Aside from the amazingly accurate reproductions of the sound bars that are now inundating the surround sound speaker systems, tower speakers will give you a more realistic stereo and front channel sound reproduction than those speakers supplied with the average home-theater-in-a-box (HTIB).
A decent set of tower, or floor standing speakers, meaning a pair of speakers that can be perfectly suited for use as both stereo sound speakers for listening to music, as well as front surround sound speakers for home entertainment uses, will average in the ,000 US per speaker price range. They will compliment a good Dolby surround receiver much better than the lower grade speakers included with HTIBs, making the audiophile much happier.
One downside for these speakers is, of course, that they are not wall mountable, and take up space on the floor in your entertainment room. They are not as directional as bookshelf, or small surround speakers, meaning that they do not have to be pointed directly at your honey spot, and cover more of an area with a truer reproduction of the medium being played.
When you sit in your entertainment room, sit in the position that you most commonly watch television and movies, and place the speakers equally distant from the receiver, and point them towards where you sit. With the receiver set at the volume you normally listen to it at, move the speakers until they are either perfect sounding with the other surround speakers, or are at the ends of the room.
If you find yourself setting up tower speakers, and have them set at the furthest possible distance from the receiver and they are still overpowering the center and surround speakers, you will have to change the settings for the front left and front right surround speakers on the receiver, in setup mode. You can find the setup mode when the receiver is set on the speaker channel selection that you use your surround speakers with (usually an A, B or C speaker selection button).
Tower speakers are not meant for HTIBs, but when you replace your receiver with a better one, or if you already have a component system, then tower speakers are meant to be used with the better receivers. They are designed to reproduce the highs and lows of stereo music, much more so than any bookshelf speakers.
And, if you find that tower speakers are not for you, you can always take them back, as long as it is within the guarantee time period as dictated by the store or on-line business you purchased them from. Expect much better customer service if these speakers were purchased from a store, as opposed to an on-line business, or even through a store's web services.
