I may have ruined myself...

shack

I have tried to like B&W...I really have. They get lots of rave reviews...but not from me...but I kept thinking maybe there was something I was missing. I can't count the number of times I've demoed or visited someone with a B&W rig...and everytime I walk away not liking what I just heard. Especially at the lower end of their lines. CNH's description is a very good represention of what I hear...very harsh and not pleasing at all to my ears. At the upper end of the B&W spectrum, I just don't feel like the sound is worth the price and is not what I want in my system. Of course that is why there are lots of different kinds and mfgs of speakers...everyone's taste is different.

Tankman

Erik Tracy wrote: »

I'm out.

So what started as one Polk member sharing an experience, turns into an eye poking contest.

Nice

..LMAO..you guys are funny!..But some really good reads going on here..

tonyb

Agree Shack, and with the exception of a few models, not my bag either.

Erik took it personal, akin to calling his baby ugly as we like to say. Just want to assure him we didn't mean to offend.

zoraduntov

I was using Polk SDA SRS ll just up until about 2 years then I replaced them with B&W 800D's .
2,000 to 20,000
Dynaudio are also great speakers

Tankman

tonyb wrote: »

Agree Shack, and with the exception of a few models, not my bag either.

Erik took it personal, akin to calling his baby ugly as we like to say. Just want to assure him we didn't mean to offend.

..tonyb..i know you didn't mean anything bad.I was just reading all the post and have to say they are very good.As for the speakers you guys are talking about?.I am sure they are very good but to rich for my blood.You guys have some top end gear.Us lil guys just try to get by with something in the middle.Great post guys thanks i injoy reading them a lot and learn a lot from them.

dave shepard

Jstas wrote: »

I'll let Face answer for himself but in my experience, B&W's can have crossover peaks or enclosure peaks that they try to compensate for with crossover trickery. A bunch of it has to do with some of their weirder enclosure designs. B&W is not known for their conservative enclosures like what you find in, say, the 686 bookshelfs. They are known for the fancy globes and odd baffles like the OP's original picture.

All those odd shapes, they can be engineered and designed out the wazoo but the fact remains that when you start complicating your driver and placement designs like that you start complicating the problems you have as well. They aren't always easy to overcome. That's why the real fancy stuff costs as much as a house or car. It takes a bunch of trickery and prototyping to get things right and if you have a price-point to meet, a bunch of compromising to make the design work well enough.

The fancy B&W's with complicated baffles providing crazy reflections and resonances that are compensated for with both active and passive crossover trickery often do not sound as clean and pure as more simplistic designs like that Sonus Faber I mentioned above.

Here's a picture:


That's also the "entry level" bookshelf from Sonus Faber's TOTL model series and it's positively orgasmic in audio reproduction. IMO, it's in the top 5 if not the best bookshelf on the market at any price (sorry Polk, the LSi's are VERY good but it's hard to compete with a speaker that costs 6 times what your best bookshelf costs). There's very little coloration, the enclosures are designed very well and feel more like stone than wood and those stands are acoustically dead. They make no sound at all. The baffles are well designed and have predictable reflections. The crossovers are decidedly less complicated than the B&W deals in their TOTL series as well. It ends up being just a cleaner, more balanced sound.

It's hard to explain on an Innerwebs forum. Listen for yourself and you'll hear what Face is talking about.

I have to agree with Mantis in that, that is your opion, especally on Sonus Faber. My wife and Mantis and I have done a listening test with Sonus's looking to buy and our opinion's (all 3) were exacally the same they have a forward "in your face" sound presence that we all did not perfer, the "in your face" comment came from my wife at the first 10 seconds upon turning the system on. For my wife and I and Dan it clearly came down to 3 choices and we (my wife and I) spent quite a small fortune (for us) $14k on speakers, I do not wish to disclose which ones we purchased. B&W and Klipch were in the running and the wife still wants the B&W's we listend to that day for stereo. Now I'm not saying that the Faber's have no place or are junk or crappy but for us, they were just hands down out classed, in our opinion.
It really is a matter of personal preferance, needs and taste. If you find something that takes your breath away and you choose that product and you are happy with the results then that was the correct choice.

Dave

audiocr381ve

People just need to find what floats their boat. We all drive different cars because we have different tastes. It would suck if we all drove the same car. I can't tell you how many times I've read glowing reviews online about a product and ended up hating the experience with it in real life. Companies are smart too. Don't believe everything you read, you might just be reading something by someone hired to write it. Happens all day everyday. I guarantee some members of this forum are undercover for companies other than Polk (some with high posts counts too) :loneranger:

Anyway, I hope a newb isn't reading this and thinking "B&W has to suck, look at all these people who hate them!" No freaking way. A lot of people don't like football too!

obieone

Brother, can you spare a dime.....:sad:


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Nhpm510

How about the room? Was it acoustically treated? That adds quite a bit of improvement to decent speakers?

BlueFox

Nhpm510 wrote: »

How about the room? Was it acoustically treated? That adds quite a bit of improvement to decent speakers?

You missed reviving a year old thread by 2 days before the last entry.

F1nut

mantis wrote:

B&W speakers are one of the worlds worst at any price.

Fixed it for you.

Dawgfish

I heard a pair of these powered with about $30,00 worth of equipment upstream (from what the salesman was telling me) and they did sound good, but they were not earth shattering to me. I've heard other speakers for far less that I liked better, but that's me. What counts is if they sound great to you than great. Getting out there and hearing different speakers like you are doing is the key. You'll never really know what you like until you get your ears out there and listen to some different stuff.

Face

If you like beaming upper mids and a ragged treble, B&W's are for you.

hochpt21

Wow...can't believe it's been a year since I was in that shop.

At the time, I had basically only heard my Monitor 70's so it was a big revalation for me.

I'm working on getting my ears on as much gear as possible. It is still very fun for me at this point, and I hope it stays that way.

Dawgfish

^^There you go, that's a good attitude about it. If it ever gets to the point where it stops becoming fun, then what's the point? I think sometimes in my pursuit of better sound I become so serious (determined is probably a better word) that I lose track of what it is all about. I finally have both of my systems to the point where I just sit down and let the music flow,getting caught up in the music itself and not the equipment. It took a lot of time and experimentation to get there, but I'm glad I did. The experimentation is a lot of fun in itself if you have a tinkering personality like I do.

timalan

Yep... and the great part is that no matter what we've heard, our memories are crisp enough to accurately remember the exact sound of any setup, so -- maybe it's the optimist in me -- I always believe we will walk into another room someday and once again be absolutely mesmerized by the sound. For me, the last time I felt that way was a pair of Joseph Audio Perspectives hooked to a bunch of Bel Canto separates. Blew away anything I've ever heard for sheer joy of listening.

timalan

The other great part about sound is that there is no perfect set of speakers for all kinds of mood/music/emotion. There are some speakers that will be perfect for female vocals and fall apart on hard rock; perfect for movies but weak for violin solos, etc...

And no matter how far audio technology grows, there will always be something magical about hearing certain radio recordings off a vintage mono, single-speaker that has a nostalgia and purity that $500K of audio can't capture.

dromunds

hochpt21: Was that audio shop the one whose name starts with a "P" or the other one?

hochpt21

University Audio in Madison

SCompRacer

I think many of us have had that 'uptown girl':cheesygrin: experience hochp. Several years or more ago I bought a pair of Carver Silvers, like new in box from Audioezra on Audiogon. My wife had the SUV so my bud Norm and I took a ride in my car (about an hour 30 minute ride) to just pay for and pick up later. The guy takes us into his professionaly treated audio room with $125K Magicos. 8 amps on the floor. Big dollar pre and source. Just wow. So when I tell him I'll have to pick the Silvers up later, he says I have to head that way; pay for gas in my sons truck and we'll follow you home. Then he helped me set them up and didn't say that my system sounded like crap compared to his. Quite a nice experience. It didn't take long to get grounded into reality....:cheesygrin:

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