HELP B&W 802D or Revel Ultima Salon2

P59teitel,

Great comments. We share many things.
Any other comments on speakers that do or do not work well when placed near the back wall?

Jim

Yes, they are close to the wall. Some reasons for that. One, the room is a mess with speaker boxes etc. that I have to put down cellar - which in turn requires some cellar cleanout action. I'll get to that after Xmas, LOL.

Also, while I may bring them more out into the room, I may still leave them spread out wide to the walls. I like the super-wide soundstage I get from wide placement, and I'm only really noticing bass nodes building up in a couple of areas to the rear of the room where no one would likely be doing any critical listening anyway.

Second, right now I'm going through the new 73-disc Grateful Dead Europe 72 box set. It's mixed from the original 16-track reels and so should have had plenty of bass throughout, but they kinda screwed the pooch on the mix on some of the shows resulting in less low end than there should be, so I've got the speakers parked in the corners for extra bass reinforcement. One of my buddies has run the release through a parametric EQ program to address some of the imbalances and I'm going to send a hard drive to him soon to copy his files and hopefully resolve the mix issue.

I do agree with Irv that they are best out into the room and off the walls, but I'm finding the trade-off of less than the absolute best sound in the "sweet spot" in favor of pretty good in a larger area to be worth it in my circumstance. I do a lot of my work in the room and don't like to be moored to one spot all day, so being able to move around and still get 90% percent performance in multiple locations is fine with me. And the fact that you can get them to sound pretty good with less than ideal placement to me makes them a more versatile speaker than the Wilson Sasha, which is a much more placement-dependent speaker system - I'd guess they would sound terrible where I presently have the Salon 2s.

Quick response. I've had both sets of speakers in my home for a few months so I could choose between the two. IMO and in my listening space the Revels Salon 2's are the best speaker. I've always had a soft spot for the B&W's, but in an A/B comparison with my equipment, my room, etc. the Salon 2's really beat them. It only took me so long because I like the B$W's and couldn't believe it. Now please, B&W people don't come out of the woodwork and beat the snot out of me. It's my ears, my place, and my equipment. Of course I've had several folks I respect also listen to the the A/B comparison and reach the same conclusion.

As for why one should compare the 802d's rather than the 800d's to the Salons, it's because the price point is closer in the used market. The B&W's retain a higher resale value (and are not discounted as highly initially) consequently the comparison in price in the used market is between the 802d's and the Revel Salon 2's. In the used market the Salon 2's fall between the 802d's and the 800d's. Depending on condition and market etc.

One last thought: the Revels want lots of power to really shine and I'm now going to have to upgrade my amplification (when I do, if I still have the B&W's I'll do another A/B, but it looks like the B/W's will be on the market at Audiogon soon).

PS. I'd echo much of what Irvrobinson wrote in his post on 1/7/11.
As an aside: My room is quite large with lots of glass and the current setup is less than ideal with both speakers. I think any speaker with an ideal room setup for that speaker can make a huge difference (I have a pair of Medowlark Herons setup in another place and the room is nearly perfect for them). What I'd really like to do is demo both sets of speakers in a "golden cube", but that'll have to wait until I win the lottery.

Nab, I see your point on the 802 vs 800 if we are talking used. As for your in home audition, did you have the 802D or new 802 Diamond? New Diamond is supposed to be significantly better than previous 802D. I too am a B&W fanboy, but the Salon2 is one of the best I've ever heard, and certainly better than the 802D. No argument there.