That is what happens when you expect too much.
Add to it a mediocre recording and you have a.
Is it too much to expect a loudspeaker to have a nice flat frequency response and even power response? It appears so.
I would.... I think.... if I owned a set of B&W's of that size and price - go all the way and make them active. Simply swapping a tweeter and fiddling sligthly with the existing filter, is simply not enough. A bald move - for some, but not this guy:
Ground Sound
But that's just me... once you go active... your not going back. Yes you have to measure and measure again... make adjustments and so forth - but for me that's part of the fun.
But I understand if this is not your kind of fun, and then ofcourse you should not do it
Ground Sound
But that's just me... once you go active... your not going back. Yes you have to measure and measure again... make adjustments and so forth - but for me that's part of the fun.
But I understand if this is not your kind of fun, and then ofcourse you should not do it
Well no it isn't about measure and measure again it's about measuring with a methodology and purpose that allows you to reach a certain level of technical excellence without needing to remeasure time and time again.
Some designers also seem to have an issue with crossing over within the 1-3kHz band or so, this imo is a fallacy. Crossing here does not impair a loudspeakers ability to reproduce the human voice. If you cross over here and do it poorly then it will but that's not what that's about.
One of the 800 series hugest issues is the ridiculously high xover point between the FST and the tweeter. If you are not going for a directivity match then the FST needs a crossover lower than 2kHz for the off axis to hold up properly, preferably around 1.5kHz. I'd hope that the diamond tweeter could do this. If you're going to go for a decent directivity match to a suitable tweeter then you can go up to around 2.5kHz.
Vivid with their giya G3, or similar, go for avoiding the 1-3kHz range in about the only way you can do - with multiple small diameter midrange drivers. Vivid use a 2" mid dome to cover 880Hz to 3khz and then cross to a pair of lower mid drivers and a 1" dome tweeter. This is how it needs to be done unless you want off axis holes.
This is one of the reasons why some high-end manufacturers use coaxial drivers or simple wave guides, to keep the off axis decent. Revel, YG, KEF, TAD and some pioneer speakers go this route and have, on the whole, excellent measured performance and they also review very well. With their sculpted/cast polymer cabinet B&W could easily go this route too.
Some designers also seem to have an issue with crossing over within the 1-3kHz band or so, this imo is a fallacy. Crossing here does not impair a loudspeakers ability to reproduce the human voice. If you cross over here and do it poorly then it will but that's not what that's about.
One of the 800 series hugest issues is the ridiculously high xover point between the FST and the tweeter. If you are not going for a directivity match then the FST needs a crossover lower than 2kHz for the off axis to hold up properly, preferably around 1.5kHz. I'd hope that the diamond tweeter could do this. If you're going to go for a decent directivity match to a suitable tweeter then you can go up to around 2.5kHz.
Vivid with their giya G3, or similar, go for avoiding the 1-3kHz range in about the only way you can do - with multiple small diameter midrange drivers. Vivid use a 2" mid dome to cover 880Hz to 3khz and then cross to a pair of lower mid drivers and a 1" dome tweeter. This is how it needs to be done unless you want off axis holes.
This is one of the reasons why some high-end manufacturers use coaxial drivers or simple wave guides, to keep the off axis decent. Revel, YG, KEF, TAD and some pioneer speakers go this route and have, on the whole, excellent measured performance and they also review very well. With their sculpted/cast polymer cabinet B&W could easily go this route too.
This is an overly simplistic statement too.
Coupled with the natural roll-off of the tweeter, the 4.7uF results in a filter response that's very close to a 2nd order Linkwitz-Riley. It's explained in the white paper if you care to read it.
The problem in not the B&W but the Classe which is a terrible audio gear.
I have personally tried the 700 preamp and cd player CP202 and to say they don't even compare to products half their price is a polite way of describing their capabilities.
Take a listen to the 800 with Pass labs monoblocs XA200.5, XP-30 and analog source with Goldfinger statement and you will tell me later if you still dislike B&W.
Maybe in the end you will still decide it wasn't your cup of tea, but at least you will be able to experience the true potential of a studio monitor.
wow that is a terrific point! People tend to oversimplified the work that B&W has put on these 800 series. An interesting review is on stereophile, where measurements wise, they were pointing out the technical aspect that 5th element is pointing out as well. Nevertheless when it came time to listening time, these speakers were regarded as among the very few elite of reference speakers.
Sometimes, things need to be auditioned with ears rather than with graph.
Again, if response wasn't accurate, no respectable recording studio would elect those speakers to use them for mastering. Just a thought that Mr. Art has pointed out before.
Fwiw, when I purchased my 800 D2's last year I compared directly against Focal Scala Utopia's which are similarly priced. The listening room was quite large, which may account for differences but the 800D2's were dramatically better in the bass and they threw a much larger, deeper soundstage, and imaged better overall.
The Focals were really outclassed, which surprised me.
yes, the diamond tweeter is supposed on paper to hold up down lower, but again listening says otherwise. Read what art has said about the aliminum tweeter on the signature vs diamond tweeter on the latest series and you will understand that is not all about specifications in this case.
I was explained by an expert on the field that diamond is not the best material to make a tweeter just as much as diamond is not the best to make cantilevers on a cartridges.
Just something to think about, the ultimate goal of a speaker or any audio gear should be listening and not so much measurements, provided that technical wise it doesn't have a huge pitfall.
That is so interesting!! Thanks for sharing your experience.
You have listened to many top of the line speakers I do trust your judgement and still I am so surprised you are not suggesting me to update the tweeter and crossover to the latest diamond series.
I do love my signature and I also own N805s and had experience with 805Diamond which I found being overpriced but still a great mini-monitor, though I had the impression that the Signature 805 was superior to the Diamond 805 in many aspects. However since I have tested the in separate occasions and with significant time apart, I didn't feel like expressing a firm judgement on the topic.
It's my view anyway that the signature tweeter is virtually identical in performance to the diamond tweeter, and indeed the two speakers probably sound close to identical in large or anechoic listening rooms, however, the Signature 800's in my experience sound better than the Diamond 800's in small to medium sized rooms, as you might expect, so that's why I'm recommending that you don't modify them.
Compared with 'flat' speakers such as Revel Ultima Salon 2 etc, the B&W 800 Diamonds are far from crap sounding. I've listened extensively to the Ultima Salon 2's so I'm very familiar with them.
Yes, they are slightly more accurate through the upper mids than the 800D2's but conversely the 800D2's are slightly more accurate in the bass, throw a more expansive soundstage and are more airy at the top. The 800D2's are also about 5dB more sensitive which is not inconsiderable. Overall, there's not much between them. Both sound excellent but the Revels are likely to sound slightly better in typical domestic listening environments.
I would.... I think.... if I owned a set of B&W's of that size and price - go all the way and make them active. Simply swapping a tweeter and fiddling sligthly with the existing filter, is simply not enough. A bald move - for some, but not this guy:
Ground Sound
But that's just me... once you go active... your not going back. Yes you have to measure and measure again... make adjustments and so forth - but for me that's part of the fun.
But I understand if this is not your kind of fun, and then ofcourse you should not do it
I love this approach and understand why he did it
Thanks for the link!To me the big advantage comes when replacing the passive for the bass/mid, ie getting rid of the bass crossover, but also the hp for the mid.
I did some experiment to go all active, but if using good xo-parts (eg Jensen Superior) and put in passive impedance correction(mid) and resonance notch filter (tw) you can come a long way.
The benefit is also to avoid op-amps in the sensitive mid/high frequency area.
I don't think anyone serious about audio will buy that for one second.
You should participate in a scientifically executed blind testing of
audio gear to get rid of the common misconceptions about audio.
Trust your ears, not eyes !
"High end" vs. High end
This should shed some light on the subject.
Wavac SH-833 monoblock power amplifier Measurements | Stereophile.com
Classé CT-M600 & CA-M600 monoblock power amplifiers Measurements | Stereophile.com
This should shed some light on the subject.
Wavac SH-833 monoblock power amplifier Measurements | Stereophile.com
Classé CT-M600 & CA-M600 monoblock power amplifiers Measurements | Stereophile.com
I don't think anyone serious about audio will buy that for one second.
You should participate in a scientifically executed blind testing of
audio gear to get rid of the common misconceptions about audio.
Trust your ears, not eyes !
That's my listening policy too.
Just to be clear, I haven't bought the Classes a friend of mine did ;we had blind tests with some other equipment because this friend of mine had exactly the problem you described....i.e. listened to things with his eyes rather than with his ears.
The Classe as expected came out really bad from A/B tests.
I can!! It's colored to the a very high extent! Not only that, it really doesn't make any type of music.
To give you an idea: the CD player CP202 was outclassed by a large margin by a simple Marantz SA-17, let alone the bigger machines we had available for testing...didn't even need to bother them ehehe
Anyway, the sound of the Classe's CD player, if I could describe it in a short summary, was: not natural, compressed, lack of extension and not on the neutral side at all.
mind explaining better, this can leave room for misinterpretation on the point you are trying to get across!
The Classe is far from perfect, but all things considered it measures pretty nicely.
In a well designed solid state amplifier its distortion profile shouldn't really change that much until clipping is encountered. The fact that the Classe's does hints at design flaws that shouldn't really be there.
Nevertheless most of its distortion appears to be 2nd and 3rd order dominated, which will sound fine and it's absolute amount of distortion at lowish power levels (read the blue trace) are low. This amplifier will not colour the sound.