Floored genius

David Price gets to grips with six of the best mid-price floor standing speakers

- David Price

LIKE ANY HOBBY that’s been around for the best part of 80 years, there are lots of choices available to consumers seeking to buy new hi-fi. With loudspeakers especially, there’s a dizzying array to consider.

The good news for any prospective purchaser is that in a way your listening room forces your hand – making the decision process simpler and more straightforward. Those with small-to-medium-sized spaces need to use stand mount designs, whereas for medium-to-large rooms floorstanders make more sense. They generally generate deeper and more extended bass and offer improvements further up if designed properly. So which model to get? As ever, it’s essential to audition them at your local hi-fi dealer if you possibly can – or better still in your own home. Yet a back-to-back test such as this is a good starting point and should certainly get you thinking. Here we’ve done a sweep of compact middle-market floorstanders. They’re not quite super-fi, but still offer serious engineering and – because the market is so competitive – you get more sound per pound than you might think. All of the designs here are very good. Yet there’s a striking diversity of sound, not just in outright ability, but also the style of the presentation. Which is best always comes down to the type of music you like, your personal taste in aesthetics – what they look like – and the acoustics of your listening room. It’s not an easy choice.

Regardless, whatever you decide, if it’s from this group then you’ll certainly end up with a well-designed mid-price floorstander that’s a real step change up from most sub-£3,000 designs. Indeed, in certain respects, some of them even nip at the ankles of £10,000 designs.