B&W Owner's Thread - Page 11

I really need to decide if I will stick with my 802Ds or switch to another company such as JMLabs. Any recommendations or help on this issue would definitely be appreciated. I have put items in bold that have changed between consecutive systems, and I have put words in bold that indicate I am considering two choices within the same system number. I am considering the following setups:

System 1:

800D in the front left and right,
802D in the rear,
HTM1D in center,
Revel Ultima Sub 30s (setup in stereo),
Revel Performa B15a subs (setup in stereo)

System 2:

802D in the front left and right,
803D in the rear,
HTM1D or HTM2D in center,
Revel Ultima Sub 30s (setup in stereo),
Revel Performa B15a subs (setup in stereo)

System 3:

802D in the front left and right,

803S in the rear,
HTM1D or HTM2D in center,
Revel Ultima Sub 30s (setup in stereo),
Revel Performa B15a subs (setup in stereo)

System 4:

802D in the front left and right,

804S in the rear,
HTM1D or HTM2D in center,
Revel Ultima Sub 30s (setup in stereo),
Revel Performa B15a subs (setup in stereo)

System 5:

802D in the front,

805S in the rear,
HTM1D or HTM2D in center,
Revel Ultima Sub 30s (setup in stereo),
Revel Performa B15a subs (setup in stereo) I haven't gotten the B15a subs yet so I'm not sure I will add them, it depends on whether the two Sub 30s in the front generate enough sound pressure to pull off the authenticity needed for total immersion in the films and/or music in a room with the general volume created by the following measurements: 18' x 33' x 9'. Some areas of the room won't have 9', in those areas, which are mostly a 4' soffit around the entire room perimeter which is 7'6" off the floor and another area that is around 4' x 12' which is 8'2" off the floor. The acoustical engineer who designed the room renovations typed this on the blueprint: "This room would benefit from 4 smaller subs. 2 subs are minimally required for this room." So I am not sure at this time if I will need two more or not. I do think that it would be great for surround music in particular as I will have them set up in-between the preprocessor/preamp and the amps acting as crossovers for the signal before it is fed to the amplifiers and equalizing the low frequency part of the signal at 80Hz and below.

The B15a has the same three parametric equalizers as the Sub 30 and I can tell you from my experiences with the Sub 30s that they work so well that I am literally blown away by the sound. First you set the gain on the subs to make sure the level at listening position is equal between your speakers and the subwoofer/subwoofers. Then you set the polarity so that the soundwaves between the subs and the speakers are aligned, this makes the speakers and subs inseparable when you hear them. Last, you do a frequency response chart using the disc supplied by Revel (for the previous steps you also used the disc supplied by Revel) and a program you download from Revel's website. The program allows you to punch in the frequency responses one at a time and when you are done you push a button and the program analyzes the entire Frequency Response. The program then gives you settings for your subwoofer's (or in my case subwoofers') parametric EQ knobs.

After you manually set all of the knobs as precisely as possible you can do another Frequency Response chart, with their program and disc if you like and don't mind how time consuming it is compared to a program like ETF. I own ETF so I just do a before and after with that to see how different the signal is after using the Revel set up program and disc. The program supplied by Revel works as advertised. My Frequency Response below 100Hz is excellent, almost perfectly flat. The bass hump below 80Hz that the 802D is critisized for on these fora and others is eradicated completely as well as some other room mode created issues. Besides lowering the gain in places where the sound signal is reinforced it can also raise the gain in areas where there are large nulls (+9 dB at most) if that is necessary.

I was surprised what a tremendous difference being able to alter the signal at 3 different points along the frequency range between 20 and 80Hz could make and have been considering a more thorough parametric EQ component that can handle ranges beyond 80 Hz. I'm not sure it will be necessary though as the biggest problems were below 80Hz in my system besides one troublesome reinforcement at around 300 Hz, which isn't terrible but could definitely benefit from some flattening out.

If anyone here is in the market for a sub, definitely consider the Revel Performa B15a as the Sub 30 is discontinued due to the new product line, the Ultima2, being released. They were very pricey too, while the B15a isn't so bad in comparison and considering all the good technology you get. My acoustical engineer recommended the B15a and Sub30 over any other subs on the market at that time including the Velodyne DD-18 which he and some other people told me are not very musical at all, the lowest frequency ranges lose speed compared to the B15a I guess. I'm not really sure what reasons my acoustical engineer had for saying the Velodyne isn't as musical, but he was right about the Sub 30s they are extremely musical. I have tried everyting possible, the Revel setup program and the parametric EQs as well as the phase settings, make the sub completely integrate with my 802Ds.

The B&W aren't worth the price IMO (the ones in the 700 and 800 series), and the frequency ranges that subs produce are frequency ranges where you won't notice any issues when using a sub from one company and speakers from another company. This makes shopping for subs a nice prospect because you are not limited by the issues you have to deal with when looking for a center channel and surround speakers, in terms of matching sound quality, timbre, tone, etc. So if anynoe is looking at subs, IMO, the Revel Performa B15a is the way to go right now. I'm not sure about the JL Audio subs that are getting a bit of notice right now on the boards, but I'm definitely going to ask my acoustical engineer what he knows about them compared to the B15a in terms of musicality and in terms of equalization (the Fathoms have some built in features that equalize the signal). I know that the JL Audio driver is only 13" compared to the Ultima 30's 15" driver and the B15a's 15" driver.

Perhaps if they turn out to be extremely musical I will put two of those in the back of the room, instead of two more Revels. Actually I will probably stick with the Revels... I don't like that the JL Audio site doesn't put in some FR figures. I know those kinds of things can be msleading and can be fabricated, but that doens't mean they can't put those figures up in a way that is honest and not misleading. I think that not posting anything is a cop-out, and I won't end up buying them because I have no reference for them compared to the Revels which list as going down to 20 Hz, with -3 dB at 18 Hz (I assume this means that they are flat down to 20 Hz then start to slope off towards 0 dB from there, starting with a -3 dB loss at 18 Hz). The actual website has these written on the page for the B15a and the Sub 30:

In-room Frequency Response: 20 Hz to f c ±0.5 dB, - 3 dB @ 18 Hz

Low Frequency Extension: -3 dB @ 18 Hz (up to full-rated power)

Those figures help me to understand what level of low frequency sound I will be able to output in my home theatre when using those subs. At least I think they do, as I am no expert on these things. I know that companies do use figures on subs to decieve people, I don't think Revel does this kind of thing as they are a reputable company. I understand JL Audio's negative attitude towards companies using these figures to manipulate the consumer, but I need something, anything that I can use to compare their subs to the B15a, otherwise I am at loss on which may fill my needs the best. In any case though, it still doesn't tell me whether or not the sub is musical enough compared to the Sub 30 and B15a, it will only tell me how low it will go in the FR before it loses dB. Perhaps Kal has some input on the JL Audio subs as he was testing one up until recently.


Enough rambling. Again, if anyone has any input, please help me!!! Just kidding on the desperation implied by the exclamation point. I really would appreciate any input, advice and other remarks. Thanks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VC-1

both blu ray and hd-dvd use it but blu ray rarely cause they want to justify needing the 50 gigs or dont want to pay microsoft royalties since microsoft is on hd-dvd side. i rather not get into it and destroy the thread but go over to the hd-dvd and blu ray forums and do a couple of searches on anything you are curious about

No it doesn't. This is the B&W owners thread. It is a place for owners of B&W speakers to congregate and talk about anything they like to talk about. It isn't subject limited.

Welcome to the thread though. Please tell us what B&W speakers do you own? It would be a nice way to introduce yourself to the rest of us participating in the thread.


The HD A1 suffers from a few shortfalls which make it an unacceptable player for my system, and which likewise make the XBox 360 add-on a much better bargain at only a $200 dollar price tag (since I already own the XBox 360 that is all it cost me to add HD-DVD to my HT system rather than spending $500 for the HD A1). The first is a lack of 1080p/24, it only outputs 1080i, while my projector would de-interlace the signal to 1080p it would introduce jutter and it still wouldn't be 1080p/24. The second is a lack of 5.1 analog output for HD audio such as HD-DTS and Dolby TrueHD. Third is a lack of HDMI 1.3 outputs, which would allow me to output HD-DTS and Dolby TrueHD to a preprocessor as a work around for the player itself not having analog outputs that are lossless.

The HD AX2 when it releases would fit my system better, though I'm not sure if it outputs at 1080p/24, I do know it outputs at 1080p which would eliminate the jutter issues caused by de-interlacing as well as other visual abberations the de-interlacing causes. It can handle Dolby TrueHD, though it can't handle HD-DTS on its analog outputs (it does HD-DTS core which is lossy - a misleading name for what it is if you ask me...). I'm not sure if it has HDMI 1.3, but since the other features don't fulfill my needs I didn't look further into it yet. I might buy a dedicated HD-DVD player down the road if it looks to be winning the format war, but it needs to conform to my standards so that I get 100% of what I need from it. So far no player on the market for HD-DVD is very good IMO, while there are now a few nice Blu-ray players (the Panasonic, the Pioneer Elite and the Sony models - the Samsung doesn't fully utilize the techologies on the discs like the other three do, so I don't put it in that list). BTW, I read a review comparing the XBox 360 add-on and the HD A1, the only difference the person noted was in the color, and the reviewer said it was very slight. It is hardly worth me spending $300 dollars extra considering all of the other shortfalls of that unit, especially since I think Blu-ray is a better technology in comparison and don't want to support the competition.

The Sony blu-ray player I bought has all of these things, which made it a better choice for my system. It also had 1080p/24 which my projector can handle, making the image quality smooth and film-like.


To me, more storage equals better technology when it comes to formats that are used for storage (like Blu-ray and HD-DVD), so you are incorrect. If you have other criteria for deciding what is a better technology that is fine with me... But you don't have any basis or right to tell anyone else that they can't or shouldn't equate more storage space with better technology, especially with a technology like this one which was created as a storage format, that sometimes stores films but will also be used to store everything and anything on your computer as well. So to myself and many others who care about getting the most storage out of a single disc, who care about a storage format being able to store more, Blu-ray is a much better technology, especially when you start to consider the multiple layer stacking that Sony has been working on with Blu-ray, which will allow incredible amounts of storage down the road compared to what we are used to storing on a format like DVD.


You are incorrect Blu-ray supports both MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1. You should go back and reread information on both formats because you are spreading misinformation. Nice try though. Here is one link on the topic: PC World link.

I also like that Blu-ray supports the 24 fps native film format exactly, while HD-DVD stores it at 24 fps but turns it into 30 fps when extracting it from the disc. Hopefully they will make players that output it at 24 fps so my projector can run it at film speed and so there won't be occasional artifacts from the added frames... The motion artifacts will bother me more than the actual number of frames per second.

i sold everything i had my towers and my center channel polk audio stuff and my svs ultra/2 so i can save up and buy something way better i should be making up my mind soon as to what i get maybe the 804's or something along that lines maybe some def techs dunno for sure yet and here i am posting in this thread

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post9030894



the hd a1 has analog 5.1 outputs for truhd and dolby digital plus
and if you want 1.3 and 1080p then get an x2 wich will be out in 2-3 weeks



not very good? the half price hd-a1 looked better then my samsung and people who own the panasonic say the hd-a1 still has better picture quality and people who have compared the pioneer to it say the pioneer is on par with it and the pioneer cost's 3x as much

from what i hear the next gen's are gonna really be something else. could be true what i hear could be lies since ive never seen them in action. but i hear REALLY good things about them.




the 360 has problems with the vga output. i dunno if your using the vga output or not the component looks better and someone posted pictures of component add on versus the a1 and the a1 was clearly better picture quality wise. nothing surprising since the add on is only $200 yah you need the $300 console but for playing games etc etc its still a killer deal like the ps3





google vc-1 hd-dvd uses it 99% of the time while blu ray uses it maybe 10% of the time and they choose to use 10 year old technology mpeg 2.






i didnt say blu ray doesnt support it but they just rather not use it to justify the extra space wich really isnt needed.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post9089071

Yeah, if you are going to make wild and crazy speculations and/or accusations against a company, perhaps you are better off posting in the HD-DVD forum. It is obvious from this post that you are biased against Sony. I don't expect you to be reasonable in any argument concerning the two formats as you have already made it clear that you hate Sony for some reason. You won't be making logical arguments in a HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray discussion when you are willing to throw around unfounded statements like the one above. I don't see the point of continuing on the topic anyway as my only statement concerning why I prefer Blu-ray has been that I can store more on the discs, though I now have another reason why I prefer it more thanks to you unintentionally enticing me to look it up on Wikipedia. Now that I know they output the 1080p at 30 fps by adding extra frames which creates motion artifacts, while Blu-ray outputs it at the natural 24 fps (natural as in film standard), I much prefer Blu-rays handling of the output, especially since my Sony VPL-VW50 (Pearl) projector handles 24 fps natively.

no way am i biased againts them i own xbr1 i have a ps3 ive owned the samsung blu ray player.

i just dont see the point of spending more then 2x the money for something when something else can do it for half the price and do it better, maybe in your situation not since ive never looked into the 24fps stuff since it doesnt apply to my setup. and most peoples setups.

so how is house of flying daggers or the fifth element or talladega nights?

Yep, they are not very good so far. Both units don't have any of the features I listed, which those three Blu-ray players all have I think. The picture quality issue on the Blu-ray players was a problem with the settings on the initial Samsung unit. Those problems were fixed awhile ago. I think you are getting your picture quality information from people who are pro-HD-DVD and against the Blu-ray format or just against Sony in general, as their attitude towards Sony has rubbed off on you it seems.


My PJ doesn't support 1080p on the VGA input, so I am stuck using the component cables only. I have seen HD-DVD at best buy on a few different TVs there, some 1080 and others 1366 x 768 and 1280 x 720. The Xbox 360 isn't noticeably different unless you compare them side by side, as I could not notice the difference just by going to the store a few times and putting a movie on there and watching movies at home. The most noticeable issue is slight jutter from the de-interlacing, but I would have that problem with any of the current HD-DVD players anyway, since my PJ is 1080p and would de-interlace the 1080i signal.


This is a non-issue. Why should they use it if they don't need to? It is silly to make an argument against them based on their not using certain codecs when they don't need to use them. Here is another consideration, which I am not 100% positive about, but I would wager I am correct, perhaps using VC-1 and MPEG-4 is more CPU intensive, perhaps it uses more energy and makes the player work harder. If that is the case, which I bet it is because I majored in Computer Science and am quite aware of how complexity issues in compression and decompression affect hardware at run-time, and if they don't need to compress the stored information any further than it is currently compressed because they have plenty of space on the disc, then it would be stupid to use more intense compression schemes such as MPEG-4. Using it would mean wasting machine resources unnecessarily just to say that they are using that compression scheme. It would slow the machine down and make it hard to perform other tasks simultaneously, which might explain the latency issues on the Toshiba HD-DVD units.


I doubt this is the case. You obviously have something against Sony. You have to remember though, sony doesn't publish every disc put on the market, and those other companies can choose to use MPEG-4 if they like. I think I was correct in my statements above. They are not using it because it would require more intensive processing by the machine. They don't need to use it, so why slow the hardware down by making it decompress MPEG-4 when it doesn't need to do so? So people like you can't claim it is not as good as HD-DVD because they don't use it. That would be silly.

I haven't watched House of Flying Daggers yet, I do have it though. Talladega nights isn't out yet, is it? I didn't see it the other day. Did it just come out yesterday?! I definitely want that movie, it is a good movie. Fifth Element looks fantastic. The Sony Blu-ray player definitely looks better than my Xbox 360 HD-DVD. I don't own any of the same movies for both though, and i'm not spending 30 dollars just to make the comparison. I do know that Fifth Element isn't recorded at great quality, but none the less it looks absolutelt incredible on this player IMO. I'm watching Underworld Evolution right now, and next I'm going to throw in Stargate, Training day or Terminator 2. I own about 13 HD-DVD movies and 17 Blu-ray movies right now. I buy the exclusive titles for either system it is exclusive to, and I buy the titles available for both systems for the Blu-ray system. King Kong looks incredible on the HD-DVD player.

Perhaps I will throw on House of Flying Daggers right now to check it out and tell you how it looks. OK, I will.

So is 24 fps feature is best for projection tv or it applies to all tv? Dvd player has 24 fps output correct?

Also, what fps is PS3 BL player is outputting?

24 fps is the speed at which movie theatre film is displayed. It is the most film like, since it is the actual movie theatre speed. It applies to all TVs because it looks the most film like. Not many TVs output at 24 fps, since until HD-DVD and Blu-ray, no other TV film storage format had 24 fps, as far as I know so don't quote me on that. 24 fps is the most fluid of the speeds out there, supposedly it has a more natural look than faster speeds, i.e. it flows better according to our eyes. I'm not huge into these topics though, so it is best asked on other fora where people are more obsessed about these topics than I am. Hehehe

I'm not sure about the PS3 output, I think it might be 60 fps, but I'm not certain.

Looks like Alimentall/John Ashman bit off a little more than he could chew over at the speakerasylum. Finally a manufacture calls him out on his lies.

http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/spe...es/239836.html

Ummmmm, Mike, what does that have to do with B&W? True story, BTW, it happened. Being called a liar by you is like being called a lesbian by Rosie O'Donnell.

And, of course, TAD is the trade-mark of Pioneer's professional speaker division. These guys have no shame.

You are delusional John.

WHAT THE.......there ya be Killer......what in the "H" .....are you ready to give er hell?

Congratulations, Mike!!!! You *finally* spelled an *entire* sentence correctly. Your mommy will be *so* proud of you! Now we just need to work on the grammar, but we'll put that off 'til 2nd grade, okay?

I'm rather looking forward to setting a pair up and listening, based on what I've heard from other people and my experiances with TAD.

What?! You mean Rosie...? OMG my entire worldview has just been shaken to the core!

Bummer......NHTKiller bailed

Can NHTKiller and Alimentall please go argue in another thread? Can you both go make a thread and fight each other there please? I don't want to see this thread shut down because of you two. Neither one of you own B&W speakers, right? Can't a moderator remove their posts from this thread before it becomes a problem that locks the thread?

Thank you.

I concur. I have no idea why Mike feels the need. And I'd be glad to not get dragged in.

They tend to be in mono mode more than dipole mode lately, as I've been listening to more 5.1 music... Also, there's no wall on one side, and the other is all window (;

Not knowing the room, specifically, I'd still be inclined to place them higher.

is it more optimal to use these "dual-role" (mono-pole/di-pole), switchable-mode, type speakers (like the B&W DS6 S3)as rear/surrounds for multi-channel music (SACD's and DVD-A's)?

Or is it nicer to have more conventional mono-pole surrounds with a little more extended range (like the DM601 S3)?

While I respect your opinion, I don't agree with it. If you care about extra's and require them to be in HD, then sure, more space is better. All I care about is watching movies, so the extra 20gb is waisted to me. And, there are rumors of toshiba adopting triple layer 45gb for hd-dvd by next summer.

As far as BD having more bandwidth, if the movie is properly compressed, it doesn't need it anyways.

So, BD and HD are on even footing, all things considered.

You have a couple other inaccuracies on HDDVD, but I don't feel like picking apart your post bit by bit. This isn't the place to nitpick the format war anyways. The way I see, the only way to "win" is to buy both formats, as both companies have too much invested to give up that easy.

Depends on whether or not you can see using them in dipole mode, I like switchable speakers.

yeah, I'm contemplating which type of rear/surrounds to get. I listen to a lot of multi-channel (SACD/DVD-A), as well as stereo music, mostly (probably 80%). However, I use the same system for DVD-movies and digital-cable broadcasts.

So I'm wondering if the B&W DS6 S3's will give me the nice range for the multi-channel music side of things (in mono-pole mode). Or will the DM601 S3's soung [significantly] nicer?

When I bought my first b&w system, I used 604's in the front and 603's in the back. I enjoyed having the full range speaker behind me. I was very skeptical about buying a satellite speaker, but when I moved into the 800 series line, price was a consideration, so I opted for the SCM1's. I found the SCM1's to perferm better than the 603's ever did in fullness, and provided more accuracy and detail.

wow, interesting!...............thanks for the input. This is the kind of stuff I want to know.