APOGEE CENTAUR MAJOR VS B&W MATRIX801S2 WHICH IS T

Ct0517, no I did not hear them side by side, so you got me there. I admit that a more thorough testing is what was called for. Although memory of sounds can be a strong thing, it's certainly not the same as side by side comparisons. Nevertheless, I still feel the 801D and 800Ds are the better speakers, but to each is own. The 801 Matrix can compete well as I alluded to before, I suppose.

Hi Digital3 - I don't know how familiar you are with the B&W BAF. All the 800 matrix series speakers 800, 801, 802, 803, 804, 805 followed John Bowers vision as an active design.
The BAF - basically an equalizer is inserted and boosts the low bass as well as getting rid of of sub sonic nasties that make woofer pumping a problem.

Here is an frequency response graph plot from B&W with the 801's - filter and no filter.

http://cgim.audiogon.com/i/vs/i/f/1368548585.jpg

I listen to music that has material below 40 hz so the filter is important to me.
I also found the bass boom around 100hz in my room without the filter was eliminated making placement easier.
If you are going to keep the S2; I recommend at least
searching on ebay or here at audiogon for the filter.
they come up for sale. This way you can at least hear the speakers as designed.
You can always sell it later if it doesn't work for you.
They are always in demand because the BAF's were all originally shipped with the speakers but they got misplaced and lost as speakers changed hands.

Dave - if you ever get an opportunity try to hear the matrix 800's.

Cheers

Thank you Cto517 will give BAF a try.

There's another comment I want to make re. the later versions of B&W speakers that used 6" & 7" Kevlar midrange drivers. I used to own a pair of B&W DM604S2 speakers that used a 7" Kevlar mid & I found that when Diana Krall was playing, she sounded like she was in the plane or slightly ahead of the speakers (& I was seated 10 ft from the speakers). When I played Frank Sinatra, he sounded well behind the plane of the speakers. I found this perplexing. When I did some research on AudioAsylum I found an owner of a N801 in New Zealand had found the very same issue on his speakers! He & I got chatting on this issue & what we found was that a 6" Kevlar midrange in his N801 was beaming at 2200Hz & my 7" Kevlar midrange was beaming at 1900Hz.
When I say beaming what I mean to say is that the Kevlar midrange is beginning to enter its cone breakup mode & the sound coming out takes the shape of a beam of light from a lighthouse during the night. I.E. it becomes very directional. With mid being one of 3 or 4 drivers in a floorstander, the integration of the drivers fail & the balance of sound is disturbed thereby moving the soundstage to the front or the back as I was hearing. The matter is made worse because B&W (in all their infinite judgement) decided to cross-over the mid to the tweeter at 4KHz!! Well above the 6" or 7" Kevlar mid cone break-up mode! Why did they do this?? I could not understand....
You will not find this issue with the Matrix 801S2 as the midrange driver is 5" & the cone breakup frequency is 2700Hz & the cross-over frequency is 3KHz.
In more than one way, the Matrix series speakers were engineered correctly: selection of drivers, selection of cross-over frequencies to match drivers, cabinet contruction, offset of drivers to make them time-aligned, Ct0517 brings up another good point - the BAF module to make the woofer integrate correctly with the other drivers.
B&W seems to have thrown all this out of the window with John Bowers' passing when they introduced the N8XX & beyond models.....

here's a pix of the Matrix 801S2
[url]http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/506/index.html[/url]
and here is a pix of the N801:
[url]http://images.productwiki.com/upload/images/b_w_801d.jpg[/url]
check out the vast difference in the sheer size of the midrange driver (I realize the pix are not the same size but even then you get an idea). The Matrix 801S2 driver a lot more flange & I'd not be surprised if the actual area of the driver is less than 5". Whereas the N801 midrange has almost zero flange - I can only see a rubber surround - it's all driver right to the very edge meaning to say it's all of the advertised 6".

I *did* hear the Matrix 800s way back in '91 driven by Krell amps and preamp at a local dealer. From what I remember, it was good, but no big deal. Of course, it could have been placement, the room, and maybe the electronics too. I would definitely like to hear them again. But that's a long shot since they've been out of production for a long time...anyway, I still like the 800D and 801D. Especially the 801D. Too bad B&W discontinued those...