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B&W 801 S2 Fatigue VS. 802 S2 No Fatigue?

I recently purchased a pair of beautiful 801M (series 2) that are in near-mint condition. For the past 6 years I've been enjoying a pair of 802 S2. I always wanted the 801's and a pair became available at an incredible price- so I jumped on them. I wanted deeper bass extension in addition to the wonderful soundstage, dynamics, attack, and imaging that I loved about the 802's.

Upon setting them up and listening for a few hours, I was very impressed. Besides the bass extension (although sometimes flabby, depending on the recording), they have a larger soundstage than the 802s. They are also more revealing, which I find interesting because I believe they share the same midrange and tweeter units.

But the more I listen to them, the more shrill they sound. The midrange and treble sound as if an EQ is bumping them by 5-7 dB or so. The resulting glare turns me off after about 10 minutes. I find myself turning the volume down time and time again. This is the opposite of my experience with the 802's. With them, I found myself turning them up without any hint of fatigue, even after hours of listening.

I'm using the same setup with both of them. I have a Threshold S500/II being fed by a Yamaha Aventage HTR (not the best preamp for the system but it sounds very good, at least with the 802's).

Does anyone have any explanation or advice?

I'll be installing a newly purchased Anodyne bass alignment filter tomorrow. The speakers are currently sitting on their factory casters until I can find a used pair of Sound Anchors.I thought about swapping the heads between the 2 models but then thought it may not change anything.

I've done lots of reading here and on other forums and haven't found anyone else that experienced listener fatigue with the 801 S2.


dastro
dastro OP
42 posts
 

All, thanks for the feedback and advice. I have some good news.

The Anodyne BAF arrived yesterday. It has made an enormous difference. The bass is now incredibly deep and articulate, faster, and more dynamic. The bass can now be felt, not just heard. This change has really rounded out the overall spectral response, which has mostly eliminated the mid/low treble glare I was getting. I once again found myself turning the volume up, not down, and enjoyed about 2 hours of pure listening pleasure after installing the BAF. For those that have 801s or 802s without one, I highly recommend trying one. I've read the Anodyne unit is second best, only bettered by the Krell BAF.

I still feel there is a small amount of increased mids and low highs and feel this can be dealt with easily by making a couple of changes. First, they definitely need to be properly elevated and floor coupled. I think this alone should be enough. But, I also think the Yamaha HTR probably has a fairly bright sound so I'm thinking about getting a warm preamp. My thinking is to either purchase one that has a high-quality home theater bypass, like the Parasound P5, or adding a preamp that receives my 2 channel sources and connect it and the Yamaha HTR to a high-quality, passive RCA switch.


Regards


jafant's avatar
jafant
19,602 posts
 
Good to read- dastro

Happy Listening!
sciguy2
2 posts
 
The reason is likely because the crossover point between the tweeter and the midrange drivers was shifted.  If you look at the service manuals for the two speakers, you'll see the crossover design in the same, but the specify slightly different values.  I've always wondered why this was done. Maybe the crisper presentation of the 801 sold more speakers during short-term demos.
divertiti
225 posts
 
B&W is well known for its peaky treble and somewhat shouty top end, just look at measurement graphs. It's designed that way to sound "hifi" in Best Buy showrooms. I think that character was just more accentuated in the 801 that you're noticing
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