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Am I the only one who thinks B&W is mid-fi?

I know that title sounds pretencious. By all means, everyones taste is different and I can grasp that. However, I find B&W loudspeakers to sound extremely Mid-fi ish, designed with sort of a boom and sizzle quality making it not much better than retail quality brands. At price point there is always something better than it, something musical, where the goals of preserving the naturalness and tonal balance of sound is understood. I am getting tired of people buying for the name, not the sound. I find it is letting the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In these times of dying 2 channel, and the ability to buy a complete stereo/home theater at your local blockbuster, all of the brands that should make it don't. Most Hi-fi starts with a retail system and with that type of over-processed, boom and sizzle sound (Boom meaning a spike at 80Hz and sizzle meaning a spike at 10,000Hz). That gives these rising enthuists a false impression of what hi-fi is about. Thus, the people who cater to that falseified sound, those who design audio, forgetting the passion involved with listening, putting aside all love for music just to put a nickle in the pig...Well are doing a good job. Honestly, it is just wrong. Thanks for the read...I feel better. Prehaps I just needed to vent, but I doubt it. Music is a passion of mine, and I don't want to have to battle in 20 yrs to get equipment that sounds like music. Any comments?
mikez
aball
1,994 posts
 
For my $0.005 I agree that they seem bright and not too involving. I had N802s for a while and was glad to get rid of them (now I know why I got such a good deal on them from the last guy!). For their retail price, they were not good. For the used price, they were ok. I have only auditioned the N801s and N804s with the latter being like the 802s and the former pretty good but at what price? I am basically finished with having my ears strained by B&W. They do look darn good however. Arthur
cdc
1,412 posts
 
Aball, what was you pre / amp / and CDP?
So what's better than N803 Bigkidz? I'm still searching. Only ATC so far. But if you're into tubes the new Coincident Victory really kicks butt. Or maybe Von Schweikert DB100 (haven't heard them)
subaruguru
1,353 posts
 
After NOT reading all the above posts, I must agree that I found the N803 WAY too bright in my room in the nearfield.
Interestingly their power response was superb, as they sounded GREAT from an adjacent room! Yeah, that damned tweeter's awfully hard to tame, the midrange is too shelved, and the woofers cross too high, so coherence in an issue, as well that seringly-bright tweeter EQ.
Interestingly their DM602S3 is darned good for the $ if you can stand their awkward industrial look.
cdc
1,412 posts
 
Subaruguru what amp/CDP/cable combo? Many comments about B&W being bright but that can have a lot to do with other components, room, or music.
Triangles aren't bright? Paradigms aren't bright? Von Schweikerts aren't bright? Thiels aren't bright?
I found aiming the speakers so they cross behind my head is better.
subaruguru
1,353 posts
 
Cdc, At the time (2001): Modded Rotel 855 on Neuance through Pass Aleph P and 2 monos. It wasn't the upstream chain, as other speakers sounded better, and equally detailed...and imaged better (better pair-matching and coherence in the nearfield). Yes, Triangles and Thiels (exc the new 1.6) are too bright for me, too, but the Nautilus tweeter is just insufficiently padded, even in my very damped room....
BTW, sitting slightly OFF-axis exacerbates the brightness with the Nautilus 803-5 as the upper cross is at 4kHz, so the wider-dispersion tweeter REALLY flares out off axis as the already-recessed fine midrange driver further weakens in the upper mids as it progressively gets beamy.
Maybe putting a couple of grillcloths over the tweeter could take it down a dB or so? Would be a good start, eh?
Good night. Ern
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