First off I'd like to say that I am pleased to make this my first post on AVS Forum, seeing that for a long time I have followed your venerated words of wisdom but never registered until now 
So my current job at Best Buy as a home theater specialist has allowed me to become very personal with many mid-high end speakers. The reason I say mid-high end is because we all know that Magnolia does not carry venerated and awe-inspiring speakers such as KEF 201/2's, 800 series Diamonds and so on and so forth. But what the Magnolia center carries are speakers which have luxurious sound as well as a reasonable price tag.
I will be writing reviews for all 41 different makes of speakers we carry, but for now, I will be focusing my attention on the Bowers and Wilkins 685B Bookshelf speakers, as they are my favorite, and personal choice. These bookshelves cost a measly $650 a pair, and for that price tag suggest a somewhat meager performance. After all, directly next to them are the CM5's, which cost a staggering $1500 a pair.
After bringing a pair of these speakers home, I immediately removed the post-plates from the posts on the back, and bi-wired them to my Denon SRA297 Amplifier. Tweeters are wired to Channel A L/R, Midrange is wired to Channel B L/R. My wires are AudioQuest X2 Coecentric Twist/Time Corrrect LGC cables. Preamplifier is a vintage Onkyo P-3300, and source is an Asus G73 gaming laptop, audiocard set to 192k/24bit resolution (exclusive mode). Media player is Foobar2000 with resampler set to 192k.
I left the speakers to break in for a total of 29 hours playing sine wave sweeps while I was at work, so by the time I came home they would be ready for Stage 1 of critical listening. So upon arriving home on day 2, I decided to start them off easy with a rendition of "Feed The Birds"- Julie Andrews (FLAC 16 bit 48k). Though the encoding is quite good, it is a vintage recording so some audio imperfections are psychologically known, though seldom detected on entry level speakers. However, the 685B's immediately projected the claustrophobic characteristics of the microphone's used in the recordings, as well as the slight distortions that were present during the orchestral parts. But aside from those negatives on the recording's behalf, the soundstage immediately knocked my walls down (metaphorically) and the speakers showed off their extension and "airiness" upon hitting the crescendo. Already impressed with these bookshelf's ability, I quickly took a deep breath and forced myself to be critical and not partial. My next choice of song was "Elephants"- Rachael Yamagata. This song is known for having soft but present instrumentation, as well as very focused midrange frequencies that make most speakers fail by presenting them very exaggerated. However, the 685's kept a flat, dry timbre that was exceedingly pleasing to the ears. The tweeters did an amazing job of keeping high end notes crisp yet laid back, so to prevent any hissing or exaggeration of said frequencies. So at this point, there was no denying the very calm magic of these speakers, but I am one to always believe there is a catch. So it was time to give these speakers a run for the money. I quickly loaded up "Strawberry Fields"- Estiva, a fast paced House track which featured very deep synths, and a prominent driving beat. I said to myself "Ha, bookshelves will never be able to handle this!" To my intense surprise, the midranges hit VERY low for a diaphragm of it's size, but kept bass extremely tight and coherent. The high's were crisp and forward, but even the dynamic and deep synths that this song features failed to throw the B&W's off balance. So it was at this point that I gazed upon these bookshelves with a mixture of wariness and affection- I could not believe that a speaker of such diminutive size could have such a big sound. But now it was time for the ultimate test. I cued up my rendition of Tinashe- Zambezi (Accidental Powercut 3 Binaural), and decided to hear how well these speakers could handle the sharp, edgy reverberation of a xylophone, while still managing to present the long, extended roll off of the vibrating plates. I was absolutely floored by the way the 685's managed to reproduce the audio so flatly, yet dramatically. There was no effort on their part; in fact, it almost seemed to taunt me that I couldn't knock them down. Tinashe's voice seemed to fly with the clouds, the soundstaging was so wide that I kept looking left and right whenever the photographers took a picture in the background and the solenoids in the cameras clicked. By the time I finished my critical listening session, I was fully convinced that the 685B's were worth 4 times their weight in gold, for the sound that these little guys made was quite a wonderful one. Sure there are better speakers out there, but in my honest opinion, I don't think you'll find better for $650 a pair.
These speakers were picked as my personal favorites after spending over 300 hours demo'ing and auditioning Paradigm, Energy, Martin Logan and Vienna Acoustic bookshelf/wall speakers.
So my current job at Best Buy as a home theater specialist has allowed me to become very personal with many mid-high end speakers. The reason I say mid-high end is because we all know that Magnolia does not carry venerated and awe-inspiring speakers such as KEF 201/2's, 800 series Diamonds and so on and so forth. But what the Magnolia center carries are speakers which have luxurious sound as well as a reasonable price tag.
I will be writing reviews for all 41 different makes of speakers we carry, but for now, I will be focusing my attention on the Bowers and Wilkins 685B Bookshelf speakers, as they are my favorite, and personal choice. These bookshelves cost a measly $650 a pair, and for that price tag suggest a somewhat meager performance. After all, directly next to them are the CM5's, which cost a staggering $1500 a pair.
After bringing a pair of these speakers home, I immediately removed the post-plates from the posts on the back, and bi-wired them to my Denon SRA297 Amplifier. Tweeters are wired to Channel A L/R, Midrange is wired to Channel B L/R. My wires are AudioQuest X2 Coecentric Twist/Time Corrrect LGC cables. Preamplifier is a vintage Onkyo P-3300, and source is an Asus G73 gaming laptop, audiocard set to 192k/24bit resolution (exclusive mode). Media player is Foobar2000 with resampler set to 192k.
I left the speakers to break in for a total of 29 hours playing sine wave sweeps while I was at work, so by the time I came home they would be ready for Stage 1 of critical listening. So upon arriving home on day 2, I decided to start them off easy with a rendition of "Feed The Birds"- Julie Andrews (FLAC 16 bit 48k). Though the encoding is quite good, it is a vintage recording so some audio imperfections are psychologically known, though seldom detected on entry level speakers. However, the 685B's immediately projected the claustrophobic characteristics of the microphone's used in the recordings, as well as the slight distortions that were present during the orchestral parts. But aside from those negatives on the recording's behalf, the soundstage immediately knocked my walls down (metaphorically) and the speakers showed off their extension and "airiness" upon hitting the crescendo. Already impressed with these bookshelf's ability, I quickly took a deep breath and forced myself to be critical and not partial. My next choice of song was "Elephants"- Rachael Yamagata. This song is known for having soft but present instrumentation, as well as very focused midrange frequencies that make most speakers fail by presenting them very exaggerated. However, the 685's kept a flat, dry timbre that was exceedingly pleasing to the ears. The tweeters did an amazing job of keeping high end notes crisp yet laid back, so to prevent any hissing or exaggeration of said frequencies. So at this point, there was no denying the very calm magic of these speakers, but I am one to always believe there is a catch. So it was time to give these speakers a run for the money. I quickly loaded up "Strawberry Fields"- Estiva, a fast paced House track which featured very deep synths, and a prominent driving beat. I said to myself "Ha, bookshelves will never be able to handle this!" To my intense surprise, the midranges hit VERY low for a diaphragm of it's size, but kept bass extremely tight and coherent. The high's were crisp and forward, but even the dynamic and deep synths that this song features failed to throw the B&W's off balance. So it was at this point that I gazed upon these bookshelves with a mixture of wariness and affection- I could not believe that a speaker of such diminutive size could have such a big sound. But now it was time for the ultimate test. I cued up my rendition of Tinashe- Zambezi (Accidental Powercut 3 Binaural), and decided to hear how well these speakers could handle the sharp, edgy reverberation of a xylophone, while still managing to present the long, extended roll off of the vibrating plates. I was absolutely floored by the way the 685's managed to reproduce the audio so flatly, yet dramatically. There was no effort on their part; in fact, it almost seemed to taunt me that I couldn't knock them down. Tinashe's voice seemed to fly with the clouds, the soundstaging was so wide that I kept looking left and right whenever the photographers took a picture in the background and the solenoids in the cameras clicked. By the time I finished my critical listening session, I was fully convinced that the 685B's were worth 4 times their weight in gold, for the sound that these little guys made was quite a wonderful one. Sure there are better speakers out there, but in my honest opinion, I don't think you'll find better for $650 a pair.
These speakers were picked as my personal favorites after spending over 300 hours demo'ing and auditioning Paradigm, Energy, Martin Logan and Vienna Acoustic bookshelf/wall speakers.
I figured that most of us have to purchase speakers based on a relatively narrow spectrum and limited demo time, so some advice (though far from absolute) from someone who essentially is being paid to listen to speakers all day should be welcome 
