What are your general thoughts of B&W speakers

"B&W has a "sound" but as to any of the speakers you mention blowing them away, including the phasey or defuse MBL I find hard to believe."

mbls phasey? Hmm, not sure about that. The large holographic presentation might resemble how some recordings made that way sound on more conventional setups, but do mbl speakers or eletronics really introduce phase issues otherwise?

Maybe relatively diffuse sounding compared to others, particularly more directional designs like horns, if not set up well or if the extremely wide and deep soundstage mbls set up right are capable of producing is described as diffused compared to the norm.

I wasn't attempting to profess the superiority of one type of tweeter over another, only to point out that B&W offer a diamond tweeter that they build themselves and that tweeter has a potential advantage over other types of construction.

Back to your analysis, so how does the ionic tweeter and the silk dome fare in the numbers game? My personal bias is for the silk dome.

Rhljazz,

The only ionic tweeter I have heard is the acapella. I know of no other tweeter to sound as good. It's so pure. Stunning clarity and extension. But the problem is mating it to the lower drivers.

IMHO the acapella fails because the tweeter is so good. The xover just shows up the difference in speed. Just like the subs on the old hybrid Martin Logan's failed at keeping up with the ESL upper panel.

A speaker is all about balance. So maybe as you say a silk dome sounds better in a speaker, but probably because it mates better with the other drivers.

But here we are again discussing the finer points of exotic tweeters when we have people saying "I wouldn't have em for free..."

For all we know these types of opinions are about the lowest budget B&W when we are talking about the diamond tweeters which are only found in the reference series. To post your opinion you must add which model you are discussing and what you are using it with.

Mapman,

I guess deffuse is really what I mean when comparing the MBL to some other designs. Especially if compared to the AG Trio. Not being palpable is my point.

Phasey is probably not the correct term. I associate MBL with that thin but airy sound as if phase or a form of comb filtering causes there not to be weight.

To explain the sonic difference i mean, take the Sehneiser HD800 headphones and compare them to the Audeze LCD3 headphones. The HD800 has a detailed air/thinness where as the LCD3 are rich, very detailed and organic by having much more flesh on the bone. Thicker sounding I guess.

Chad,

Ag trios (high efficiency horns) and omni low efficiency mbl are of course
as different as can be, so hard to compare. The sound radiation pattern
of an omni is diffuse pretty much by defnition, but i would say the sound
Set up right is not. I have heard other full range horns but not ag and
compared. Not
nearly as much diffence in sound necessarily as design might lead one to
expect, all things considered.

I heard mbl 111e once set up optimally. I heard weight differences from
rtr, vinyl and digital, but not a lack overall. Specific recording quality of
the
material played seemed to be the main factor, but sohrce device in the
system used anoher to some degree.

No doubt, omnis seem to require lots of power compared to others to
perform best. I have observed that over time with my ohms. Having lots
of "meat on the bones" is one of my favorite terms to describe
them these days using 500 w/ch icepower amps. Larger higher end B&W
speakers i have heard are similar in regards to having good meat on the
bone, at least with the right amps, as mentioned.