Am I the only one who thinks B&W is mid-fi?

i've listened to various b&w's and haven't felt good about any of em. My impression for all of them is that they are too warm, and too warm (to me) means too colored. Listening is such a fragile exercise because our feelings that day, our life philosophies, and too many other factors to recount, all play a huge role in our interpretations. I, for instance, prefer to hear honesty coming out of a box or planar or what have you. Coloration, to me is tantamount to the labcoat boys tampering with something that was intended to be left alone and simply passed on to my ears from the studio. I like triangle speakers. incredible accuracy. Next week, who the hell knows what i'll like.
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Just bought a pair of B&W802,s and they are definitly not mid-fi you must be driving them with inferior electronics or listening in your closet. They are accurate, and image incredibly. they are one the best sounding speakers I have Heard!,as do most of the audiophile community. Talk about detail!!! They only get better,with upgrades comes better sound. reassess your system, and fix the weak link.

Poloman, I agree 100%. I've still been thinking about this thread as I have N804.
Mikez is probably hearing mid-fid electronics which B&W faithfully reproduce.

I’m not sure that I would call B&W mid-fi but I’m not a huge fan. I generally want sound over sight and personally I think B&W’s are expensive for the sound they deliver. For the price of a CDM9 NT I would prefer Vandersteen’s 2Ce or Magnepan 1.6’s. BTW neither of those speakers look nearly as good as the CDM and Nautilus B&W’s. That being said I have a friend, with no real hifi sense, whom is dying to get his hand on some Nautilus 804’s. Why because they have Nautilus technology and look cool. After listening to the 804 once (even good stuff can sound bad once) I was not thrilled, and I would take Martin Logan or Magnepan speakers instead. Do I think my friend is wrong. Yes and No. Yes, I think it’s dumb to buy any speaker because of a certain technology it contains (Nautilus or electrostatic for that matter). No, they do sound good, just not $3600 good. No, because he is interested in how they look. I think the CDM and Nautilus series both look really good. While I think ML’s look better they are a bit tall for some taste.

My opinion, the short version: B&W does not have good performance per dollar. B&W’s higher end speakers (CDM and up) are really cool looking. If you are willing to spend the cash B&W can sound really good.

A note about spelling: Spelling skill does not equal intelligence! Typo’s are common place and not everyone will proof read a post before sending it. Second, spelling skill is tied to how your mind processes reading. Not all people read in the same way just like not all people are right handed. I have a masters in engineering from Stanford yet I misspelled several words while typing this post. That’s why I use a spell checker religiously.

Nik, that sums things up kinda nice. But i don't give B&W as much credit as you. Frankly there are not many reasonably priced speakers that are class "A". If you don't know what class "A" is or don't even believe in such a hypothesis, well then what can i say. The French lab, Traingle claims Class "A" for one of their models, $2K. One member says they deliever, vs the Theil 1.6's that fall way short of the mark in the lower bass region. But are the Traingle class "A"??, hard to say. Here's my opinion, nothing more, maybe not even worth 2 cents, the Seas kit called Thor is class "A". That's a reference speaker for the price group under $3K. Now Vandy's 2ce, over B&W, yea that's acceptable. Maggies, no go. ML's, with a big Krell, yes,$$$. But its not for me. B&W's are not class "A", lets leave it at that.