B&W Owner's Thread - Page 416

Congrats on the upcoming HTM1D, that thing will be awesome.

I just received an E-mail from the store "Gramophone" in Maryland that they are having an after Christmas sale with 12% off all speakers including B&W. Plus they have 12 months no interest financing. I bought a set of R-C-L 803 Diamongs from them last year during their Black Friday sale and can attest to the fact that they are a great store to deal with. Enjoy!

Cal68

I have never thought of my 804Ds with Rotel amplification as bright. The Polks I got rid of were very bright and fatiguing by comparison so I know bright when I hear it.
AV South is the culprit. I gues the majority of AV customers are very high rollers and listen to other musical hardware I can only dream about. No B&Ws on display other than the CM9s (which anyone can probably hear at BB.)

Yes. The ATIs are interesting but 'Ive never heard one. The Parasound Halo A31 really has my interest. AA sells only at list. Can anyone recommend a Florida dealer for this item?

1 1/2 feet from the back wall. The back wall has curtains too, not sure if it helps.

1 1/2 feet from the back wall. The back wall has curtains too, not sure if it helps.

Chances are that most audiophiles have listened to ATI amps at one point or another whether it was under the ATI name or other brands like Mark Levinson, Lexicon, JBL, Cary Audio, Theta Digital, B&K, Outlaw, Earthquake, and most amp companies in North America.

But Parasound is top notch as well. You cannot go wrong with Parasound. There is at least one 802D owner who switched from Rotel to Parasound and claimed the Parasond sounded better.

Sounds And Cinema in West Palm Beach is listed as an authorized dealer in Parasound website.

Amen.  I am using an A31 with 800Ds (and TAD E-1s) these days.

Hey Kal, somehow I am still finding my 804D + MF A 5.5 a tad bright, how do you find the A 31 /800 combo?
I am seriously looking at a MC 8207 or the A 31 or 51..

Thanks

Not particularly but slightly brighter than the MAC MC-303.

Thanks, interesting that I was just reading the article "Amp of Ages" as you typed this..

That MC 303 or 8207 might be something I will be saving up for...

Would you happen to know if XLR to RCA adaptors are provided in the 8207 box? I will be using my Denon 4520 which has no XLR outputs. Cheers.

Boy, this thread has sure been anything but your typical speaker love-fest.

I'm interested in what anyone knows about the CM line of speakers. Is it true the CM line is intended to replace the 700 line, establishing a clear line between reasonably priced and godawfully priced? How would a set of CM1s do as surrounds, replacing 601S2s?

And when is B&W going to get rid of the 800 "S" line, since it only seems to be there to confuse.

The 800 S line is no more, when they introduced the second generation diamond tweeters a couple years back (maybe 3 now) B&W chopped the 800 lineup pretty good, there is now only:

805 Diamond
804 Diamond
803 Diamond
802 Diamond
800 Diamond

HTM4 Diamond
HTM2 Diamond

DB1

I don't know if BB has the CM9's or just the CM7's. AV also has a Magipan setup usually that's in a similar price range. But yes: many of their actual room setups are Wilson and McIntosh.

There's a place up on the west side of Dale Mabry North of Hillsborough that has Paradigms and the like and, if they are still in business, Sensual Sounds on (IIRC) Bush. There's a set of 802D's on the consignment area of AVSouth now (or was 3 weeks ago).

I would like to write about a small experiment. After buying CM9s for my Yamaha RX-A2010 I was thrilled by their musicality, scene depth, bass depth and fullness (without plugs, no problems with control), but they lacked overall clarity and had somewhat muffled middle and high tones. My cable is some kind of Monster Cables (no symbol, bought them about 10 years ago, and have no idea what they are). I borrowed another speaker cable (audioquest V8) and experimented. The audioquest cables are really bright "unmuffling" everything CM9s had to hide but basses were not that good. After some thinking I bi-amped them with MC playing low frequencies and CV8 playing middle and high frequences, and bingo! Finally they played as I liked. Nice bass background and good middles and trebles. Perhaps a weird config but sounding good to my ears. I do not know if you are supposed to use identical cables for bi-amping. Nevertheless in my case bi-amping did as I wished. I guess it could be the answer to those saying CM9s are withdrawn.

Monoprice 12awg cable continues to serve my B&W 801's fine.

I would have thought that close to adequate. Can you try pull them out another 6" to see if that changes it. Also, are the foam bungs solid or two layer, I.e. do they have an outer ring. My 685 bungs were solid. I ask because if they are, try the outer bung ring only.

That is strange. Does that mean that your Yamaha RX-A2010 is not adequate for the CM9? It's rated 140 wpc, you shouldn't have any problems powering them. My Anthem MRX-700 doesnt even sweat working on my CM9, CMC2 and CM5 set up.

Hi sugarmillman, nop I hear mcintosh and a high end brand named Atoll and rotel, all three have different sound and it will depend of the personal taste but I prefer for now the rotel sound but I'm trying to get a classe gear (I'm selling my house to get it jajaja)

Thanks for the post.

It is extremely interesting to me that this is such a divided topic. A lot of people hear no change from cables, from bi wiring, bi amping, etc. etc. Yet there is probably an equal amount of people who hear huge differences. I just do not understand how this can be...

Oh, now, Jerry. I'm sure they sound the same, but they just won't do it for my shiny 802D2, which deserve Kimber Kable 8PR w/ locking bananas.

There are a lot of possible answers.

Firstly: Sometimes there is a difference. This is honestly not disputable. Cables can be designed to color sound, so can amps. Amps driven to clipping clearly sound different. Amps which cannot generate sufficient current are going to sound different. etc.

Outside of that, there are two possibilities. One is that some people don't hear obvious differences; the other is that people hear differences that don't exist.
Actually there is a third possibility: that being that people make changes they don't realize they made. They switch amps but don't level match. Now everything is louder (which sounds different to the ear, not just louder)... for example.

Why would people not hear things that are obviously there.
They could have broken ears/brains; though I've seen no studies supporting it, nor do I see correlation with people likely to experience hearing loss, nor do the same people fail to hear differences in speakers.

They could be imagining no change. I'm not aware of any study on that either.

Why would people hear things that are not there?
That's widely studied. Tell people the wine they are tasting is more expensive and it gets better reviews. Tell them it's cheap and it gets worse ones.
There's an experiment where music was played twice through the same rig, but the second time large impressive speaker cables were shown to the listeners. They liked the second performance more.

We hear differences where we expect them. Dye a grilled cheese green with food coloring and ask your kids if it tastes the same.

I have a Sound Anchors stand for my HTM1 and it is very nice. Built like a tank and is heavy as one too.

I use a McIntosh MC352 to power my 802's and it is a match made in heaven.

I've auditioned the B&W/Mac combo at my local magnolia... Sublime..

I just got a ATI which i haven't hooked up yet, just about to jump out of my skin in anticipation

I'd LOVE to have some McIntosh gear but I'm afraid it's above my pay grade right now. About three thousand is what I can spend on this upgrade to power my front three.

Golden Ear vs Scientific (Double-blinded studies) beliefs.

Medical, science, & engineering backgrounds vs other backgrounds.

Evidence-based thinking vs non-evidence-based thinking.

What we studied in college and what we do for a living play well into our everyday lives and hobbies.

The way we were wired throughout life, pun intended.

Some of us are so evidence-based in our upbringings that we just can't accept things that are not proven, even in this fun audio hobby.
Edited by AcuDefTechGuy - 12/27/12 at 12:07pm

Here we go again, from amps making a difference in SQ to wires lol

I'm in the crowd that says if you can pass a blind test and can consistently tell which amp or wire is which, then you're sure as hell making the right decision to pick one over the other.

I know many consider the brand beneath them but why not look at Emotiva. For $3K you could get 3 XPA-1s. I own them and they power my 803S's and an HTM3S. I could not be happier for 2 channel material. My issue is that I am primarily a theater user. So, I may be selling two of them. Kal R has reviewed the XPA-5 and he liked it a lot. In addition, you could just get the XPA-3 and spend all that money elsewhere or go hog wild crazy and get the XPR-5. I am not in the esoteric amp crowd though. I prefer to spend my money on screen, projector, subs, speakers, EQ technology and laslyt seating. Amps to me are very similar from inexpensive to crazy cult stuff. I do believe in a high current, high power clean amp though. For example, in my den I use a Yamaha Neo AVR thingy. It isn't even power rated. It powers a set of various Monitor Audio Radius Series speakers. It sounds fine but lacks what the big Emo's and B&W's can do in the basement and can't play loud. The sound is pretty average in the den. Then again, it's the den and how fantastic do I need CNBC and Fox Business to sound. I do like the floor exchange reporter for Fox though....