Bowers and Wilkerson B&W 802 D3: an impolite Brit?

Perhaps my careful consideration of component matching, speaker positioning and mains quality paid dividends!
Mark_nz

this is precisely the issue - anytime you have to 'carefully' match components so that the system sounds just right, you have a problem with one or more components in that chain. In this thread, it's all about speakers so let's concentrate on speakers. If a speaker is time-coherent (which B&W are not even by a long shot) then component matching becomes a non-issue. Time-coherent speakers sound good with almost any electronics & on any genre of music. Of course, the better the electronics & the better the recording, the better the output sonics.
I wager that if you would have changed one item in your then-system that had the B&Ws your system would have collapsed performance-wise. That would not have been good.

Jkalman, the sibilance is a phase distortion issue & it won't go away with toe-in (like Zd542 wrote). I bet that whatever you try you will not be able to get rid of it. It's inherent in the speaker design & the 4th order x-over. The boomy bass is due to the poor port design. B&W cannot get this right & didn't get it right even in my DM604S2 nor in my friend's 803D. Port design is hard to start with - you have to start & stop a slug of air at a moment's notice given the fact that the bass from the port is 180 degrees out-of-phase with the bass cone driver. If you don't design this correctly, you get bass overhang or what you call boomy bass - the previous bass notes hung around too long & interfere with the next bass notes (from the next bit of music) & smear it.
Play some tracks from Diana Krall's Love Scenes - sibilance city if you will. Let us know at point in time you walked out of the room!

Also, like I did with my DM604S2, play some Diana Krall & careful note where the soundstage is & where DK is in the soundstage. Then, immediately next play some Frank Sinatra. Once again note where the soundstage is & where FS is in that soundstage. Any difference between the 2 soundstages?

Jkalman,

I have followed your threads over the years and I am curious what you are running now.

I have a love hate relationship with B&W. fatigue has always been my issue and why I have not bought a pair over the years. Do the upper mids seem smother on the D3?

It seem I got a pair of Wharfedale Jade 3, that sound problem exactly what you all have discussed here. Bright, sibilant, difficult gear matching, room and placement adjustment, and very unforgiving in presenting music. Hmm, is this what the high end sound to begin with? That's a whole lot of time and money need to spend on these B&W speakers I believe, nevertheless the craftsmanship is amazing. High end speakers is designed for rich people with lots of gold and time to furthermore investment in fine tuning sound, and expand their imaginations, how sad! I need to get rid of my Jade 3, though it's not so easy...

"10-14-15: Wim1983
It seem I got a pair of Wharfedale Jade 3, that sound problem exactly what you all have discussed here. Bright, sibilant, difficult gear matching, room and placement adjustment, and very unforgiving in presenting music. Hmm, is this what the high end sound to begin with? That's a whole lot of time and money need to spend on these B&W speakers I believe, nevertheless the craftsmanship is amazing. High end speakers is designed for rich people with lots of gold and time to furthermore investment in fine tuning sound, and expand their imaginations, how sad! I need to get rid of my Jade 3, though it's not so easy..."

Please don't take this the wrong way because I'm not trying to be mean or negative in any way. But if you want to get into this hobby and be successful, you need to take responsibility for your own actions. No one put a gun to your head and forced you to buy the speakers you don't like. There's a good reason why some of us sound like a broken record and insist you need to demo everything before you buy it. Audio is a very hands on activity. If you want good sound, it takes some work. And don't think I know better and am trying to lecture you. I know from experience. I've made more costly, jackass mistakes than any audiophile I know.

"Bright, sibilant, difficult gear matching, room and placement adjustment, and very unforgiving in presenting music. Hmm, is this what the high end sound to begin with?"

Not every speaker sounds like a B&W or the Jade 3's you just bought.

"Jkalman, the sibilance is a phase distortion issue & it won't go away with toe-in (like Zd542 wrote). I bet that whatever you try you will not be able to get rid of it. It's inherent in the speaker design & the 4th order x-over. The boomy bass is due to the poor port design. B&W cannot get this right & didn't get it right even in my DM604S2 nor in my friend's 803D. Port design is hard to start with - you have to start & stop a slug of air at a moment's notice given the fact that the bass from the port is 180 degrees out-of-phase with the bass cone driver. If you don't design this correctly, you get bass overhang or what you call boomy bass - the previous bass notes hung around too long & interfere with the next bass notes (from the next bit of music) & smear it.
Play some tracks from Diana Krall's Love Scenes - sibilance city if you will. Let us know at point in time you walked out of the room!"

Hello Bombaywalla,

My understanding is that they don't use a 4th order crossover in the 803 D3s (and haven't in their high end diamond speakers for some time). They use a first order crossover.

In any case, playing around with the room placement and toe-in some more eliminated the issues I was having with the sound. I never said there was problems in the bass frequencies. It was a bit of booming in the mid-range, mostly in the lower register of voices, which don't come close to the bass ranges. The excessive sibilance was from having the tweeters pointed in too much. Sibilance is natural in the human voice, especially in the female voice. Finding the point at which it sounds natural is the goal, not eliminating it completely.

Actually, acoustically speaking, the smearing of notes will happen more because you haver the speaker to close to a wall than anything else. When there is not enough time delay between the direct sound from the speakers and the sound from the first point reflections, then the sounds become smeared, otherwise it becomes ambience. Though, too much ambience can color the sound with the character of the room, and that isn't good either (thus, the need to properly treat first reflection points). The port on the back shouldn't be an issue unless you are already making the mistake of bad speaker placement.

The other issue is placing the speaker too far into the room, at which point locality of sound becomes too diffuse. That is problematic as well.

BTW, I bought them, and it looks like I will be the first person in the USA, or possibly the world to own a pair of the 803 D3s! :D