Once you go floorstander...you won't go back
A lot of difference bro
Definitely having a sub is important but that might not compensate everything a floorstander can cover. It also comes down to the speaker itself on how high / low it can go.
This is to ensure no missing freq. The source of the audio is also very important. As personally I had experience before because of a good source and is really very consistent.
Last year, I happen to have a pair of Q-acoustic bookshelf in my house which belong to a friend. I had used it for HT for testing. All movies tested are BD. Player is Oppo 103D
with Yamaha A3050 AVR. Now few movies tested for TrueHD, DTS-MA and atmos. No DTS X that time to test. For TrueHD and DTS-MA with bookshelf is just so-so. I had a SVS
sub on all movies during the test. With my floorstander (B&W CM8) the sound is much fuller. Now, finally tested movie with atmos. I will expect it to be the same result but to
my surprise the bookshelf perform as good as my floorstander this time around. If I will to do a blind test, I cannot tell the difference at all. So is best for you to try out yourself
to make the conclusion.
Yeah, I'll drop by the audio shop for an audience before make the conclusion. Anyway thanks for the advice