B&W 800 N & D Series - General Advice Needed


I few years ago, I bought a very well broken in set of 805N. I love them and since then I've tried out many other brands: Harbeth, Dynaudio, Selah, Merlin, Usher, PSB, Focal, Magnepan, Sonus Faber as well as some others. The speakers I come back to again and again are the 805N. The midrange is amazing to me.

So, I took the plunge on some 805D2 new. I was awaiting the same great sound of the 805N but with a more refined tweeter. Initially they were pretty dry sounding. They soundstage did not have the same palpable body of the old 805N. I played the 805D2 day and night for a few months, racking up about 300 hours. I kept waiting for the AHA! moment but it never came. They remained uninvolving and sterile to my ears. Putting the 805N back on the stands was a total relief. it all sounded the way it should again. A warm, full sound with crisp detail and solid imaging.

Now, a set of 802N came up for sale close to me and I jumped on them expecting the same qualities as the 805N but with more information below 60hZ. . The owner told me that despite their age, they have very low hours - about 30-40 he guessed. So, I set them up, got them positioned, stabilized the image. What do I hear...? The same DRY midrange as the 805D2. No sweetness initially. If I turn them up to strong listening levels then they do really come alive but at normal, easy listening levels they are dry like the 805D2 - just not as much. I find myself able to listen to the 802N for extended periods of time because the tweeter seems to be less harsh. The downside to this is that I find film dialogue to be fuzzy - I find myself working to understand the words whereas with the 805N dialogue is self evident.

So, friends, my questions are:

Does B&W really have a very extensive break in, to the point that the "life" that I seek from them really only comes into being after many 100s of hours?

Is the 802N an 805N with more bass or is it voiced differently so that it has a recessed midrange?

Associated equipment:
MAC6700 Integrated 200wpc @ 8ohm
Arcam AVR600
Ayre AX7e
Computer FLAC
SONOS
128x128michaelkingdom

Showing 1 response by audioquest4life

All speakers require careful matching with power amps or receivers in order to achieve positive results. I have used B&W 800N series for years with 150 watt tube amps, and have absolutely no problems driving them with these tube amps.

The Kevlar cone in the 802 and 800 N series are really organic sounding when matched correctly with the right components. I thought the differences between the D series and N series were minor except for the same issue you raised regarding the D series not sounding as organic. So, I forgo the opportunity to upgrade to the D series.

Your description of the sound levels of the B&W 800 series is characteristic of what many experience when these speakers are not matched properly with the power amps and are not positioned correctly in your listening environment. The 802 is larger than the 805 and might require a different speaker placement due to the wide dispersion characteristics of the nautilus tweeter and Kevlar cone Mylar enclosed midrange section.

Finally, how are you connecting the speakers to the amps? I see that the 6900 offers various ohm taps for speaker connections. Have you experimented with using different taps? How about bi-wiring? Are you using regular pairs of speaker wires from the amps and then connecting to the speakers and crossing the mid/high and low/low with speaker crossover cable or B&W factory supplied blade on the 802's?
I am using the 4 ohm taps for the mid/highs and the 8 ohm taps for the low/bass sections on my 800's. The amps I am using are the MC2301's, 300 watt Mcintosh tube amps. Some experimentation is required to configure almost any system to get optimum results, no matter the brand. I love the looks of the Nautilus series and so does my spouse, as we do the sound as well, so, replacing speakers was not an option, replacing amps were the reasonable option for us. The last solid state amp I owned, the Bryston 4BSST's, had a pair of them driving these speakers in bi-amp configuration, gave the best bass I ever heard from a speaker. Movies were just amazing and dialogue was great; however, for music, the Bryston's seemed a little dry compared to the organic sound of tube amps from the likes of Einstein and Octave.
Good luck,
Audioquest4life