis]

I'll throw my two cents in about subwoofers and bass reproduction...

As good as the Towers are, their bass can not match a good and well integrated subwoofer(s).

On their own, the Towers are great for most music, and a quality well integrated sub will not hurt them...it will only enhance the overall presentation.

[rsmt2000]

Yes, deep analog VINYL automagically gets rid of room modes and drops F3 from 35Hz to 20Hz

Is this really true? or is there a sarcasm in it ??

[Peabody]

Is this really true? or is there a sarcasm in it ??

I am fairly certain (ok, 100% sure) that this is intense sarcasm.

[curtis]

Is this really true? or is there a sarcasm in it ??

I'll answer for him....pure sarcasm. 10 gauge cables at 15 feet would add to that.

Oops...Peabody beat me to it.

[FirstReflect]

Is this really true? or is there a sarcasm in it ??

That's some heavy sarcasm. See the word "automagically"? That's not a typo

When I first got all my custom Ascend speakers. Some folks might recall me writing that the first thing that jumped out at me was how great the bass coming from my custom Sierra Horizon RAAL Front Main speakers was. I'm usually all about noise floor, detail, transients and realism. So for me to notice the bass first really means its something special!

So I don't blame the folks who are saying they feel the Towers do all that they want in the bass. The bass produced by the Towers IS very impressive indeed! Some might recall that I thought it was so good, it had me considering using a much lower crossover frequency than I had planned.

But that was before I had everything in its final placement, and before I had played some bass sweeps, and calibrated. After going through the full process of setup, there's simply no way that the bass output of my custom Sierra Horizon RAAL speakers - as truly amazingly good as it is just in terms of what is coming out of the speakers themselves - can equal the results of crossing them over to my pair of ideally positioned and calibrated subwoofer in my room, across all 3 seats.

So, to be clear, I'm not saying a single bad thing about the bass output of the Towers. I was shocked by how good it is. But, as I've repeated here, it's not just the speakers themselves in play. You cannot avoid the effects of room acoustics. You cannot place Towers in the ideal locations for bass while maintaining proper placement for the Front Main channels at the same time. And, as amazing as the bass if the Towers is, it does not extend linearly to below 20Hz, it starts to roll off around 40Hz

Does any of that mean they cannot sound phenomenal with 2-channel music? Absolutely not! I could easily listen to my custom Sierra Horizon RAAL Front Mains by themselves and find the sound extremely pleasing!

The only thing I take issue with is saying that the Towers all on their own is the "ultimate" way to listen, or that subwoofers are somehow undesireable. That's just not the case.

Certainly, there ARE subwoofers out there that are inferior to the bass output by just the Towers. And poor placement of a sub can make things sound worse instead of better. There's definitely quite a bit of effort that must go into selecting and setting up subwoofers that will enhance what the Towers can do in a room. So it's not "plug and play". And if your situation does not allow for proper subwoofer placement and integration, I can fully agree that the Towers all on their own might actually sound better. But they are not the ultimate setup for bass. There's room for some small improvement. And a pair (or quad) ideally placed, very good subwoofers can deliver that improvement. I have the setup to prove it

[natetg57]

I think this thread is a good example of the wide variety of tastes and opinions we have in our hobby. These setups get very personal to us because of the amount of time we spend picking out components, upgrading, setting up and listening to them. And I think that most of the time as we get used to our own particular setup it progressively sounds better and better to us. We really need to allow others to have their own opinions and views without imposing what we view as 'fact' on them.