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In Reply to: Why such negative vibes on B&W's posted by bmullin on July 23, 2002 at 10:07:38:
1.) You show your intuitive "audiophileness" by dispariging B&W's (a reference standard) while touting a brand that you personally like as beinn 2000% better because YOU like them.(Really, if you're truly an audiophile, you'd own a pair of speakers made by a recognized "speaker genius" who died after hand-making only the pair that you own. That way, no one could claim that they've heard other speakers that sound better. And why don't you??- snob on brother.)
2.) As was pointed out previously, most B&W speakers don't seem to be setup correctly in an audio showroom situation. (Why? we don't know, it's just the facts - OK - deal with it.)
3.) They need A LOT of current from a soft/smooth amp to sound "right" (to my ears).
4.) They are room interactive and, again as was pointed out previously, it takes a lot of time to set them up correctly (see #2).
5.) Despite what you want to believe or calculate, they take a LONG time to break in. If they are not broken in, they sound like shit...(see #2).
6.) They are brutally honest. If the CD has no bass, they don't make any extra. If the electronics driving them are unstable or wicked-bad - that's what they reproduce (see #2).
7.) B&W has an engineering philosophy about how they want their speakers to be built and sound. Personally, I don't like their lower end speakers, but, the N800 series are really hard to beat at the same price point when driven and setup correctly.
SOAP BOX COMMENTARY: Bail out now if you don't want to be offended -
They have invested and inordinate amount of money in R&D associated with the speakers, including having the only true anechoic chamber and laser interferometer owned by a speaker manufacturer. They have 30 research engineers who work on their products, and to lightly write-off that they make the speakers sound -
"Looking objectively...they are voicing for what sells...a very flashy, hi-fi sound. Furthermore, gimmicks really sell (nautilus tweeters, kevlar cones, flowports etc.) so B&W incorporate as many as possible into their designs"
is to discredit the amount of work that went into the choices made by the engineers, who in fact, redesigned many of the "gimmicks" not as gimmicks but to solve, what they feel, are real acoustic problems. When you have YOUR physics PhD and can refute the choices made - and can prove it - get back to me.
That "GIMMICKY" claim alone is specious given the low volume of the N800 series speakers that B&W actually expects to sell. They are privately owned and do not have to answer to investors, stock brokers, etc., and basically have the luxury of doing almost whatever they want. They don't sell speakers by the truck load, and as most of you know, don't give price breaks ("Wally Woofer has a truck load sale this weekend so come on down").
They are however, the 3rd largest speaker manufacturer in the world and the largest in Europe. They are not "boutique speakers" and do not have that cachet which is soooooooooo important to many "audiophiles" to impress their audiophile friends, so that they can prove that they are part of the select few who can "really hear the difference." Pardon me if that sounds snobby, but it's not far off the mark given the quotes about B&W only wanting to make flashy, gimmicky speakers - etc.
Lastly, if you compare the B&W N800 series to speakers in the same price range, and all of the caveats have been met (setup, electronics, etc.), they will either match or surpass the speaker being compared - UNLESS, of course, you expect them to sound like an electrostatic or horn loaded speaker - but of course, we're all way tooo smart here to be that dumb - aren't we?
Follow Ups:
...I believe people tend to generalize "B&W" (and some other speaker manfs.) models as all sounding very similar. The most recent Matrix lines sound much different overall (to me) than the Nautilus lines; even within the Matrix line (e.g., 803/2 vs. 802/3) there were some noticable differences. (You say yourself you don't like the lower-end lines.) So when people say "I don't like B&W, or Thiel, or Dynaudio, or...", I generally take an extra grain of salt with their statements; when they start talking models & electronics, that's much more meaningful.
I think some listeners actually do object to the distinctive "sound" of the kevlar coned drivers (the constant in many B&W models) and to a lesser degree the "sound" of B&W tweeters. After living with a B&W design for many years (and auditioning all the rest), I can say that the kevlar cone driver is probably the speaker's weakest ingredient. These drivers just don't sound smooth at the top of their passband (where they flex and break-up). Most manufacturers try to keep the driver motion pistonic, but B&W seem wedded to the kevlar driver; touting the in-band break-up behavior as a "benefit." It may be a benefit to the speaker's measurements. They measure well (at least from some axis), but they don't "sound" that good between 2 - 4 kHz (the top of their passband and the band of frequencies where the human ear is most sensitive).B&W engineer a beautifully dry and neutral bass into every model. So, why can't they perfect the mid-range response (which would mean dumping the kevlar drivers) and the treble (use less beamy and resonant tweeters)?
your opinion since of all the big names out there like Paradigm etc use their typical off the shelf drivers and NONE of them have midrange neutrality that approach the level of B&W. In fact the midrange is where I find the B&W strength to be. All the reviews seem to back that up, all the people I know agree, and you seem to be saying the measuerments(which I admit I never even look at)are supporting that as well.It sounds like you call them bright drivers...which is fine I find ALL speakers using metal tweeters to have serious problems of some sort...most ring(Studio series, PMC to a lesser degree)etc. B&W gets around that with their inverted tube...but it is a little on the bright side. It's obviously bright enough to annoy you, but not everyone.
As for Kevlar it's another driver that has its pluses light and tough and even. Though I'm not sure about the overall durability.
And I own the only speaker that doesn't have Kevlar or the metal tweeter the DM 302 - and I liked it better than the 601 that I was going to buy...for some of the reasons I think that you hear. So I don't disagree necessarily with what you're saying but I don't think the problem is with the driver, since to me their speaker lines all sound quite different. The 600 series is a bit bright, but so is almost everything for the money...except maybe Castle and Mission.
Actually I don't find B&W speakers particularly bright. The company seems to voice for a hot or peaky on-axis balance in the high treble to compensate for the lack of wide-dispersion in this passband. If you sit just a little off axis of a B&W tweeter you get a fairly dry (ruler-flat) result. Unfortunately though, the treble seems too dry and as you move off-axis, high treble response falls off quickly. This puts less power into the room at the very highest frequencies resulting in a lack of air and high frequency "wetness." Whether or not this is noticeable, depends on how much of your high frequency hearing you still retain. Some manufacturers use additional "ambience" tweeters to compensate for lack of high frequency dispersion (but not B&W).What I think is more audible and objectionable are the power flares that occur in the lower treble. Specifically, these metal domes show wide dispersion in the bottom of their passband, which drops off steadily with higher frequency. You might see 180 degree dispersion in the 4-8 kHz passband, which narrows to 90 degree dispersion at 10 kHz and narrows to less than 20 degree dispersion at 15 kHz and so on. Consider that the kevlar cone produces 90 degree dispersion at 1 kHz and very rapid changes of dispersion through the actual crossover, you end up with some pretty drastic changes of dispersion through the upper mid/lower treble. This will not load the room evenly, resulting in too much energy in the lower treble passband and too little above. The human ear is ten times more sensitive to lower treble frequencies than to high treble frequencies. This uneven power response will irritate.
Yet, I don't have a problem as much with the quantity of the treble produced by these metal domes as its quality. The domes need better damping. I am sure loading the dome with a column of air (the Nautilus transmission line) is helping to lower the resonant behavior of these domes, but I still hear a residual chromium plated edge in the lower treble (which coincides with the domes peak power). The domes are ringing ever so slightly at the bottom of their passband around 4 kHz (visible in time domain graphs). The domes need to be damped better. Perhaps they need to be lighter to resist ringing better. It can be done. Focal have succeeded in producing high quality metal domes that resist this low treble ringing (probably by careful use of damping compounds applied to the dome), resulting in a less fatiguing low treble sound.
Getting back to the kevlar cones…they seem to be fine up to around 1-2 kHz…then they go into break-up. B&W run them all the way up to 3 or 4 kHz, but the cones are not behaving in a linear fashion in this crucial passband. This is far, far more audible than any problem occurring in the treble (due to the extreme sensitivity of human hearing at these frequencies – the nails on a chalk board passband). As a result (depending on your listening angle) violins can screech unnaturally or sound unnaturally dull. The lack of linearity in the presence passband creates colorations of the human voice…the pinched or nasal coloration that we are somewhat used to from loudspeakers. Presence band instruments like trumpets and trombones can sound very synthetic and unconvincing due to power anomalies in this passband (even though technically the speakers might measure flat on-axis). The results…the sound…speaks for itself.
A speaker designer absolutely MUST get the upper crossover right for the speaker to sound coherent. Otherwise the music will separate into treble and mid-range. It's a delicate balancing act. Ideally you DO NOT want to stick a crossover between 2-4 kHz, but if you MUST…you will need to spend all your time and effort getting the drivers to work together in phase over a useful range of vertical and horizontal angles. B&W solved this problem (and many others) in the original Nautilus by dividing the audible spectrum into four bands (using four drivers); all of which behaved as true pistons in their operational passbands (no in-band break-up modes a la kevlar). If I were designing "Nautilus" speakers, they would follow the original design much more closely.
As you can see, the designer in me causes me to think, "how could I improve the sound of these speakers?" Before starting, I would need to identify those areas that needed help. If I listen to a loudspeaker long enough, I am usually ready to re-engineer it. I often think, "if I could combine that speaker's treble, with this speaker's mid-range, with that speaker's bass…and avoid crossover irregularities, I'd have a really good product." It can be done; especially when you don't have to design by committee or design based on what sells or the latest trend. In my world-view, speakers need to be accurate…period.
Hello,
Your argument is interesting. I admit I know diddley about tests frequency responses and the like. But I just wonder what baseline measurments are....such as listening distance, room size, and decibel levels.I have a suspicion that a lot of times the bigger nautilus speaks like n803-n800 are probably played at volumes well below what they were designed for. I don't have a big room for my 801's. But I notice that with better recordings I can turn up the volume higher than usual and the system kicks into another gear.
Remember I talked about human hearing being non-linear? We perceive sounds at 3-4 kHz as louder than at other frequencies. Since the speakers put less energy into the room in this passband, its easier to raise the volume significantly without pain. If you position your head just so (and keep it there) you can get the response to flatten out more or less (around the crossover point), but the lack of a smooth power response will always be a handicap.I don't want to give the impression that I am picking on B&W designs. I analyze every speaker this way. I have heard much worse. The (difficult) trick is make the design coherent at the crossover. Using a kevlar driver (or any non-rigid driver subject to flexing) makes this much more difficult.
I concur with everything said by xenon101.Bashing B&W speakers seems to be a common habit of 'seasoned audiophiles' who ironically often blame them for sounding too 'hi-fi', whatever this means :)
Regardless of my personal taste or choice I admit B&W makes wonderful speakers.
(I should say that I do not and never use to own a B&W, as well as a BMW :).
When I was embarking on my audiophile boat (or in other words was in the early stages of 'the disease':) one of the first speakers I heard were the B&Ws.
Then after years of going circles and hearing tens and tens esoteric brands of which many an audiophile raved, including here on AA, I have come to the conclusion that B&W in fact makes great speakers and many (but not all!) specialist brands are overhyped, sold to people who for some reason want to buy anything but the popular brand (just to be different?).On the other hand, I must admit that unlike many other speakers that can seduce you immediately, B&W speakers are much more finicky.
Unlike many others (which sound more or less the same in different contexts), B&W speakers require more attention and effort to get the best sound out of them - room, positioning, electronics etc.
I found the B&W speakers to be very chameleon-like in character.
This could explain such polarized opinions on their sound.
It's easy to reject a B&W speaker after a short audition at dealer's and walk away saying - 'this Nautilus is a piece of shit, my ears were bleeding! How come they got all those good reviews?'
But if you persevere you'd be rewarded.My conclusion - it is (relatively) safe to buy a speaker from B&W at any price (hence my IBM analogy).
Especially if ones starts his/her system from a speaker end this might be a good way to start
I regret I did not do it when it was appropriate, too late now - I want a 802 but have no money to buy it and a room to put it in :).
If you want to seriously improve the sound, you could do so by choosing proper electronics and treating your room, but B&W speakers won't let you down.
Basically, it's safe to build a system around any given B&W speaker.
I am talking about general requirements to the speaker, not some extreme lust for something very very special and very very different.
That's where one might resort to some esoteric brands.
You forgot one thing. a lot of the music you listen to that is recorded on any of the formats, be it vinyl or compact disc was recorded to the Nautilus 801 sound. So if we want to reproduce the mixers vision of what the recording is supposed to sound like then you need B&W.Seriously though, room set-up and speaker set-up is really overlooked with B&W and people assume they are easy becasue they are a typical box speaker. Well the 801 better be placed about 6 feet from the rear wall and have no side walls within about 15 to 20 feet on either side for best effect(at least when I've listened. Now sure if you treat the room this changes. Also the equipment is critical especially IMO the amplifier. People say you need tons of power yet the best set up I've heard involved an 11 watt NuVista tube integrated and naturally the Linn Sondek CD player. I would like a higher power tube amp set up to be able to play louder with more authority than what I heard but hey it's only money. Very few speakers I think could match what I heard in the system. Dianna Krall is in the room and the speakers were not...given their size that is incredible, given the price still incredible all things considered.
Oh yeah - for all of the people who are going to answer with the very clever, "Oh yeah, well I still think they sound like shit." Noted, "bite me."
The other day we were biasing up an Audio Research VT 100 mk3 amp for a customer before he picked it up. We had it running on the little B&W 303 speakers on firm filled stands. Now usually no one would ever hook up a 6000 dollar tube amp to a 299 dollar pr of speakers. You should have seen all the customers faces transfixed as we played Lou Reed cd after cd it was an amazing combination period forget about price. When all the folks
in the room learned they were only $299 a pair all agreed yes they are truly special and then a voice from the background," Kelly the girl who works hear" proudly replied those are the speakers that I own.
B&W makes speakers you can be proud to own.
Hey Johnny,
Not selling Vandys today? I agree with you, I have heard the 303`s sound pretty good. of course a good amp never hurts. Bought some 604 series 2`s not too long ago and never could make em sound good in my room. Wound up takin back. B&W`s are a step up from JBL`s and maybe Infinity`s but most arent high end. Such a big deal is made about the N series, ever take one of those tweets taken apart Johnny? A plastic tube with stuffing in it. Their not bad, but there are sure better out there.
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