B&W 'New' 800 Series

@mmeysarosh
good info in your post. 

When u say.

While I’m not really enamored by looks so much, this speakers measured performance and positive press are impressive. While certainly not inexpensive, their performance levels seem to be in line to their market competition so I would certainly have a listen to them.

As far as not being inexpensive, they are also still Made in England. This will be more expensive. I am not a Frequent Flyer with gear. It needs to pass the hardest test - the test of time. I don’t tolerate downtime or failures. The jury IMO is still out on offshore manufacturing. I can tell you that I have owned boutique amps where you get to know the manufacturer / designer well. They have ordered in the past inexpensive common parts like resistors/capacitors from offshore. I have heard horror stories on how a $2.00 part can fail, causing the 5 figure amp to fail. If the buyer is local ok - but what if they are in a different country or a situation where the amp needs to be shipped to be repaired.  

Is B&W all in house with 800 series parts ? Maybe I will send them an email to find out.

fwiw - My first B&W’s were new Dm2000’s bought new at Bay Bloor Radio in Toronto. My brother is still using them.

Cheers

CT, the room in the photo at that link looks bigger than the room we were in, from the clearance on the sides, but hard to tell.   It was a nice-sized room, about as wide as my living room, but longer.  It's a rectangular shaped, long room with the 805 system on one end and the 802 on the other.  The amps in that photo, big McIntosh amps, that's exactly what was driving the 802D3 we heard.    I can call the store today for exact dimensions so we're not relying on my memory of the space, but I don't recall it being as spacious as the room at the link you posted.   We were sitting dead-center in the room, about 10' from the speakers.   And they were not toed-in at all.

Like I said, they made a big deal about the crossover in the 802D2!  Not a peep about the 803D3's crossover parts.  Also, have you looked at the new website?  It exudes mass market!  Very little content, no more society of sound etc..

CT,

While I do believe B&W make a majority of the speaker in house, I have no doubt that certain key parts are still sourced off shore. But I did find a nifty videos on their build. Caution, the music track on it is awful on the first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sel-EoCEeC4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EpH2QsE77w

Also, I did find Audio magazine also providing their own measurements and they were slightly different in the lowest octaves, smoothly rolling off down to 20hz. Thoughts are that B&W spent their effort to keep the bass in extended and in level with the rest of the range in room. As many of us know, many designs are somewhat boosted often to create the illusion of improved bass extension, but not so in these new models.

In addition the tweeter is now solid body and not tapered tube...something tells me they won't be used in recording studios anymore!