B&W Owner's Thread - Page 277

In-ceiling speakers aren't going to cut it for the front,but If you could mount them properly in-wall(with an enclosure/box behind them) that would be o.k., and I would use the cwm cinema as a center if you can install it in-wall right below the tv. If in-wall is not possible, I'd look at the FPM series, hang 'em on the wall with your tv and add a sub. Of course you know that floor standing speakers in front of the wall will sound the best. You can go in-ceiling for the rear speakers and I would consider using the cinemas again as rears, only because they have a 10 degree tilt axis, enabling you to kind of "aim" them.

Thanks so much for you reply....

Did you mean "rears" as in side surrounds (speakers 4 and 5) ... I currently have my 800's there in the ceiling to the sides... or did you mean speakers 6 & 7 in the far back (I currently have nothing here and don't have very much ceiling space with speakers 4 & 5 being about 3 feet from back wall. I actually have the back wall I could use for speakers 6 & 7. Would you recommend the CDS6 S3 surrounds for this back wall or 4 & 5?

Again, Thank you so much for helping me on this. I've read so much on this forum that I think I'm overloaded and could use some feedback.

I start cutting this afternoon so if anyone else wants to give their two cents.....

Yes, all three fronts are in wall and

Forgot to say that my front 3 will be in-wall..... no ceiling

Sorry, I thought you were building a 5.1 system. In a 7.1 system you could use either the CDS6s(in monopole mode) or the 800s for rear speakers(#6&7).You will want the best pair as your rear speakers(as opposed to the sides) as most of your program material will be 5.1 The CDS6 will have a little better dispersion, but the 800s will a have a little more bass(40hz vs. 85hz), so it's a tough choice. If you install the rear speakers in-wall,they should be a little above ear level when your'e sitting. Don't waste your time installing a rear center speaker. The .1 refers to a subwoofer (low frequency). In your system, a subwoofer is going to be a requirement as in-wall or in-ceiling speakers don't produce as much bass as a bookshelf or floor standing speaker. Have fun today and remember;measure twice and cut once.

Havent received the speakers yet. I have a low height tv stand (17" tall) and planning to mount the tv on something like this peerless mount to raise it above the center speaker.

O.K., now that I've had a little time to think about it(and it's probably too late), I would use the 800s as rears if(and only if) you can use the 10 degree axis tilt to aim them at the listening position(where you sit) and use the cds6 as the side speakers. If that's not possible(to aim them) then I'd put the CDS6s at the rear and 800s as sides. Is your couch(or whatever you sit on) against the rear wall? If not how many feet between it and the rear wall? I hope I'm not confusing you.

I am building out my dedicated theater room, and decided on using B&W signature 8NT for my lcr, sig. 7NT rears and possibly CDS6 as my sides.

First question is how important is it to use the back boxes for the fronts and center, can I make something instead?
I am powering the speakers with 12 channels @ 200w each, do you think the sides will be over powered?
Any one running a similar system, how is the sound? I have purchased the 7nts, a single 8NT so far, before I invest anymore (in discontinued speakers) just looking for opinions, thanks

I never knew that. Good to know!

Thanks for the info. I will try that next time.

What software do you use for the FLAC to AIFF conversion?

Isn't that backwards? Since most material will be 5.1 (and since the human ear is better at distinguishing sounds from the sides than from behind) I'd think you'd want the better speakers as side surrounds.

Random aside: I have a 7.1 system at the moment, with front wide speakers rather than rears. Partially because that's what the Audyssey folks recommend adding first, and partially because I have no room behind the seating area to put rear speakers. It was a *huge* improvement over 5.1 -- it pulled the side surrounds into the overall soundstage and the immersion is now much more seamless.

After asking Chris at Audyssey, I used my better bookshelf speakers (CM5s) as the front wides, and the smaller ones (CM1s) as the side surrounds. I may end up buying another pair of CM5s and demoting the CM1s to front height duty, but probably not soon. FWIW, my fronts are CM9s, and the center is a CMC2. It sounds great, especially compared to the 15-20 year old (and much cheaper) speakers I replaced. But I'm going to have to do some surgery on the table holding the CMC2 to make it a bit lower so it doesn't block my TV's IR sensor. I wish they'd made a shorter but wider center speaker, maybe with two smaller FST midrange drivers. Though that might have caused interference (comb filtering?) problems.

Random question: how do B&W's surround speakers like the CDS6 and DS3 sound? A dipole speaker with only one tweeter makes me a bit skeptical. I thought the highs were the *most* directional sounds, so I'd think that's where you'd want the dipole effect the most. I've vaguely thought about using a pair of DS3s as my side surrounds, but I'm not sure how well it would work.

-- Laura

What program did you use to do the flac -> aiff conversion? And where in the iTunes interface does it let you do the aiff -> alac conversion? Is it just at the "import to library" step?

Thanks!

-- Laura

It depends on several factors such as;the size of the room,the shape of the room,the acoustics of the room,the seating position in the room(in the middle or against the rear wall),where the speakers are located(in-wall,in-ceiling,floor standing or bookshelf),the speakers themselves,the movie/music mix,the program material(bluray,cable etc.) and the list goes on.This is why the high-end(sound,not necessarily price) salesman who really knows what he's doing will want to come to your house before he makes a recommendation, because every situation is usually different.

Of course sides are more important than rears - sides are discretely mixed. Rears are matrixed, either in the avr or when mixed (my understanding is that even 7.1 blu ray mixes aren't really 7.1 discrete because the source theatrical material is a 5.1 mix).

One might position sides at 110 or 120 degrees because of room conditions, but the general answer to laura's question is that side are more important.

There's a lot of discrete 5.1 material out there, even via broadcast/cable. There is no(or extremely rare) discrete 7.1 material. The difference between discretely mixed and matrixed is........? As I said....synthesized. This is why program material should be considered. The person who watches mostly blurays has different requirements than the person who watches mostly cable. For every rule, there's an exception.

You are correct. If you go to the audio theory section this discussion has been beaten to death but there is a load of GREAT information in that subforum. SDurani is a wealth of knowledge in this aspect.

Ideally,there shouldn't be a "best" speaker, they should all be of equal quality. Often side speakers have different demands/requirements that rear speakers. Sometimes in an installation you can't put speakers where they will sound the best. Unless it's new construction, you have to make the best of what you got. As an example;you've got a 15x20 room with the tv mounted on the long wall. The holes for the side speakers have already been cut in the ceiling half way from the front wall to the back wall(there are no side walls). For the best viewing of the 60" tv, the couch is against the rear wall, which means that the side speakers will be 6ft. in front of the couch! Now, you've got to decide which speakers to use for the sides and rears(and of course they should be of equal quality) and where to put the rear speakers. As you know,it's sometimes not easy and there are no "always" or "never". Every situation is different when you're talking about reality,not theory.

For you and Hammie:
I use XLD http://tmkk.pv.land.to/xld/index_e.html using the option to add to itunes for flac to aiff.
in itunes I just order the music "by kind", set apple lossless as import / conversion option in preferences.. select the aiff and let itunes do the job... at the end select all the aiff and erase them

Last night I picked up my DS3 surround speakers which are the final part to my B&W upgrade puzzle .

For those who have B&W surrounds, how are you hanging them on drywall? I attempted to use some hangers last night, but didn't have much luck. The speaker started to pull the screws out of the drywall.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

You need to use wall anchors. Home depot or lowes will have them

You're going going way beyond the original question. If your surround speakers are in front of you because you are forcing 7 channels, then that is a compromise you are going to have to deal with. Fact of the matter is, that person should have never of gone with 7 channels, and should have had someone who was competent make the decision on placement.

You are 100% correct. But these are things that exist in the real world. Not everybody out there making these decisions is competent(both buyers and sellers).How many times have you been at someone else's house listening to their home theater,thinking to yourself that if they left you alone for an hour to make some adjustments it would be noticeably better when they came back? This is why so many people buy quality equipment but don't end up with quality sound.Yes,often compromises have to be made(for many different reasons) and a professional salesperson is the one who should deal with them because the customer has to live with them. If there is a situation where the quality of the side speakers or the rear speakers has to be compromised(a situation to be avoided) the better speakers should not ALWAYS be on the side. I gave you that situation previously just as an example where compromises have to be made and the "always" and "never" don't apply. I had made a recommendation that in an unusual installation the poster use the better(actually not better,different) of the two pair of speakers(which he already owned) as the rear speakers. You and a few others replied that OF COURSE,THE BETTER SPEAKERS SHOULD ALWAYS GO ON THE SIDES. After hundreds of installations,I guess I'm just trying to say be careful with "always" and "never".

Thanks for the info sofast1....

Ok, I completely get what you are saying...

First, the sofa will be about 4-6 feet off of the back wall. 2/3 from the tv to back wall if that makes sense so someone can walk behind sofa to back av closet / storage room. The ceiling sides are already installed with 800's, but I could easily switch for the CDS6's if the 800's would be better on the back wall. But heres the problem. Assuming the back wall will have two speakers, then I read that they need to be spaced some, like maybe 3 - 6 feet (depending on how the angle from sofa), then the problem is that I can't position the back two just above ear level since the behind me to the left speaker will be suspending in air over the balcony. I have to go higher say 1-1.5 foot down from ceiling (total room height is 9 feet) ... so it would have to be about 7.5 feet up (which is higher than ideal)... Wouldn't the CDS6 be better here because they are theoretically directional to sides (though not up down so to speak)

My room is 15 x long with added balcony starting half way behind me.... so I suspect it fits the not so ideal location type scenario where I do best I can with what I'm given.

On that note.... would I do better say to put a pair of wides up front?! I have a new marantz av703 and I think it has audissey or similar and since my back is half baked perhaps thats an option. Just a thought given the previous few comments... of course this is very assumptive and may reflect great ignorance.

ps- I'm gone till sunday and will look forward to anybody's thoughts and your reply sofast1.

I would definitely go with front wides over rears in a 7.1 setup. I recently set up my system this way because I don't have a good place to put rear surrounds. The front wides made a huge improvement in the overall movie experience. Before adding them I'd always perceived a gap between the front L/R speakers and the side surrounds. Sounds from the surround channels sounded too much like distinct point sources rather than the ambience they're supposed to be. Surprisingly, the front wides fixed this. In addition to expanding the front soundstage they make the surround experience a lot more seamless by adding the wide speakers about halfway between the fronts and sides. There are some good articles and blog posts about this on the Audyssey site; they recommend adding front wides first, then front heights, with rear surrounds being the least important. I was a bit skeptical, but now I believe them.

Right now I'm using my better bookshelf speakers (CM5's) as the front wides, and smaller CM1's as the sides, based on a suggestion from Chris at Audyssey. He basically said to use whichever speakers blend best with the front L/R's as the front wides, so that pans across the front sound more natural. My fronts are CM9's and a CMC2. The CM5's fuller sound matches those better than the CM1's do. It all seems to be working well, though I may eventually experiment with swapping the CM1's and CM5's just to see what happens. And now that I'm no longer a skeptic on DSX I may try adding height speakers (more CM1's?) at some point.

I'm going to try to post some photos this weekend, both to show off and to get some advice about improving the room acoustics.

-- Laura

[quote=LauraWerner;19901581]Isn't that backwards? Since most material will be 5.1 (and since the human ear is better at distinguishing sounds from the sides than from behind) I'd think you'd want the better speakers as sides "I would definitely go with front wides over rears in a 7.1 setup."

Not exactly,per Audessy;Experiments have shown that human localization is better in front than to the sides or behind.Perception is not the only factor. The physics of room acoustics for MUSIC have been well studied, and their correlation with subjective impression increasingly understood over the last 30 years. This research has shown that we have strong built-in preferences for the direction, frequency response, and time of arrival of REFLECTED sound.

Note that Audessy did not say we are better at distinguishing sound from the side than behind,and that the thirty years of research dealt with reflected sound. The amount and character of reflected sound will certainly be affected when the room has no side walls and all speakers have to be in-wall or in-ceiling.(the room you are recommending wide fronts for) It's not a typical installation(if there is such a thing), but you can see that all 7.1 installations are not the same. Some installs benefit from front wides,others not so much and without being at the install site it's just a guess(the more info you have,the better your guess). Ideally it shouldn't be wides vs. rears, it should be wides and rears. I'm not sure whether wides in this case would add or subtract performance-wise,but there's an easy way to find out-see my reply to Karvey77.

Can someone PM me the reasonable discount from MSRP for the 683, 684, CM8, CM9s (or any of the aforementioned)? Or a good dealer in the Dallas area (or online)?

Thgt i posted s'thing y'day, but guess it did not afterall.

I recently auditioned the 684s with htmt centers (hope I got that right). I really loved them but wonder if it will do it for a 6000 cu ft living room with 3000 cu ft focussed media space?

How are the B&Ws compared to Paradigms, PSBs and Polks? The 684s were the only ones closer to my budget of $1000 /pair.

Thgts welcome!

Having your seating position away from the rear wall is very good news. Now that I've gained a little more info about your install, I would use the cwm800's as fronts and rears.Use the cds6 s3 as the sides and the cwm cinema 6 as the center channel speaker. If the rear wall is the 20ft. one,I'd install the rear speakers 3ft.from the side wall to the center of the speaker. If the rear wall is the 15ft. one,I would install them 2 1/2 ft. from the side wall to the center on the speaker. As to the height of the rear speakers,having your seating position away from the rear wall will allow for more height in their placement. 7 1/2 feet up will work fine, but if you can get them another foot or so lower that would be even better.

I would not add front wide speakers just yet. I would finish the install first and spend some time doing all those small adjustments that come close to driving you crazy(don't forget the sub). When you've got the system "tweaked" to your satisfaction(and it should sound great!),take a couple of weeks to enjoy your system and become familiar with it's sound.
Next,you have to get hold of a couple decent bookshelf speakers. They don't have to be B&W,but no junk either. If you have a friend who can loan you such speakers for a couple of days, great. If not,the local big-box store will "loan" you a pair. Be sure there's no restocking fee. If the speakers have stands,use 'em. If not put them on chairs,use books underneath them to get them close to the same height as your fronts. Place them as close to the front wall as possible(because yours would be in wall),to the sides (closer to the side walls) of the fronts. . Use some loose(not in-wall,just lay it on the floor) speaker wire. I assume(and you know what that means) that your receiver has connections and processing for a 9.1 system. Connect the bookshelf speakers as your wide fronts and listen for a couple of days. After that you will know if you want wides. If you do,you've got another pair of cwm800's and by now you should be pretty good at installing them. Don't forget to take the bookshelf speakers back!

Hi, this is my first B&W purchase, the DM602 S2's.

My son is 11 yrs old and over the past week, we have put together his first stereo system. I picked up some older gear for him:

Parasound PLD-1100 PreAmp
Parasound PDD-1500 Dolby Digital Processor
Rotel RB-960BX (60w x 2) Amplifier
Integra DPS-5 DVD player

To be honest, I'm a little jealous that my son's 1st system is SEPARATES!

As we were looking for a pair of speakers, I contacted my local dealer and he had a pair of used B&W 602 S2's that he has let me bring home to demo.

I've always loved B&W but have a high end Klipsch setup in the HT. The 602's sound fantastic but just do not provide enough bass for what he's looking for so the 602's will fine a new home in another room in our house.

I do have a question regarding the tweeter. Looking at photos online (Google Images), the 602's do not have the black plastic piece that fits around the tweeter but as you can see in my photo below, mine do. Is this supposed to be there? Just curious what it's purpose was and why the other images online didn't show it.

i found a penny

Maybe what I have are DM602 S1's. Is that correct?

[quote=youthman;19922950]Hi, this is my first B&W purchase, the DM602 S2's.

My son is 11 yrs old and over the past week, we have put together his first stereo system. I picked up some older gear for him:

Parasound PLD-1100 PreAmp
Parasound PDD-1500 Dolby Digital Processor
Rotel RB-960BX (60w x 2) Amplifier
Integra DPS-5 DVD player

To be honest, I'm a little jealous that my son's 1st system is SEPARATES!

As we were looking for a pair of speakers, I contacted my local dealer and he had a pair of used B&W 602 S2's that he has let me bring home to demo.

I've always loved B&W but have a high end Klipsch setup in the HT. The 602's sound fantastic but just do not provide enough bass for what he's looking for so the 602's will fine a new home in another room in our house.

I do have a question regarding the tweeter. Looking at photos online (Google Images), the 602's do not have the black plastic piece that fits around the tweeter but as you can see in my photo below, mine do. Is this supposed to be there? Just curious what it's purpose was and why the other images online didn't show it.

REPLY:
Welcome to the club! That's a very nice system for an 11 year old, great way to let him get into music. From the pictures those speakers seem to be in perfect condition! There were 4 versions of the DM602(DM602,s2,s3 and DM602.5 s3).Those are DM602's,the first version. You can see a picture,find out what the rings are for and get all the specs at;
http://assets.bowers-wilkins.com/med...e_l2_w0_h0.pdf