B&W Owner's Thread - Page 10

I recently demo'd nordost cables and was not at all impressed. I can't remembered all of the interconnects I demo'd, but there definately a difference in interconnects.

While I respect your opinion here, I strongly disagree with you. IMO, each of these speakers have different strengths. The 803d is clearly a more detailed speaker, but without the marlan head, lacks the depth, soundstage and imaging of the 802N.

The 803d still has the qualities of a box speaker that just does not exist in a speaker with a marlan head, which just disappears to me. If you are looking for detail, you will find it with the 803d, but if you are looking for any other quality, the 802N has the advantage. I had the option of buying either this time last year, and went with the 802N.

Something interesting to try. With the 803d, listen to them at the listening point and walk forward. Pay attention to the point where you lose the imaging and can define speakers. Then do the same thing with the 802. I can stand perfectly between my speakers and still hear a perfect image.

So far I haven't found this to be the case in my experience, but I have only tried out 4 different cable companies. Each type of cable was so different in its make-up though that I find it hard to believe that other brands would sound different if these cables did not.

Here's a list of mostly new stuff (with a few older selections thrown in):

1. Chick Corea- "The Ultimate Adventure": absolutely beautiful stuff! Trip on the detailed percussion instruments used by legend percussionist Airto, the bass playing of Carles Benavent, the woodwind arrangements (Hubert Laws on flute), and of course the myriad of keyboard stylings by Chick. This music gives me goose-bumps. Excellent recording mix for your system.

2. Diana Krall: "From This Moment On"- almost perfectly recorded.

3. John Mayer: "Continuum"- good. I just love the track "Gravity".

4. Natalie Cole: "Leavin' "- surprisingly good stuff on this album, and powerfully mixed (I think most will be surprised). Beautiful voice.

5. Erin Bode: "Over And Over"- very sweet voice on this new young (hot) singer.

6. Joshua Redman: "Freedom In The Groove"- great mix of funky sax, with organ grooves.

7. Mike Stern: "Who Let The Cat's Out"- very eclectic compositions, featurings Mike's very distinctive guitar as the "lead vocal".

8. Stanley Clarke: "School Days"- classic fusion/rock/jazz/funk bass virtuoso. Listen to the track "Desert Song" for some sweet acoustic bass plucking, great test for how your system handles string instruments. Also, check out the track "Life Is just a Game".

9. Billy Cobham: "Spectrum"- classic fusion recording from this "drummer's god". This recording will stretch you system to some "never-seen-before" levels (even though it was originally recorded in 1973). It's available on DVD-A (with various version formats).

Great thank you for the list of recomendations. Keep them coming. I always welcome an opportunity to expand my music collection and to experiment with artists that are unfamiliar to me. I have listened to many of the listed artists before, but not all of them, and the ones I have heard before I haven't heard on these newer albums. BTW, I highly recommend that Bert Bacharach and Elvis Costello "Painted from Memory" album, it is breathtaking and moving. If you try one album I recommend in my posts, let it be that album.

You know what is a great album on SACD? LOL, don't you hate it when people ask rhetorical questions? Oops! Now I have to wait until someone posts, "What?" or "What is a great album on SACD? (if I insist on the responder making coherent self-contained sentences)" Any takers???

OK! OK! I'll assume one of you asked the question in your head. The album is Earth Wind and Fire's All n' All, but not any normal SACD (if there is in fact a normal SACD version). The Japanese version is the one I am referring to in this post. The sound quality is incredible. So clear, the noise floor on the disc is pitch black. Talk about "nothing," this disc has absolutely nothing to hear behind the music except pitch black silence. Tis a' beautiful tang. Talk about funk... Some of the coolest funkadelic bass riffs in pristine recording condition. I find myself missing my George Clinton Parliament albums and wondering if I can find any on Japanese SACDs.

OK, I'll shut up now.

"And now for something completely different," I need to stop before I continue to "ramble on," speaking of which, there is a Led Zeppelin Album I want to recomme.... Aughhhh aucchhh aauuuuuuhhhhh.......

::::strangling sounds are heard faintly in the distance, completely ruining the until now pitch black silent noise floor of this post::::

actually I love Bert (or is it Burt?) Bacharach, especially all the famous songs he's written that many other famous female vocalist's have made popular- ie. "Do You Know The Way To San Jose" (Dionne Warwick), "Walk On By", and more. Have'nt got to hear this Bert & Elvis album though, I'll definitely check it out.


I hear these Japanese disc's are produced cleaner, all-the-way-around. I have'nt heard that particular Earth, Wind & Fire album. I'm a total ETW "nut"! I probably like "Gratitude" the most, and it is available on SACD. Also, I believe "That's The Way of The World" is available on SACD as well (maybe even Japanese).


now you talkin'.........I would kill to own "Mothership Connection" on SACD.


Is "Aughhhh aucchhh aauuuuuuhhhhh" the title?
Is "Physical Grafitti" available on SACD? (probably DVD-A?)

A few SACD's I really like, composition-wise and quality mix, are:
James Taylor- "Hour Glass"
Diana Krall- "Love Scenes"
Elton John- "Elton John"
Elton John- "Captain Fantastic"
Elton John- "tumbleweed Connection"
Elton John- "Madman Across The Water"
Elton John- "Honky Chateau"
Sting- "Brand New day"
Sting- "Sacred Love"
Michael McDonald- "Motown I"
Michael McDonald- "Motown II"
Michel Camilo- "Triangulo"

I guess we should be talking about this stuff in the
"Surround Music Formats" thread-
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=112

Oh well..................

I was at the popular (southern california) HT/Audio chain store "Ken Cranes", near me tonight. Their stores are like grand show-rooms. Things are very busy right now, being christmas time and all. However, I noticed they are very much stocked-up on B&W product now, as well as Rotel and more (this is a recent change I've noitced). They used to have quite a noticeable Energy inventory, however, it seems they're backing-off from that brand (for whatever reason), and are totally pushing B&W primarily.

I really spent some time carfully looking at all the popular 600, 700 & some 800 series models. I listened to, both, DM603 S3 and DM604 S3 models, powered by Pioneer Elite 84 receiver, with Pioneer Elite DV-79AVi disc player. These speakers sounded awesome! Very nice, detailed, sound-stage, very accurate. They had mostly black ash finish in stock. Did'nt get to see the light (sorrento) finish. While the speaker designs are somewhat impressive (for the price), I thought the build quality/aesthetics were only "okay" overall (when you really look up close).

On the other hand, in another room, there was a more elaborate set-up featuring 700 & 800 series configurations, powered by a mix of Rotel electronics- multiple RB-1091 mono amps (@500W ea), w/RSP-1098 processor, the sound was out of this world! (now I understand what I'm missing!).

We can discuss it here. This is the B&W Owner's Thread. The music we listen to on our B&W speakers is important. We are sharing what music we feel sounds great on our speakers. At least that is what I am doing...

In any case, the thread isn't limited to a certain topic anyway. It is an owner's thread. As owners we can just come and hang out I would assume. That is the purpose of the thread I thought. For B&W owners to congregate and jive with each other about any topics on their mind. Otherwise the thread would be called "B&W Owner's Thread About B&W speakers" or "B&W Owner's Thread About What B&W Speakers You Own," or some other topic we were meant to discuss, instead of being titled in a way that encourages B&W owners to show up and relate on any topic they feel like discussing ATM.

At least that is my take on threads of this nature. We are fostering community, so any communal posting interaction is useful. The thread is for people who own the speakers and it will sort of go wherever the wind blows, as it certainly had been doing thus far, LOL.

yeah, your right!

George Clinton is by far one of the best concerts I have ever seen! He showed up late. Was supposed to go on at 8pm. Went on around 10, said he would make up for it. At 2am, they were still going strong, and we had to leave because we had to be at work at 6 the next morning.

The funny thing was, you never knew who was in the band. Every song, they traded people out.

Hey guys,

Great to find out this tread. Thanks to all for the information. I have been a B &W owner since 2000. I use Nautilus 805 in my family room as main speakers but in the basement (14 X 20) I have the following A/V equipment:

Front main: B&W CDM7
Center: B&W CDMC
Rear surround: B&W CMD1
Subwoofer: Sunfire True Subwoofer MK
Receiver: Yamaha RXV-2700
TV: Sony KDSR60XBR2 (soon)
HD DVD player: Toshiba A2 (soon)


I am thinking of getting a used pair of CDM1 to use as front presence speakers. Given the size of my room, will the addition of the front presence speakers make much difference?

TIA for any advice.

Bimmerguy

Two year's net salary for a pair of speakers is damned expensive!!

Whoa?!?! I don't even remember making that post anymore. What was it in reference to???

It was in reference to the $40K/pr Nautilus. (My net pay being $20K/yr.)

that's totally hilarious!, because that's "classic" George Clinton. He's alway's been known to be "flakey" in that way. However, they put on un-believeable shows. And your right, his band is a "hodgepodge" of every kind of human known to man-kind.

The thing is you never know what you're gonna get with George Clinton. I saw him last summer at the Greek Theater (one of the top venues), here in Los Angeles, billed as "George Clinton, W/Parliament Funkadelic All Stars- featuring Bootsy Collins". Man we were all excited to see this. However, it ended up being just a big un-rehearsed mess, with a few good versions of some of their famous songs. and what seemed like an endless shuffling of musicians.

One cool thing was they brought out the Red Hot Chili Peppers and did a wild, funky, version of "Flashlight" (I had forgot that the Peppers had did their own version of this song back in the 90's). They also brought out a unique violin playing female (very hot) who played an un-believeable solo.

exactly! I guess for some people that's a small fraction of their salary.

I just bought tickets to see the peppers in orlando in january. Another great show!

I have a DVD for clinton, I'll have to get the name tonight from home. It's awesome. Love the gutiar solo's of blackbird mcknight!

It's time for my holiday whine. The Christmas tree displaces my Surround Left speaker, so I'd share my pain. (;

I'm sporting a pair of DS6s3's as surround speakers, effectively 'stand mounted' by sitting on end tables. I've tossed around the idea of building some fairly simple speaker stands and just mounting the speakers to them. Since they're a bit top heavy, they don't seem to want to sit flat on the end tables, since they were designed for wall mounting...

Not to mention, it would be nice to 'cover up' the back of the speaker ...

Anyone ever try anything like this with wall mounted speakers that you want at ear level...?

Why do you want them at ear level?

what is optimum position?

Typically what is said is:
For multichannel music, all speakers' tweeters at ear height.
For multichannel movie, front speakers' tweeters at ear height, surround speakers' tweeters fire about 1 foot above your head.

I have a pair of 602 (series 2??) bookshelves which are part of my 5.1 setup. My center channel is a CC6. I've noticed that with certain sound formats (such as TrueHD), the dialogue coming out of the center is sorta muddy. What are people's past experiences with the CC6? Is time to audition a new center channel?

Yeah, I've seen TAD speakers before. They are blatant copies of the B&W look. They can't reproduce the sound though. LOL!

Here is the website for all their products. It seems they like to copy visual designs from multiple companies. I dub thee "The Rice Boy Audio Store."

I doubt any speaker under $200 can reproduce the sound of B&W 805. Those speaker got pretty good review on aGon though, legit or not, i'm not sure.

I somehow have the urge to get them, to fool my friends into thinking its a $2500 B&W 805, and see what they got to say regarding the sound quality.

I'm suprised b&w haven't sued them.

Anyone can put a review on audiogon, even the manufacturer... I wouldn't put any faith in it until you hear one yourself.

I'm surprised they haven't been sued either.

I just added a Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray player to my audio equipment for the Home Theatre. I bought it yesterday at Best Buy. I'll relate my buying experience.

I walk into the Magnoila area of the BB and walk up to one of the guys who is chatting with some other employees behind the counter. My guy is wearing the light blu long sleeve dress shirt (the shirt indicates his position is higher up than the employees wearing the polo shirts I would assume). SO I ask him if they have any Blu-ray players and where they are located. He takes me over to the new Panasonic player, which I am a little interested in because I noticed it on the BB website as I was looking to see if my local branch had recieved the new Sony player that released on December 4th (yestereday). I am also interested in the Pioneer Elite player but it isn't out yet I guess. My basic criteria are 1080p/24, Dolby TrueHD Digital and HD-DTS processing, HDMI 1.3. I wouldn't mind the lossless 7.1 analog outputs that the Panasonic player has, so if it has 1080p/24 and HDMI 1.3 I might do a trade-in.

Anyway, back to the story... So the guy starts rambling off a bunch of specifications about the system, half of which aren't useful to me but I didn't mind humoring as he had obviously put some effort into memorizing this stuff (it was obvious by the way he was saying it that he wasn't a technophile and didn't know the stuff because of a genuine interest in the technology). So when he finished rambling off the information I said to him, "What I really want to know about this unit is whether or not it does 1080p at 24 frames per second as my projector outputs at that rate (the Blu-ray storage rate and the most film like rate out of the other options) and more importantly if the audio decoders decode lossless formats such as HD-DTS and Dolby TrueHD? He said to me "I thought those audio formats were proprietary and are used only on HD-DVD, as those are what they were made for." I said, "no" they are designed for any format that someone wants to put them on, blu-ray included. This stumped him and he sought out someone else in the entourage of Magolia employees to ask. The other employee agreed with me, thankfully, as I was starting to feel foolish, even though I knew I was correct.

So, I say to him since he doesn't know any of this information about the panasonic unit (their website BTW, Panasonics that is, doesn't have any useful information on it about the player either, which really has me pissed off - does it output 1080p/24?!?! And which formats do its decoders handle?!?!), "I want to buy the Sony unit that just came out today, the Sony Blu-ray player, your website indicated that this store has it in stock." He looks at me and says "We don't have a Sony player, you must mean the Samsung unit." At this point I'm starting to get a little irritated, since I juts told him that the unit only came out today and that they do have it in stock. So I repeat some of what I told him, "I was going to buy it online for a store pick up at this exact store, so I do know that you have it in stock. Can you at least look on your computer and see if it is in stock." He answered, "I'll look, but we haven't carried and we don't carry a Sony Blu-ray player." At this point I feel like going into the regular part of the store and asking a different employee in the electronics section is going to be more productive, so I tell him to forget it (parts of the conversation were left out as it was even worse than this, but I don't remember all of it. There were more annoying things said on the employees end, as he decided to get a little upset that I was asking so much of him in order to see if they had the equipment I was looking for at their store. This issue with items in stock and employees unaware of it, or not willing to go look for the item, has occurred to me on more than one occasion. It happened with the XBox 360 HD-DVD add on as well, but after talking to three employees than demanding a manager, the manager happened to know that they did have it in and it was in the display case behind something else for the XBox 360...)

So the next employee is willing to look it up right away, which happened to be about 5 minutes later because all of the inventory computers were being used ATM. So we see that there are four of them in stock. It takes a little while of looking, and asking two other employees at the store until we find one of them who has actually seen them and knows where they were placed in the stock room. End of story, I have my Blu-ray player and my life is an hour shorter after the whole ordeal. It looks absolutely incredible and the video quality is definitely smoother than the XBox 360 add-on which my front projector (Sony Pearl VPL-VW50) has to de-interlace and which does not output at 24 fps both of which add to the lack of smoothness. Don't get me wrong, the HD-DVD add-on still look stunning, it just isn't as smooth as the Sony Blu-ray player, and no HD-DVD player releasing any time soon is going to have HD-DTS decoders sadly enough (they have core HD-DTS which is lossy - heh, what a crumby name for something that is lossy, definitely intentionally meant to decieve people). I am not buying a dedicated HD-DVD player though, I'm sticking with the XBox 360 add-on as the Blu-Ray technology is so much better that I want to support it more than HD-DVD. The Blu-Ray technology has much more potential as a storage medium, so it would be best if it survives over HD-DVD IMO. Hopefully the PS3 will help it win the HD-Video war.

Anyway, I'll be adding these pics to my HT thread as well as some photos of the drywall going up. It is moving along very quick at this point thankfully. I was going to add some questions/info on my speaker setup but I will make it a separate post instead... As it will be more focused than this long rambling post. LOL

I think that's pathetic!

^^^ your post belongs in the blu ray section

from what i have heard the hd a1 stand alone player looks a good better then the add on so ill say your missing out.

ps more storage doesnt equal better technology

espeacially when sony doesnt want to use vc1 (like hd-dvd does 99% of the time thus the reason not needing all the extra space) and rather a ten year old technology mpeg2 so they can make more money on it.

What is vc1?