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B&W 802N

To be honest with you I have never really liked B&W speakers but my brother loves them. He recently purchased a pair of them on here and now he is looking for the right electronics. Also with so many great things people have to say about the 802N's I am wondering why I do not like them. Maybe I have not heard them with the right electronics. I know that they are overall really efficent speakers (8ohms nominal and 91DB) so I am wondering if tubes would make them sound good.

I can get decent pricing on a pair of PrimaLuna Dialogue Seven Monoblocks (70 watts). Now as efficent as these speakers are I would figure these amps would power these nicely. One reviewer said that these amps would have no trouble with speakers as efficent as the 802n's!

Any thoughts on this combo??

Or if we need to go with a high power Solid State amp I was thinking that the Parasound A21 (250 watts) is a great deal here on Audiogon. We would pair the A21 with the matching JC2 preamp.

Any thoughts on this combo?
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rhljazz
1,253 posts
 
I would suspect 70 watts might be too little. The best bass I could get was with a VAC Phi 110. This was superior to Classe CA300 and DR8, and the VAC PA100. From the bass up, the VAC PA100 is the champ. I have a new Cary 120S and a W4S St500 which at some point in the future I will audition on the N802's. The speakers currently are not set-up.
steveaudio
331 posts
 
I spent years going down this path with my Matrix 802's. IMO you will go broke, or crazy, trying to use tubes w/large b&w's, unless maybe you could spring for huge VTL or ARC mono-blocs.

A large Parasound SS amp might start to do it, but like Angst0 said: "No way to get by "on the cheap" with these speakers".

OTOH: Your friend may like either of the amps you mentioned, for a while. If you don't pay too much used, you can always give an amp a try.....good luck!
pcs
109 posts
 
Brandon,

Everybody likes different flavors. It isn't right or wrong, just differet. For me, I love my N802's. I power them with a pair of Marantz SM11 pwr amps that rate at 300 wpc in bridged mode. The key to my system however is the CJ premier 16ls tube preamp. In my system, the 802's do not sound bright at all, like some complain. I agree with Steve above that the N802 require decent current/pwr and doing that with tubes is expensive. I would recomend a good solid state amp of at least 200-250 wpc. Good and cheap is the CJ MF2500A. More money but also good would be parasound JC-1 mono amps or Pass. Combine these with the best tubed pre you can afford.

Again, everyones taste are different. That is what makes this so much fun :)

Good luck.
Regards,
Paul
angst0
13 posts
 
I use a Cary SLP98 F1 version for a preamp. This gives me tube sound with enormous current. I am fortunate enough to have about 400 watts per channel of KT88 sound from the Carver Silver 7's. Otherwise, tube amps are tough I think. Used to have a Mark Levinson....but the Carver opens up these speakers with relentless energy. Also, the speaker wires are critical. I'm using Synergistic Research cables designed for B&W bi-wired.
wpines
93 posts
 
I had 802N's recently with a tube preamp and 500wpc amps with wattmeters. They were unimpressive at low volumes and don't open up 'til 50- 350 watts. These like current.
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