Hi
km1181,
I recently purchased a last gen model, the B&W
CM9 S2. I started using
the B&W
with my Peachtree integrated and didn't experience any harsh highs. However, when I moved my existing KEFs to the home theater room to run with a
current
Sony 5.1 receiver, the KEFs became very harsh to my ears. The KEF Q150s are a net upgrade over the $60/pair Polk I was using in that space, but the Polks didn't sound harsh at all. The harshness is so bad, I seriously think about going back to the Polks. But I will more than likely upgrade to a nicer receiver or pre/pro w amp to see if I can tame the harshness in that system.
Some of my takeaways are: (1) synergy is important; (2) Polk actually did a fantastic job voicing their entry level bookshelves to match the electronics that people would most likely pair them with; (3) the KEFs and B&W really can be harsh like people say.
The OP in this other thread also complained of harshness for his B&W
(
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/best-lower-end-cables-for-b-w-speakers). The OP there was hoping to solve the issue with new speaker cables. I pointed out that the likely culprit for him was the home theater receiver, not the speaker cables.
So, assuming that our B&W models are sufficiently similar, I think a Peachtree integrated would make a good match for your speakers. Besides my experience matching B&W and Peachtree, there are a few technical reasons the two would be a good match theoretically. First, I've read that B&W likes very clean, low noise, SS equipment. Peachtree is those things. Second, many B&W speakers have a large impedance swing across the frequency spectrum--3ohm to 8ohm if I recall. And Peachtree in their marketing material state that their equipment handles a very wide range of impedance loads. Third, the newer Peachtree Nova's have a home theater bypass, which would be useful since you're looking to run surround in the future--good with your upgrade path. Fourth,
Peachtree amps have lot of watts, which is considered to be ideal for movies.
All TVs that I know have an optical output for audio. If you're running optical from a TV into an external DAC, I highly recommend a reclocker of some kind. I use an iFi Spdif reclocker in my stereo system between the streamer and DAC. It made one of the biggest differences in my system. I can't underscore the difference it made enough. I imagine a reclocker will be just important when connecting to a TV via optical.
