What bookshelf speakers have the best bass?
That’s not really a straight-forward question, as you have to define what “best bass” means.
Has the most bass?
Has the best lowend extension?
Has the cleanest bass?
You also need to define if you are asking for a certain pricepoint and what kind of speaker (passive or active). The easy answer is actually “any decent bookshelf with a capable subwoofer or two”, but if you feel like you need lowend without a sub or two, then giving a pricepoint and defining for active/passive will help narrow it down. Personally and from my own experience, the best I have heard for active is the Vanatoo Transparent 1 Encore Plus and the the best low end I’ve gotten from a passive is the Buchardt S300 mkII but I run both with subwoofers and crossover to blend the responses because neither is capable of hitting below 30hz in room without.
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I like front ported speakers for bass, sadly it is not a current trend in speaker design these days.
Older and cheaper model, I find my KEF Q100 have pretty good bass response, especially since they are front ported and I place them against the wall. I can even EQ bass and they can take +3dB no problem.
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There’s also a huge variation in bookshelf speakers, from the very diminutive just barely larger than desktop formfactor all the way up to giant “bookshelf” units nearly as large as floor models.
The old saying for engines is also true for bass “there’s no replacement for displacement”. In this instance, it means if bass is what you want, bigger woofers is better. Ports help smaller speakers sound bassier, and for a bookshelf unit, @Chamelion30 is on to something, front ports are awful convenient for the wiggle room they can buy you in placement.
If large, nearly floor stand model “bookshelf” speakers are in your wheelhouse, maybe something like a source point 10 would stand you in good stead? With those bigass 10” woofers, they should make hella bass (for a bookshelf). They are rear ported, but if you can pull them off the wall, they should sound great.
Honestly though, get you a decent powered sub and never look back. Once you experience real bass, it’s hard to go back to speakers without a sub and not miss the low end.
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