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HT Choice Aerial 10T or B&W N803?

Well, after hours of storefront listening sessions, I’ve narrowed my speaker choices down to three. B&W N803, Aerial 10T, or B&W N802’s. Due to WAF (Wife acceptance factor), anything with a larger foot print will not work. I’m looking for comments of experience, before I make a final decision.

We have some speaker position space restrictions. The N803’s will fit fine, but the other two will press the physical space a bit more. The final pair will set 6 feet apart and 2 ½ feet from the wall, with a fireplace angled across one corner. I have sound absorption panels behind the speaker positions, side walls and rear wall. The space contains heavy padded furnishings, on a cement slab covered with carpeting and sheet rock walls. It has 9ft ceilings and is a total 30ft long, 15ft wide. The actual listening position is 11ft from the fronts of my current speakers.

We listen to HT and just music 60/40, although I’d prefer more 2 channel music. :-)
The current equipment set-up is the following:
Class’e SSP-30 pre-amp
Class’e CAV-180 5 channel X180 into 8ohm or 360 into 4ohm
Energy Sub XL-S10 200W (Planning upgrade to better sub)
Source components Jolida JD-100 tube CD, Denon DVD-2800, no turntable… yet.

I like a good balance of bass with vocals, mid and high freq detail, so getting equal and realistic sound coverage is the objective. Long term, I’m still looking at other amplication upgrades as an option, so the power requirements of the Aerial’s don’t deter me too much. I’ve leaned towards the Aerials, the dealer has had great upstream power Class’e CAM-350’s to do the demos, and the room width is comparable. The B&W dealer has used 80W – N803’s to 125W – N802’s amplification to drive the speakers, and the ceiling heights and room widths are much larger than my space. I like the smaller footprint of the N803’s, but don’t want to regret my choice. I did see that Stereophile, has given the N803 an ‘A-restricted LF’ rating (Oct 2002), but how would it sound head to head with the Aerial’s? In the listening sessions, I’m now having trouble determining a clear winner, given the differences in power and space sizes used. I do gain the sense that the Aerial’s are a bit laid back, but the vocals and space realism are stellar. The N803’s have a nice broad sound stage. They are both great speakers. Is my only choice to do an in home demo of each speaker? Other options?
lbietz2001
lbietz2001 OP
10 posts
 
Thank You for the personal experience comments. They have been very helpful and confirmed what I was feeling about the sound quality as I heard it. I appreciate the feedback.

It appears that the rumors about the Aerial 10T’s being discontinued are happening. The Aerial web site http://www.aerialacoustics.com/ has been redone, removing the 10T as an option. I suspected that when the rumors started, that it would freeze sales of new 10T’s, and maybe that had come to pass. It would be great if more detail were available about the upcoming replacements, but so far nothing. With the 10T being such a great speaker, you would think that a replacement would be communicated at the same time that the present line was removed.
subaruguru
1,375 posts
 
Yes: absolutely perform an in-room demo, as at 11' you're sitting far enough back to allow them to cohere nicely, and tame the Nautilus tweeter with the power response of the entire speaker. I'm voting for the Aeriels, though.
In my case, sitting only 7.5 feet back, NEITHER of these (nor the Aeriel 8) cohered, so I luckily discovered great, wife-friendly speakers that DO cohere: Verity Audio Parsifal Encores. Good luck doing the heavy lifting...we all have to do it once in awhile!
ron12n
3 posts
 
I've had extensive experience with the Aerial Acoustics 10Ts (with CC3 center and SR3 surrounds) and the B&W M801 (HTM center and Morel surrounds). I can't comment on the N802 or N803.

Both setups were musically very satisfying, with ample 'Oomph' for 5 channel HT (my music/HT mix is more like 75%/25%). Sound wise, I could live very happily with either, though I eventually replaced the B&W setup with the Aerial one.

The M801 were far more location sensitive. To sound acceptable, they required free space (about 4 ft. min.) to the sides and behind. This is the reason I finally replaced them. The 10Ts still sound their best in that localization, but are more than acceptable anywhere else in the room, including tucked almost in a corner.

While both the M801s and the 10Ts had similar sensitivities, the former were much easier to drive, resulting in excellent sound from comparatively inexpensive amps. The 10Ts go to 3 ohms at some frequencies, requiring an amp capable of driving a low impedance. They sound strident and strained with a lesser amp (even though it drove the M801s to perfection). I drive them with Aragon 8008ST (two cahnnel) and 8008X3 (three channel) amps, capable of delivering 200WPC into 8 ohms, 400WPC into 4 ohms. I suspect the 10Ts will be happy with lower power amps, provided these amps are capable of high current output.
subaruguru
1,375 posts
 
Ron, very interesting!
You think the room sensitivity of the B&W has to do with the overly-splashy tweeter, so that sidewall splatter is more difficult to control?
dmbd174
13 posts
 
Others have made good observations. My own personal vote would go to the Aerials. I really like the 10Ts. As they have supposedly been discontinued perhaps you can get a bit of a "deal" from a dealer that would want to move what he has?
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