B&W 802D vs Wilson WATT Puppy

Kw6,

To be honest with you it is a tough call. Bass is very dependant on the room. WP7s which lack in bass often excel in imaging. They need to be 1/3 of the way into the room (approx). Not much reinforcement from the rear wall. As for B&W 802D, I had my 801s on the Sound Anchors stands. It definitely immproved the 801s bass & midrange. But still my WP7s have better, faster more articulate bass with texture & air. But for the last bit of bass I just added the WATCH Dog subwoofer. It really does ad bass. Sometimes you don't even know it is on. The WP7s do go to about 23 HZ w. very fast & articulate bass. If you speak w. Wilson they reoommend the Maxx IIs for more bass but the WATCH Dog subwoofer really is only barely needed w. the WP7s. If you turn of the sub you really don't miss it. You just love it added presense. I really feel the B&W needs to be played loud to come alive. At medium to low volumes the midrange is lost. I am fairly certain this has not changed. The midrange unit is the same. I am also very sure that the bass is fairly similar between both speakers. They both require very good system matching.

FYI the midrange driver for the new B&W's are not the same.
There is a new magnet & phase plug not shure about anything else.

I did a little research-All 800 series have new FST midrange. Stronger & smaller motor structure.
Far less rear wave reflection, far greater micro/macro dynamics. IMHO, as important an improvement as the diamond tweeter.

agree with Krellm7

Trust me, Dgad,
the new ones are totally different *Top to Bottom*
and you're more than welcome to disagree with us after giving them an auditon :-)

one sonic picture worth a thousand threads...

Jungsan,

You might be right. I loved B&W in its time. It might be much better again. I know it is still a Kevlar midrange w. similar impedance so it might still should posses much of its original character. It might also posses a lot of new positive characteristics which should make it much better than the earlier generation. I did hear the 800s & it was not as I hoped. They were not the 800D but do contain the FST midranage as well.