What are your general thoughts of B&W speakers

This topic has been killed! And yet people still compare crazy speakers to B&W. By Crazy I mean the COST difference between the B&W and WHATEVER.

Look it comes down to this,

What B&W speaker are we speaking of????

What speaker are we comparing to????

What are we using it for? two channel or home theater???

Are we using a sub in either instance????

What equipment is being used????

what type of room is being used??? has it been treated???

All things concidered equil, If you compare Any speaker to a speaker in a much higher price range the more expensive speaker SHOULD sound better.

If you have a pair of $20,000 speakers and want to compare them to a pair of $4,000 pair of B&W, you are being ridiculous! then think about the guy with the 20k speakers, I would imagine he also has two mono amps for them at a cost of 10k a piece. I doubt the 4k B&Ws have that.

If you put ANY higher end speaker with lower quality equipment, Lets say a "best buy" receiver (to exagerate my point), it will sound like crap.

Hey... lets compare a ZR1 Corvette with a Camaro...

Vette is 120k the camaro around 30k....
Will the Vette be faster???? Hell Ya it will.
Will the vette go around the corners faster??? Hell Ya it will.
Is the vette 4 times as much money??? Hell Ya it is.

Now think of this.... How many divers that own the ZR1 vette can drive it to its potential???? I would say less than 1%. Also you would have to rent out a track to even play with it at that level.

It is just stupid to compare these two, Period!

There are good buys ( bang for the buck) in all catigories of speakers, processors and amps...

Buy what speakers you want, buy equipment that complements them.

and just enjoy them.

Bill

B&W speakers represent innovation, immaculate contruction, genuine value, and solid performance.

They were the first to use woven Kevlar drivers, adopt computer analysis of their own drivers, and explore different cabinet materials, construction, and shapes. Witness the laminated curved birch cabinet introduced with the N802. That set the industry on its ear. It's probably one of the most copied shapes ever. Most of todays copies do not exhibit the same quality of materials and contruction. Other examples are the matrix cabinet, the dimpled ports, and the tapered tube enclosures. How many manufacturers offer diamond tweeters? They are certainly at the fore front of technology.

B&W are competitive at the various price points in the market. There will be afficiondos and detracters as with any product.

BTW, I own two pairs of B&W, the orignal CM1 with the Phenolic cabinet and full matrix construction and N802's. I also own other brands of speakers that I enjoy as much or more.

Baranowski,

Exactly the point I have made in earlier posts. This thread and others like it are useless without full descriptions of model and amps driving them etc.

I have heard many speaker systems sound bad. Many of those times it was not the speaker that was bad. You are only as good as the weakest link. A great speaker under powered or over damped will sound at best average.

Even the ZR1 would be slow if driven by a blind person, or driven in the snow, or across a ploughed field. Come on people. Lets have proper information.

Chadeffect ,I totally disagree with what your saying.."What are your general thoughts of B&W speakers" is what was asked.We dont need to know room size,amps,preamps,cables,treatments etc to give thoughts of the brand.Personally I wouldnt take em if free assuming I couldnt sell them and get what I consider better.The way I read it are comments on the B&W line,pretty simple to access!

Missioncoonery,

"General thoughts" on a speaker would assume the speaker is being used with equipment of similar quality. I did not mention room or cables.

So from your comment ( missioncoonery- "Personally I wouldnt take em if free...") we are to deduce you think they are bad. But some of the finest recording studios on the planet would disagree. So now who do we believe? Your opinion or the opinion of gifted professionals?

So with no insight into the way they are being used either you are deaf or the pros are deaf. Ummm... Which amp were you using?