B&W 802D3

maxking OP
I have been looking into getting B&W 802D3 speakers since they were announced. I am now at a point to make that decision and I am finding that many people who bring them home, end up returning them because they are too bright

They are a great speaker, but if you drive them with an amp that can’t deliver "serious current" into this hard load in the bass and some of the lower mids they present to the amp, then yes they are going to sound bright.
https://www.stereophile.com/images/616BW802fig1.jpg

You need an amp that can "almost" double it’s 8ohm wattage, into 4ohms and then "almost" double again into 2ohms. To get the best out of these speakers, especially in the bass.
They are 91db but " it is a relatively demanding load for an amplifier to drive. (Stereophile)"

Cheers George

@maxking agree these speakers shouldn’t require subs IMO.

I have them and they sound really incredible. Can’t say I regret the purchase at all. They definitely not bright and have a wonderful mid range. The reason they pop up for sale more than others is simple. They’re a big company, with a very popular, well reviewed speaker. Some people will eventually sell them. Sometimes it’s just to move up in price category. You’d be hard pressed to find a written review that’s bad. Word of mouth I’ve found is always people who have never heard them and just hear from other people, or it’s that they heard older generations. 

The D3 which use synthetic diamond tweeters are not "bright" per say because the tweeters do not have any of the breakup distortion problems that metal tweeters do.  However, they are very high resolution and very revealing.  The people who state these speakers are bright are likely people who have more forgiving soft dome tweeters in their system and use a lot of silver or silver-plated elements (such as silver-plated interconnect, silver terminations, etc.).  These elements can definitely make the D3 "too bright" because silver will tend to push hard on the upper mids and highs.

Thanks, everyone.  I am going to run this with some very big monoblocks so I should be fine on power.  I am going to spend time listening to them and other options this weekend.  Hopefully, I can classify the sound versus others and make a decision.