@caphill - just following up. I did get a chance at RMAF (first time) to hear a bunch of speakers. The Sonus Faber are definitely an excellent sounding speaker (my friend has a set of bookshelves mated with all Krell Evolution generation electronics that are excellent as well).
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On the B&W D3 note, I heard the 800 D3 in three different rooms. The main B&W room had Simaudio Moon (if I remember right) and the sound was very clean and clear but did still have a little of that Class A smoothed over sound in the mids. The second room was even more smoothed over. In the third room, the 800 D3 sounded so bad that if that was my only exposure to B&W, I would totally walk out of that room and forget about B&W forever. In actuality, I have to wonder how many speakers I heard that I would have thought sounded amazing, but were compromised somehow by an overly colored tube or too-smooth Class A amp, lol. In reality, I love my B&W D3 at home here and was surprised that my system actually beats the crap out of a LOT of the RMAF rooms. There were probably less than 10 rooms that actually sounded great to me. Many sounded "nice", but just didn't reach that amazing level.
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I did hear Wilson bookshelf speakers and I will admit they were pretty damn great sounding. It was tube gear, so it's difficult to know how they will respond on Class AB solid state.
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@topedwards - hopefully you listened to a lot at RMAF. I would caution wit the Focal speakers. I think they would be just fine with your McIntosh, but the Focal are fast and definitely have a thin/hollow midrange and midbass. They would likely do very well with a Pass Labs full Class A, but your Mac will have a very laid back midrange and could be a great synergy. I think you probably want a very high resolution to mate with your McIntosh. Focal would be great. Others that I have heard could be B&W D3 or Audio Physic. The Sonus Faber definitely sounded good with McIntosh, but they are not the most detailed/forward speaker.
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On the B&W D3 note, I heard the 800 D3 in three different rooms. The main B&W room had Simaudio Moon (if I remember right) and the sound was very clean and clear but did still have a little of that Class A smoothed over sound in the mids. The second room was even more smoothed over. In the third room, the 800 D3 sounded so bad that if that was my only exposure to B&W, I would totally walk out of that room and forget about B&W forever. In actuality, I have to wonder how many speakers I heard that I would have thought sounded amazing, but were compromised somehow by an overly colored tube or too-smooth Class A amp, lol. In reality, I love my B&W D3 at home here and was surprised that my system actually beats the crap out of a LOT of the RMAF rooms. There were probably less than 10 rooms that actually sounded great to me. Many sounded "nice", but just didn't reach that amazing level.
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I did hear Wilson bookshelf speakers and I will admit they were pretty damn great sounding. It was tube gear, so it's difficult to know how they will respond on Class AB solid state.
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@topedwards - hopefully you listened to a lot at RMAF. I would caution wit the Focal speakers. I think they would be just fine with your McIntosh, but the Focal are fast and definitely have a thin/hollow midrange and midbass. They would likely do very well with a Pass Labs full Class A, but your Mac will have a very laid back midrange and could be a great synergy. I think you probably want a very high resolution to mate with your McIntosh. Focal would be great. Others that I have heard could be B&W D3 or Audio Physic. The Sonus Faber definitely sounded good with McIntosh, but they are not the most detailed/forward speaker.