B&W 800D Question

use musical fidelity kw

kilo watt!!!

If you like throwing money down the drain. Sorry to break it to you, but the dealer will try to sell you whatever he can get away with.

That might potentially reduce their value.

halcro dm88 will do better than the suggested krell

might as well go for hi end instead of pseudo hi end

Get a solid pro amp (no fan), and see if you can arrange a blind A/B test between that and whatever mega-buck amp your dealer wants to sell you. Good pro amps are like Crown, QSC, etc. I have a feeling you'll end up saving some money....

A really good 50W-100W is plenty. A 180W/ch NAD Masters M3 integrated would kick ass on those speakers, for instance. Plenty of quality. Better than most Krells anyway. It sounds like the typical "Pop High-end" store (and I don't mean mom and pop). I wouldn't stop shopping.

Just to throw you a curve ball...check out VTL. I've heard the 802D's run off of a VTL (can't remember if it was the 80W or 150W though). Tubes might not be your cup of tea, but it might be worth having a listen.


Scott

Well, two differant perspectives:
1.) I recently switched out a Mac MC402 that WAS running our 800D's for two 501's because one night when listening to music very loud (though it didn't seem like it) the owner of my store and I thought we heard a bit of distortion during some passages...not a problem after the switch.
2.) The B&W guys are quite found of running the 800D's off of the new Rotel Class D amps and say that they have more than enought to run them. I listened to the 100 x7 unit run 801D's in Worthing and was quite pleased with the sound, but I didn't have as much time as I would have liked and I didn't run the volume up quite as high as I would have like to either.

YBA and Conrad Johnson also make delicious amplifiers that have incredible parts quality and will easily drive most anything without being that "powerful". If I were going to spend more than about $3000 on an amp, I'd bi-amp, rather than putting all my power in one "basket".

Just so we are clear the Krell 403 is a 3-channel amplifier. I hope hes not trying to sell you a 3-channel amplifier for driving only 2 speakers. The correct amplifier for just the B&W 800D pair would be the Krell 402.

I can tell you that the Simaudio Evolution W-7m monoblocks would sound incredible with the 800D. 500 watts into 8ohms, 1000 into 4 ohms, stable down to 1 ohm!

Bang for the buck, try the Bel Canto Reference 1000's class D amps. I believe someone around here uses this setup with their 802Ds.

But the Krell 402 is MORE than enough power. Ultra high current, and unlimited headroom.

FWIW, the Rotel class D amps and the Bel Canto class D amps are based on the same technology, B&O's ICEpower modules. In fact, inside the RB-1091 and the Ref1000, there is little that differentiates between the two....both use the ICEpower 1000ASP module.

There are also some boutique manufacturers that build amps using the same modules. I happen to use one built in Denmark, and I'm very happy with it.

Excellent amps for the money.

I haven't tried Rotel's Class-D amps on the 800Ds in my showroom, but the RB-1092 (500Wx2) kicks ass on the 802Ds. So I would imagine that they'd sound every bit as good on 800Ds.

I have a customer that uses a pair of RB-1091s (500W Class-D monoblocks) on his 802Ds. These amps are quite impressive for what they cost ($1,500 each). He was looking at a pair of Classé CA-M400 monoblocks originally, but at over three times the price, he couldn't quite justify it.

800Ds are relatively efficient speakers. Don't let a dealer tell you that a well-designed 400W amp won't drive them adequately. That is complete BS.

I think class D shows alot of promise. However, I have found that they either work really well with a certain speaker brand, or really bad. Theres no grey area with this technology.

However, being that B&W and Rotel are co-distributed Im sure their class D should work very nicely.

Actually along those same lines, the Classe stuff is very excellent product as well. Im pretty surprised that the dealer didnt push Classe, considering most B&W dealers carry both.

Although I have not tried my amps with a lot of different speakers, with the handful that I have tried with them, there hasn't been a "bad" pairing.

I also had NuForce class D's, and again, they worked well with everything I tried with them.

Those are only two class D's I have a lot of experience with. I have also spent a few hours with a Panasonic XR55 and bunch of bookshelf speakers....seem to work pretty well.

Definately try the McIntosh MC501's. Mac and B&W go together like wine and cheese. Make sure you have a dedicated 20amp breaker for each one and you will have a ton of current and the 501's will output close to 1000 watts per channel this way.

The B&W's will operate with 50 watts or so but they need a whole lot more to get the sound you would probably want out of them.

What a ridiculous & absurd recommendation.

Is it ironic that a guy named NHTkiller goes after an NHT dealer?

While I can't comment on the specific differances, I have heard many manufacturers say that the module is only one core part of the amps and that there are indeed differances between how they impliment it and what they get out of their amps. While I haven't A/B'd enough of them to give my own impressions, and I haven't had enough experiance under enough varied circumstances to know, I would like to hear from various manufacturers as to what these differances are and what they might mean.

Agreed. Not to say that the NAD's don't make a good product and wouldn't work nicely. We're NOT talking about "most Krells" here, it's the Evo's. An excellent product and I personally would take it and recommend over any NAD.

Read up on the modules that the manufacturers use. The ASP modules contain everything that is needed except the connectors. Other modules do require a power supply. Of course you can also add chokes and such before and after the modules.

But really, for the 1000asp based amps, all you have to do is open them up and see how they are implemented. For most of them, there are no significant differences. The one that is significantly different, but have not heard it, is Rowland's implentation....it has some kind of circuit board before the input connectors of the module.

Yes, NAD makes a fine amp, no question about that. However the goal here is not just to simply power the speakers with the bare essentials, its to drive the speakers with the same level of detail and quality that the speakers are designed to reproduce.

As good as the 800Ds are, they have hundreds, even thousands times more distortion than an NAD amplifier. There's simply a point where the amp can't do anything about that and it happens well below the Evo level. I think the guy just senses that you might spend that much.

Has he talked to you about room acoustics? Setup? How you could spend a few $thousand on the room to make it a better environment for the speakers?

If I had 800Ds, I'd probably have a YBA Integre, NAD M3 or a C-J setup. If I were spending close to Krell money, I'd buy Pass Labs.

Pass Labs or a Krell would both be an excelent choice to drive almost any speaker at this level. Some do not like Krell, Pass, Conrad, you will always find someone who dislikes a brand or there house sound, it's just boils down to a matter of opinion & taste at that point. All are excellent products, it's a win, win situation.

To try to drive 800D's with 50w would defeat the purpose of buying 800Ds. It would be fun to try that, and if I did I would most certainly use a tube amp, but that's just me.

Well, I wouldn't buy 50W amps unless that is what makes them sound the best for the money. But a high current 50W amp will drive the 800D to well over 100dB and to the point where the speaker is audibly distorting, but the amp is doing just fine.

"the 800D to well over 100dB and to the point where the speaker is audibly distorting"

Audibly distort? Please explain.
I would say that you would be hearing the AMP distort when driving 50w into 800Ds.

No, most speakers, even "high-end" ones will audibly distort with as little as 1-10W and certainly by 50W. Many people then believe that it's their amp, not the speakers, and spend more money on power that they will never use, but it makes them feel better, even gives them the placebo effect of "it plays louder". By audibly distort, I mean sounds strained or harsh, not necessarily sounding like it's going to break.