How about B & W 803S

Hi faust,

    I sympathize with you and your teacher's experience.  Things come and go thought I'd say what your teacher is experiencing isn't necessarily the death of music appreciation but rather the slow end to radio as an entertainment and information media.  But that's a totally different topic of its own.

  My taste in music is a bit peculiar I suppose.  I like female vocal and large orchestral music as well as combination of the two which nowadays some call popera "pop + opera" (try Katherine Jenkins).  Ideally I want combination of lush thick warm sound of tube/analog plus the detailed, analytical and hi-resolution of digital music.  Sadly, it is very expensive to try to achieve the above and even then not easily achievable.

Hi faust,

Hope you’re still enjoying your speaker search. Now that I’ve 120hrs+ with the B&W 805 D3 and more side by side comparison with the 805S, I thought I’d give you a few pieces of interesting updates. I’m going to give you lots of generic ’funny asian’ descriptions that I think you would appreciate to avoid long boring technical jargons.

S vs D3 - listening

805S is more like the nice low sweet but flavorful desert you get from the boutique bakery. It has signature flavor, some may like the taste some may not, but at least no arguing what it tastes it.

805 D3 is like plain organic salad without salad dressing or flavoring of any sort. The salad will taste exactly like the vegetable mix you throw in so you better wish the vegetables are full of flavor you like otherwise it’s going to be a very bland salad.

S vs D3 - living

805S is like a sweet teenage daughter. Messy at times and no matter how many A reviews she gets from school you still can’t help trying to compare her with others. You get frustrated with trying to keep pushing her work harder study harder (hint, that low 3.7ohm impedence)... But in the end you still love her.

805 D3 is like a beautiful trophy girlfriend. At first all you and your friends all go ’oh how a lucky bastard you are...’, but quickly you realize that bossy nature. She wants everything perfect - her way; use silver plated cable instead of solid material she bitches, use jumpers instead of bi-wire she bitches, use a colder sound Class D amp she bitches, older poor music recordings she bitches,...basically she bitches at everything you do. You pay for everything yet she keeps reminding you’re still good enough. You get the point.

3 rings in life - engagement ring, wedding ring and suffer-ring

Ok I’m exaggerating a bit but I’ve literally sold almost every gear I had in order to start fresh with the 805 D3. All the gear that were ’good enough’ with the S are now unacceptable with D3. Good things about D3 is that it is a lot easier to drive, a lot less high current hungry and super high resolution. Sound coming from the D3 is like watch a 4k UHD movie while the S would be like DVD (I’m guessing D1/D2 would be more like Bluray level). Now whether seeing in high resolution all the arm and leg hairs on the young blonde model in the Samsung 4k TV demo disc is a good thing, I guess it would be fair to say it’s a matter of taste.

Suffering leading to bottling

Never thought I would do this but after our recent chat and seeing how the D3 has super high resolution, I got curious about tube amp pairing against the D3 to see if I can get that ice-cream melting voice of 蔡琴 from the original 2002 HK movie Infernal Affairs (無間道). I got a good deal online for an open box EL34 tube amp. I’m experimenting right now with just a DAC (bare minimal chip to decode digital music) then RCA directly to tube preamp and tube amp. So I’m literally as tube as it gets while listening to digital music. So far I have to say I’m impressed with the performance of the $600 USD tube amp but I’m not impressed with the tube sound which I would say very solid state like. I’ve further taken another step to see if using a 300B SET tube amp would change my mind.

Thought I’d share some good stupid laughs with you that only another hifi guy could understand.

*all you 300 other peeps reading this post, feel free to share your funny stories too. =p

Hello, hifineubee,

I think you should be able to read Chinese, here is my comment on the Dynaudio

Contour 30 which I listened last week.

評論說下放有名的confidence estar 高音 到 Contour new 30 ( in Confidence series grade),我聽感如下: source: CD + 數位流 +同品牌power (英國brand: Audiolab,但made in China), 一邊125W,音樂:蔡琴(有青蛙那條),人聲清析,呼吸氣腔可聞,但覺得部份樂段人聲有點粗,也就是dynaudio contour 舊款的人聲甜味沒有了..., At the pawn shop,低音也沉不下去,高音(木琴)也沒有B & W 804D3那麼滑溜.活潑,高.低音質感,雖說等級不一樣,但沒有C2好(音樂性差不少),也許是器材搭配的因素影響,郭金發台灣人:白牡丹,男聲人聲不厚,業者說說:現在speaker設計是走解析,因此,和舊型有差別....,和期待值有落差.....

價格:訂價30.8萬,折扣不多........

Hi faust,

     I've been busy exploring the tube world, sorry just catching up now.  I honestly think Contour is outclassed by D3, but I'm surprised how expense it is over in Taiwan.  I think your Taiwan price tag comes out over $10,000 USD.  Contour 30 is only about $7,500 here.  Though to be fair, your poor demo experience is likely due to poor choice of the Audiolab mono-block amplifier.  It's 8ohm (250W) to 4ohm (350W) power ratio is only x1.4 and doesn't even do 2ohm.

    I agree with the store's opinion that new speakers are going the high resolution route.  I'm feeling a bit stupid with the D3 as pairing the D3 with very good tube gives similar sonic quality to the old S with very good solid state.  Here's my dilemma, these new high resolution speakers in theory would work well with SET tube amplifier but they are also current/power hungry so I find using low 8-10W SET amplifier the sound comes out thin.  If I use tube push pull amplifier that produce 40-60W, the sound is very similar to good solid state that there's little incentive to go with tube (maybe tube rolling will change my mind).  So in the end, I might just have to give in and buy a Mcintosh that has the solid state current/power with tube lush warm holographic sound.  sigh, money money money...

Hi, hifineubee,

My topic in Taiwan MyAv has raise up deep discussion between the different opinion group. That is beyond my expectation. It looks like word war.  Opposite opinion persons corssed fire on each other on the subject of audio listening experience......

The 2nd hand audio shop  where I found the 803S has sold out it's 800D and Sonus Faber Guarneri Momento (each pc. weighted about 75Kg with origin speaker stand consists of thick stone.  The shop's selling price is NT$22.5 Wan. (around US$7,500). In the meantime, there is also one same speaker selling on MyAV 2nd hand column which priced at NT$ 190,000 by the original users (not the 3rd or 4th hands.).  But the speaker color of the later is slight dark brown.

I don't know why the expensive one in the shop be able to sell faster than the much cheaper one direct sold by the user. The same model the different is the color.  Generally, the sales through the owner always have better quality and slight cheaper price.  Those sold in the shop usually selling with higher price for the boss need to mark up the profit and some need to send to the expert for fix first before the shop can display for sell.

I also know one 2nd hand shop in the not easy to find inner lane in Taipei. Though the shop's price is slightly cheaper than the above one. But once both shops are sellilng same model, the above one sold out faster even it is selling higher.

I heard some music for comparison in the youtube which there are many combination of audio system and music over there.  The posts showing various tastes the owner have, some are awful, some sounds strange ( agaist your expectation).  If you have time, you can have a try listening. With good pair of headphone you can tell the difference with easy.