Receiver matching B&W 684 Fronts

To be honest, the 684's if I remember correctly are the smaller brother to the 685's and they are nowhere near as open as the other B&W's.

If possible, I'd suggest swapping them back for the 685's (I own these). The 684's are best as surrounds.

However, if this is not an option, on your reciever, turn it off from the main button, hold "Tone Control" and hit the Main Zone button to go into the advanced menu. Here you can select "Impedance" and set it to 8. Also if you want, enable "Bi-Wire" and bi wire your speakers. This made my 685's way more open and defined.

Try EQ'ing them with a boosted midrange if possible.

Not sure what the problem is, but "matching" is definitely not the culprit. (Nor will biwiring solve anything, except in your head.)

Pull out your receiver manual and check that all your settings are appropriate. Have you used the room correction on the Yamaha? Also, try tweaking the tone controls.

Absent that, I'd say you aren't very happy with your speakers.

I agree totally.

Owning a Yamaha V563, these amps when biwired do sound better because it uses a whole different internal amp (the one for the surrounds) to drive the speaker. So it is bi-amped in a very loose sense and I have noticed a stark difference with my B&W's when I did. However this should not be the reason your speakers sound bad.

McNarus, I used to work at Best Buy in HT, and I know for a fact those 684's sound very underwhelming. They have a phenomenal tweeter but that midrange driver is too small. It's really intended to be a rear speaker. I ended up pulling the gun on the 685's for that reason.

I hate to say it but every speaker company makes a speaker that kinda shoots itself in the foot and the 684 regrettably is that speaker.

I believe you are mistaking the 684 for the 686,
which is a smaller bookshelf than the 685.
The 684 is a floorstanding speaker.

684 are not very good speakers. In 68x line you should either take 685 (but you need a sub along with them) or 683. Almost any receiver will be able to work with 685. But for 683 you need really powerful amplifier. Which means either top of the line receiver, or separate power amplifier with at least 250w of power at 8 ohm.

I have shamed myself as a B&W enthusiast...

The floorstanders LOVE a solid amplifier behind them. While they are at an 8 ohm impedance, I did find that the models I tested back at Magnolia sounded the best matched with either a Marantz or the 1xxx line of Yamaha's.

There is no reason those speakers should sound muddy; even despite not having the FST.

Try giving them an EQ adjust if possible.

It might have something to do with what PEQ, parametric EQ, setting you have selected. Have you performed the speaker calibration?

you aren't helping the "reputation" of bb/magnolia employees any...

There is nothing wrong with your receiver. I have listened to those speakers, and if I was making a list of floorstanding speakers in the $1000 price range, I would put them dead last on the list. They would sound the way you describe with any amplifier.

If you want some really really nice-sounding floorstanding speakers in that price range, these are the ones that sound the best to me:

1) PSB Image T6

2) PSB Image T5

3) KEF Q500

4) Monitor Audio Bronze BX-6

Any of those speakers will sound far far better than what you have IMO.

I don't know of any way to make your current speakers sound decent; sorry.

One point; despite their labeling, the impedance of the 684 is quite low at many frequencies and they should be treated as a 4 ohm speaker.


Matched with a B&W 684.
(Speakers/Home_Audio/600_Series/684.html)
Nominal impedance 8Ω (minimum 3.0Ω)
Recommended amplifier power 25W - 150W into 8Ω on unclipped programme

If I don't drive the amp to about 75% of it's max volume, it sounds 'mushy' and flat. I'm not talking about bass either;not expecting much from the 684s.('Not loud enough'. This being my first hifi setup, not sure how to explain this). These are the only speakers hooked up to the amp. Bi-amping does not help much.

Not sure what happened to the OP but I don't think negative comments on the OP's choice of speakers are helpful. He must have liked the sound of the 684s or the purchase wouldn't have been made.

I used a Yamaha receiver with my pair of 685s at one time and noticed the same things and changing the EQ helped a bit.

With just 1 6.5" woofer your speakers are not exactly dynamic range champions.

Probable cause of mushy sound is overpowering the small woofer.

One word: subwoofer.

It may be worth experimenting with room positioning of your speakers, siting them away from walls and corners - also, if possible experiment with the speakers firing down to opposite side of the room, as the room acoustics may be better one way than the other. I have heard B&W 684 loudspeakers and they can sound great when set up optimally.

This!!!

I had similar feelings about my B&W 604's for the longest time. I upgraded receivers from a Yamaha HTR-6090 to an HK AVR 3600, and although there was a fairly significant improvement (probably the EZset/EQ vs. the YPAO of that time) I was still not happy with the sound of my speakers. It wasn't until I set up my speakers following "The Golden Ratio" that my speakers really came alive. Also, you need to carefully select your listening position to avoid peaks and nulls in your room. A key rule of thumb for listening position is to avoid sitting in the middle of the room for all dimensions, L/W/H. I believe I read that 2/3 the length, or width is a good place.