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801 series 3? I have had the 801s for years, I just never fell in love with the sound. It always seemed on the colder more analytical side. The room is what it is, too many reflections, and the amp s have been numerous including aragon 8008, krell FBP 600. I have read about the KEFs, but never had a chance to listen. Has anyone experienced both of these speakers? Any comments? Thanks Norm
Follow Ups:
I have heard a couple systems driving the Nautilus with McIntosh and to my surprise was really a good match, much better than I've ever heard the B&W sound from Classe or ARC. May be a way to warm up the sound and still get power.
I have heard KEF LS50's, R300's and just got done breaking in a pair of Ref 3's. KEF to my ears, and in general, are warm, with a blooming, fill the room bass, seems another upward tilt in the region of snare and certain cymbals, not a lot of extreme top end. Very good detail and midrange. Vocals I thought were top notch. Quite a different sound from B&W.
Treating the room is your most important thing though, no matter what you do those problems will still be there. I'd look at a company called SMT who make room treatments that don't deaden the room. Sadurni used these at Axpona and got top room for 2nd year that I'm aware of. MBL also used them.
Why not fix the room? (Or at least improve it)
"When the demon is at your door, in the mornin' it won't be there no more"
Steely Dan
Throwing Money at a troublesome room can be a major problem. The B&W Matrix 801 series I have enjoyed - but what I found really interesting with them and with the Nautilus versions is that they actually sounded much better with Single Ended Triode amplifiers. The clinical sound it coule be argued is from SS amps you've added.
It is highly counter intuitive to recommend tubes - especially a SET with something like B&W but the Wyatech Labs 211 might surprise you - or other higher power 845 based or 211 based tube amplifiers. Indeed, a dealer in Hong Kong was running some Me Xing(formerly Ming Da) tube amps on the 801 and it was really quite excellent sounding - a little bass bloom was noticeable but it was pretty excellent musically and by far better than when you hear B&W with Classe, Rotel, Krell or Bryston, Levinson etc. But you will be volume limited obviously with 20 ish watts.
If that doesn't appeal to you then I would explore speakers not to be known for sounding clinical - (KEF doesn't exactly spring to mind).
You could go the DeVore Oranguan, Audio Note E, Teresonic Ingenium kind of stuff that I generally prefer - and get a SET amplifier on those - but will they fill a bigger room(I'm assuming you have) satisfactorily might be the tougher question. You might also consider a Horn that with being a bit more directional can sometimes avoid pitfalls of being in a poor room because you can face them directly where you want them. Good Higher efficiency speakers (and horns) also tend to escape room pitfalls and indeed their own cabinet pitfalls a but more - sounding more open and alive and present.
I don't think it's fair to say the 801 is a poor speaker - because you can get quite a lot of excellent sound from them - but I think certain speakers may simply be easier to get right across a larger number of rooms and a I'd look at something that may be easier to position, and generally higher efficiency - might not be a bad idea to look at the High Efficiency forum - the trouble is most of those are horns and some find horns to blare or shout and then that's kind of clinical sounding as well.
You won't be average volume limited much but short term peaks will be clipped messing up some dynamics and unless the small amp is super stable there will be short term oscillation fouling up sound a short time after the peaks.
Yeah this is the big problem - the quality of sound is high but if you listen to music with big dynamic swings of 15+dB and you like it loud the combo will likely stink - BUT if you are mostly a lower volume listener and listen to "girl at a piano" kind of stuff then you can turn those B&W's into something a lot more special.
There are much worse sounding speakers out there, I'm sure. A bit on the clean and analytical side perhaps.
...Taken literally, a Bose 901 or maybe a Minimus-7 is an improvement over an 801 S3? Really? Indeed!
.
...(NT)
Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.
- Winston Churchill
...nor the obvious hyperbole. While one might not care for the specific sound qualities B&W chose to engineer into the 801, in the overall universe of commercial speakers, the 801 is far better than most and is significant even today even though out of production for years.
Later!
then why does the company make more models than china has people? oh, and they do sound mechanical (clinical).
roger wang
Yeah, not my favorite speakers either.
"A lie is half-way around the world before the truth can get its boots on."
-Mark Twain
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