I have tried the ‘small sub under the desk’ option. And it didn’t work out. The acoustics when placing a sub under a desk are usually terrible, because the surfaces of the desk will block the sound - it doesn’t sound good there.
You might get away with putting the sub right behind the monitor on Top of the middle of the desk. But under the desk… that’s a whole different thing. Room acoustics matter a lot with subs. Plus there is the whole octopus thing I mentioned… really, aim for speakers that still sound great without a sub, if at all possible.
Remember, you can always turn speakers sideways to fit them into odd places. The Swan D100’s turned sideways might fit into the spaces you have indicated for your speakers, and they won’t need a sub.
But you will want pads under them so they don’t vibrate on your desk. (This is why the Vanatoo T0 comes with pads meant to be put under the speakers)
Also the T0’s might look small, but on a desk they won’t need a sub. The amount of bass they put out is impressive. (it’s because of how Passive Radiators work - that’s why you don’t see Passive Radiators in cheaper speakers, they are expensive to do, but they make a huge difference in the sound capabilities)
That help a lot, thanks! The only problem is i have limited space… Also there is problem to get SWAN in my country (Poland) I found Vantoo T0 on polish amazon but cost is 440$
Maybe someday amazon will reduce this price to normal. At the moment my best idea is iloud micro cuz can get them for normal price and i found that sub for them is not necessary
Haha, yea. I will probably wait for discounts for iloud micro or wait for normal price vantoo T0, mostly i use my headphones so speakers are additional but i need them sometimes.
Edifier MR4 looks impressive too, will check them!
Good luck! =) I hope you can find something good for your setup.
I have to step out for a bit, it’s voting day in the US, so i’m going to go do my civic duty and throw a piece of paper with some random names on it at someone. Will take a few hours.
Don’t worry so much about sub placement the lower the frequency the less directional the sound at 80hz & below fire away. I have set up many venues and theatre systems the sub was last on the list for fine tuning.
Small speakers no matter how good have a hard time moving air. By using a sub let it do the job a small speaker would be hard pressed to do and then if possible use a high pass filter to free up the little speakers form this duty and what happens is the Vocals become smoother and more accurate.
Try to toe in the high frequency transducers on your desk to make a triangle for best possible imaging.
The one thing i’ve noticed is a lot of the small ‘desk sized’ subs, especially those that come prepackaged with tiny speakers - tend to be more tuned as ‘woofers’ and not true subwoofers, so placement matters a lot more on the smaller subs, because they aren’t true subs.
You make a excellent point if you can’t have a cut off of 70hz or below. I don’t have room size or sub restriction so feel lucky. Sitting beside me 65hz and below on audio mode sitts my AR300 Sunfire 12" Sub and my massive Rotel Amp powering my bookshelfs. Makes a great printer stand LOL!
(Yes i’ve been turning your problem over in my head for a while now) These are pretty good. And they are even on sale right now in the UK.
Zeos compares these to the Vanatoo T0’s and says they are practically equivalent. That’s saying something.
I also realize you put this in your initial post. Seems like it was a good choice, especially on discount. If you already bought it, you could even do a return, buy the same thing again, and save money ;D
These are on sale in the UK right now too. Ohh, but they are only selling 1 speaker at a time. Oof, ok maybe not these. Unless you want to dip into the 700 dollar range >.> And that’s a whole different kettle of fish.
Thanks! I was also thinking about it and i decided to save some money and buy Vanatoo T0. I know its a little bit overpice in polish amazon but i want to buy really solid product once for all. I’m also afraid of problems with iloud micro. Saw some posts on reddit where people have problems with noise/speaker died.
Here we go! This is a good choice.
This is what you can get at the 400 dollar range. (The way currencies are right now is messing up my suggestions… It appears this is sub 300 right now? i’m so confused. Anyway ! check it out just in case, it looks like a good option.)
This also eliminates needs for a future sub at some point. But sub placement will probably matter a fair bit on this one… So you might run into the problems I mentioned earlier when pointing you at the Vanatoo’s. It’s difficult to say, I have never heard this one in-person. But the user-comments and reviews are positively ecstatic (so overall, people sound very happy with it).
Price: £279.99
I’m just going to delete the other two posts to clean up the thread, if you want to know about what was in them, they were much bigger speakers in size that would not have fit your desk setup. (the Adam T5v and the JBL 305p)
Just buy used twice as good half the price budget goes so much further. For $300 CDN I Bought a mint set of Adam Audio F7 and a 8" B&O Sub with cables.
Adam audio no longer makes the F7, the new model for that is the T7v, unfortunately the T7v is not as good in a desk environment as the T5v because of the way the T7v’s throw sound - Zeos explains why in his video covering them.
Sadly, they are both too large to fit into the spots Wkpf indicated he had for speakers - he needs something very tiny, unless he wants to change his setup around. My first thought with a raised budget was the Adam T5v’s though =) then I realized they would never fit into the spaces he indicated. He needs something super tiny to fit in those spots… That’s when I thought of the Edifier S350DB - but then I realized the price has changed on that due to fluctuating currency prices.
The more and more I think about it, the Vanatoo T0’s seem the best way to go, tiny yet very capable, will work great on a desk or smaller room without a sub… I wonder if Vanatoo would ship to Poland? I’ll send them an email and ask. (Update) I checked with Vanatoo - they DO ship to many countries in Europe, they use Amazon to sell to those countries, you can find them by going to amazon specific sites for France, Germany, Poland, etc.
Yep - seems like the more I wrestle with this one, the more I keep coming back to the Vanatoo T0’s as the best choice for your situation. The reason they might seem overpriced is because you are looking at new speakers there and the price has gone up due to inflation over the years since Zeos reviewed them years ago.
They really are great speakers though. I own a set of Vanatoo’s myself, they were painful to buy initially, but I have never regretted owning them. They are marvelous speakers. - also, if you ever do add a real sub - the Vanatoo’s have the proper cut-off built in already (and it’s an adjustable cutoff) so you won’t have problems that you would have with the smaller subs that come in kits.
Turns out because of the whole ‘brexit’ thing, you have to look at amazon’s individual country websites to find them for sale, and they only sell the Vanatoo’s that are in good condition over in Europe (B-Stock never makes it over there because Vanatoo is a US based company - so we only get B-stock in the america’s). So that is the new price for vanatoo’s these days. They are really perfect for a desk though. And since it’s sold through the official amazon site and the seller is actually the Vanatoo company, so you can relax there knowing you will have good warranty and policies covering the speakers.
The problem with speakers, when you go past Vanatoo T0 pricing, speakers don’t get more capable and maintain that smaller size. Even the Edifier I linked has issues because that ‘sub’ is not really a true sub, it’s a woofer that also acts like a sub. But because of that, you get into placement issues I went over earlier…
This may be a somewhat bold claim, but I don’t think anything exists that is more capable than the Vanatoo T0 for any price at that same tiny size. Maybe someone else can come up with something. But I can’t.
