What are your general thoughts of B&W speakers

Gwng8,

what amp were you using to drive them? Being devils advocate... Could it have been your source or amp that was clinical?

Which speakers would you say are the opposite of clinical and what did you use to drive them?

I progressively traded up from the 804S to 803D to 803Diamond over a period of 5 years.

I continued to enjoy their unique combination of musicality and looks. I found in particularly the 804/803 visual design is timeless, though I also like the 802/800 avant-garde looks (not as much the 801).

Both the 803D and 803Diamond have been the most satisfying loudspeakers I owned in terms of combination of good tonal balance, bass weight, transparency and smooth sound.
The 804/803 does not necessarily require high powered amplifiers (I successfully drove them to satisfying levels with 60W) – but they demand the highest quality transparent low noise amplifiers you can afford (think Class A).

Their slightly warmish, smooth sound and relatively low cost (at least compared to the boutique brands) tend to result in music/gear lovers pairing them with less ideal front-end equipment. Interestingly, although they are fairly forgiving of less than high-end equipment and top-notch recordings, they reward any upgrade in equipment and increase in recording resolution. They will sound a bit flat if you scrimp on the equipment quality. However they will reward any tweaks to mains conditioning, vibration isolation, cables, synergistic equipment combinations, room position adjustment to millimetres (similar to the care that a Wilson Audio loudspeaker is positioned). That is why most hifi store setups sound less than inspirational.

So any significant weaknesses (other than if you think fanatical setup hygiene is too much hard work)? I will rate the Kevlar midrange as good rather than exceptional. It is not as adept as e.g. a Seas magnesium midrange at micro-dynamics. However it tracks overall macro-dynamics very well without compression and the sharp break-up nodes of the magnesium cone. On balance I think the midrange compromises of a 3 way are well judged. Any significant advance will likely require a 4 way design using a pure pistonic midrange design (as per the Nautilus design) or a significantly more advanced cone material.

I listen to my 803D / 803Diamonds probably around 350 out of 365 days every year. They faithfully provide me listenable and enjoyable music and continue to surprise me on a good recording.

This topic has been killed! And yet people still compare crazy speakers to B&W. By Crazy I mean the COST difference between the B&W and WHATEVER.

Look it comes down to this,

What B&W speaker are we speaking of????

What speaker are we comparing to????

What are we using it for? two channel or home theater???

Are we using a sub in either instance????

What equipment is being used????

what type of room is being used??? has it been treated???

All things concidered equil, If you compare Any speaker to a speaker in a much higher price range the more expensive speaker SHOULD sound better.

If you have a pair of $20,000 speakers and want to compare them to a pair of $4,000 pair of B&W, you are being ridiculous! then think about the guy with the 20k speakers, I would imagine he also has two mono amps for them at a cost of 10k a piece. I doubt the 4k B&Ws have that.

If you put ANY higher end speaker with lower quality equipment, Lets say a "best buy" receiver (to exagerate my point), it will sound like crap.

Hey... lets compare a ZR1 Corvette with a Camaro...

Vette is 120k the camaro around 30k....
Will the Vette be faster???? Hell Ya it will.
Will the vette go around the corners faster??? Hell Ya it will.
Is the vette 4 times as much money??? Hell Ya it is.

Now think of this.... How many divers that own the ZR1 vette can drive it to its potential???? I would say less than 1%. Also you would have to rent out a track to even play with it at that level.

It is just stupid to compare these two, Period!

There are good buys ( bang for the buck) in all catigories of speakers, processors and amps...

Buy what speakers you want, buy equipment that complements them.

and just enjoy them.

Bill

B&W speakers represent innovation, immaculate contruction, genuine value, and solid performance.

They were the first to use woven Kevlar drivers, adopt computer analysis of their own drivers, and explore different cabinet materials, construction, and shapes. Witness the laminated curved birch cabinet introduced with the N802. That set the industry on its ear. It's probably one of the most copied shapes ever. Most of todays copies do not exhibit the same quality of materials and contruction. Other examples are the matrix cabinet, the dimpled ports, and the tapered tube enclosures. How many manufacturers offer diamond tweeters? They are certainly at the fore front of technology.

B&W are competitive at the various price points in the market. There will be afficiondos and detracters as with any product.

BTW, I own two pairs of B&W, the orignal CM1 with the Phenolic cabinet and full matrix construction and N802's. I also own other brands of speakers that I enjoy as much or more.

Baranowski,

Exactly the point I have made in earlier posts. This thread and others like it are useless without full descriptions of model and amps driving them etc.

I have heard many speaker systems sound bad. Many of those times it was not the speaker that was bad. You are only as good as the weakest link. A great speaker under powered or over damped will sound at best average.

Even the ZR1 would be slow if driven by a blind person, or driven in the snow, or across a ploughed field. Come on people. Lets have proper information.