B&W 804D vs 803S


I currently have a pair of stand mounted B&W N805 speakers. While they sound great, I'm looking to upgrade to something with a bit more depth. I've tried pairing my N805's with a sub; however, I've never managed to get it quite right. That said, I have an opportunity to purchase a pair of brand new 803S's. However, I'm also looking at the new 804D's. I would say about 90% of listening is TV or movies and the other 10% on music. Right now, my setup is in the den of my house. 10 foot ceilings, open floorplan that opens to the kitchen and formal dining. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
tjbranch

Showing 3 responses by tjbranch

Thanks, Spinaker01. Reason for my asking is that there's about a $2000 difference between the 803S and the 804D. I just dont know if the new version is worth the extra money for what I do (movies & TV) and how my setup is currently situation (non-dedicated room). Is the diamond tweeter that much better?

The other option is I could get a generation one version of the 803D for about the same price as the brand new 803S. Are there significant improvements between gen one and current?
Stringreen --- I've looked at others, but I have to keep the wife happy with the aesthetics of the system. Since I have a matching center speaker and B&W in-ceilings for the surrounds (while same brand, probably has very little impact), I'm not looking to have different cosmetic looks. At the moment, I don't want to put out the cash required to upgrade my left, right, AND center. If you have suggestions for replacing all 3 front speakers, while keeping the same sound quality within, while coming in at the same budget of my current upgrade suggestions, please feel free to give your input. Thanks.
Thanks, guys. Yes, it is a local dealer; however, they have different locations. One location has the 803S and the other has the 804D. Thus, makes it a little hard to compare. I'm just wondering if the extra money gets you that much better of a sound with the 804D ($2.5k difference can be spent in a lot of other areas). If you can follow, I tend to think of speakers on an exponential line. The X axix being Quality of Sound and the Y axis being Dollars. At the start, all speakers give sound and the costs remain low. But as you move down the quality axis, dollars tend to really jump. Eventually, you get marginal improvement but at a cost that doesnt really justify that improvement (because of the exponential factor). To see a visual look up Exponential Growth in Wikipedia.

So, at the end of the day, does the Diamond tweeter really have that big of an edge given my ratio of movies/TV to music?