B&W N800 vs Wilson WP7 vs Revel and others

Dollysowner, I have since sold the 802's and do agree with you about the N800. It is one of the finest speakers I have heard. I have to say that right now it is almost a toss up between the N800's and the WP 7's. They both have their own character and I would be proud and happy to have either one in my system. The WP 7 holds the edge right now only because of it's size, weight and aesthetics. There are other factors that could easily swing the final decision the other way.....such as price and dealer support. Thanks to everyone.

Bill

I wanted to upgrade from my Dynaudio Confidence 5 to something larger and easier to drive. My list of speakers was similar, this is my observation.

Wilson is too lean for home usage even though they might be "accurate" or able to show slight changes in upstream equipments.

B&W can be fatiguing after a while. I will blame it on the metal tweeter even though it's one of the better metal tweeter on the market. Midrange transparency also lacks a little. And the base, they got to lose that base. That's major afterthought.

Revel is similar to Wilson and the driver integration is not optimal. This is based on listening session with Levinson amp which is usually lifeless, so my opinion might not be accurate. But I have heard more musical sound from other speakers of the same price or size.

JM Lab fails to image well and it's easy to understand why, the large face plate. And like any speakers with more than one midrange driver, imaging will suffer.

Dynaudio Temptation or C4 are overall very musical, but lose the quickness of C5 in bass. Top end is probably the best in this price range. Image is somewhat large, probably due to multiple midrange drivers, even though Dynaudio use difference x-over freq for all drivers.

Sonus Faber Amati is the most musical speaker in this list. Accurate? Probably not. But overall the best speaker for classical music and even better than Dynaudio. I have been a Dynaudio fan for years, so it takes a lot for me to make such statement and my local dealer who carries most of the speakers above agrees. Strings and vocal are reproduced with stunning realism and liquidity.

So my vote goes to Amati and that's what I bought.

Wvick,
If you get a chance, try to hear the Shahinian Diapasons. I arrived at them after listening to the Watt/Puppies, Wilson Grand Slams, B&W 800's, Soundlabs and Thiels. You can get a brand new pair for $12,000. A lot of money but compared to others a real deal. Gordon Holt compared them favorably to the Wilson Wamms. These loudspeakers make no compromises in the reproduction of live music at live levels!! There are no U.S. dealers that I know of yet they have been in business a long time. For the money you will save on the speakers, fly out to New York and hear what I believe is the best speaker in the world.

Forgot to mention Quad 988's. Absolutely fantastic loudspeaker. I heard these at Promusica in Chicago and they were very impressive. They are the personal favorites of several Promusica employees who have access to speakers many times the price.

Your thread appears to be a bit dated (no new entries since mid-January and now it's April), but I wanted to add the obvious, namely, that your best move would be to demo speakers in your home with your equipment if possible. Doing so is the only way to know what sound you are going to get and to know whether a given speaker mates well with your room and your electronics. If you buy speakers that sound great at the dealer, but get them home and find that they excite a room node or don't have synergy for whatever reason with YOUR room and equipment, you're dead (this is a real risk given that most of the speakers you mention can really do bass and you are using Krell monoblocks, which themselves have prodigious bass). A decent dealer should cooperate with you in this regard (although many, if not most, don't want to do this), especially given the sticker on the speakers you are considering -- their mark ups are usually at least 40% on speakers, and more so on expensive speakers, so they should work to earn, for example, the $10,000 they clear on a pair of Watt Puppys.

Good luck.