B&W 802D vs Wilson WATT Puppy

An additional thing to consider- B&Ws are not tube friendly- the 802 in particular will not reproduce bass properly with a tube amp due to the impedance relationship between the amp and speaker in the woofer region.

Wilson, OTOH, have no problem with using either tubes or transistors as far as interface is concerned, although :) they will show you how much better most tube amps are...

Atmasphere I very strongly disagree I listen to 802D's
on a CJ MV 60 & other tube amps it did a fine job there was no lack of bass. And 802D impedance is not difficult. I am disgusted
with all the false information people give on these fourms.

I have a friend who runs 802D's with a pair of Cary 805C's, Walker T.T. (Koetsu), Steelhead Pre., Revelation cabling throughout, sounds great, I thought it wouldn't work, go figure.

ok... you guys cannot compare the 802D against the grandslams, Nova utopias, or even W/P7s!
they are all much more expensive than the 802Ds!!!
W/P 7 should be compared to the 800D and the rest should be against the *shell* Nautilus (B&W doesn't really have a competition for the grand slamms!)

I just had a lenghty A/B session this weeked comparing the 803Ds and 802Ds
the 803D sounded a little colored in the mid and the bass lacked a little
but No way these were true for the 802D!

I've heard both sophias and the 7s.. they are all great speakers- comes down to the personal choice..
yet the wilson speakers never appealed to me that much.. not only aesthetically but also sonically (I agree with Michael on the "muddiness" of the wilsons -at least the 7 and sophia)

The 802D employs a pair of 8 ohm woofers in parallel for an impedance of 4 ohms (roughly) in the range of the woofer (bass) region. The rest of the speaker is nominally 8 ohms. While you might think that a tube amplifier playing on this speaker is making good bass, it is a fact that most tube amplifiers would do a better job if the woofers were somehow 8 ohms with all other things being equal.

But here we are in the real world. In order for the 802D to make flat frequency response according to design, it must be driven by an amplifier capable of constant voltage response regardless of load; this means a transistor amp, as this characteristic is not associated with tube amps! IOW a tube amp will have shelved bass response (NOTE: *not* rolled off) as its output will be about 3 db less than anticipated by the designer in the bass region.

Some people hearing tube amps running this way will describe them as doing 'a fine job' but the fact of the matter is they can do better- they just need a proper load. My earlier point is that the Wilson provides a very friendly load for tube amps relatively speaking.