What are your general thoughts of B&W speakers

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.

Chadeffect ,I totally disagree with what your saying.."What are your general thoughts of B&W speakers" is what was asked.We dont need to know room size,amps,preamps,cables,treatments etc to give thoughts of the brand.Personally I wouldnt take em if free assuming I couldnt sell them and get what I consider better.The way I read it are comments on the B&W line,pretty simple to access!

Missioncoonery,

"General thoughts" on a speaker would assume the speaker is being used with equipment of similar quality. I did not mention room or cables.

So from your comment ( missioncoonery- "Personally I wouldnt take em if free...") we are to deduce you think they are bad. But some of the finest recording studios on the planet would disagree. So now who do we believe? Your opinion or the opinion of gifted professionals?

So with no insight into the way they are being used either you are deaf or the pros are deaf. Ummm... Which amp were you using?

They can be nice with the right amp and setup but often that is not the case when you hear them. In general, I tend to prefer PSB, Focal and Totem when I hear them these days.

I owned B&W P6s for about 10 years which were a good value in their day.