A contrarian viewpoint to the consensus here. So I am a B&W fanboy, but as I stated earlier in this thread, I was really impressed with the Salon 2 in several reasonably long dealer sessions.
Well, lo and behold, a good deal came up on a used pair and I jumped on it impulsively. Have had them in my house for 3 weeks and...I don't really care for them.
Although I readily admit that the neutrality, accuracy, and coherence is there in spades, and the imaging and distinction btwn instruments is absolutely amazing, they don't move me. Vocals are ever so slightly recessed, and there is no "life" to them. They are quite unforgiving of even average recordings (forget poor ones), which greatly limits listening options. The bass is really good only on good recordings, but they can't seem to pull out the lower mids and bass on average CDs.
The most interesting but frustrating part of the experience is that they seem to sometimes deconstruct a song into it's musical parts: vocals, distinct instruments, leaving an uninvolving collection of distinct sounds (clear and neutral as they can be). While sometimes I am absolutely amazed at the imaging or clarity, I more often find that I'm easily distracted instead of immersed and toe tapping.
I have come to the conclusion that, great as they are, I may just prefer a fuller, warmer more forward sound. Maybe that means I like a more colored sound or the "BBC midbass hump", which I know is audiophile heresy, but so be it. It's what I like. Just my two cents.
Going to take a good hard listen to the 802Di and the Sonus Faber Elipsa.
