B&W 805D2 or Magico Q1?

I have to take Missioncoonery side here.

Just to put things in perspective French_fries, if you would go to say 10 dealers and tell them this story most likely all of them will demo for you the B&Ws with decent electronics but not the Q1s and their top of the line electronics. At least some of them will justify this by telling you that you are not determined/motivated enough.

Secondly, none of the various iteration of the 805 B&W monitors have ever been considered SOTA monitors. While all these B&Ws monitors were good speakers, they were often outclass by similarly priced monitors from Dynaudio, Focal, etc. Sometimes not even by the top of the line monitors of the competition! Consequently, I see no reason why suddenly this new 805 iteration will be a SOTA monitor and will be able to compete with monitors costing 5 times more.

I understand your "dilemma", we all have similar thoughts (we all know that many of these hi-fi toys are extremely overprices). However, I do not understand why would you attack someone who has just stated the obvious, i.e. Missioncoonery.

I agree 100% with Eelii08, the B&W 800 diamond are a very good value indeed. Firstly, their price is more than reasonable. For example, in Belgium and The Netherlands their retail price is 22k euros per pair, but because most hi-fi shops here sell B&W they can be had for 18-20k euros (i.e. with a 10-20% discount). In Gemany the prices are probably even lower. Secondly, they are very good speakers which when set up right and partnered with adequate electronics will have no problem to compete with much more expensive speakers. I have seen/hear the B&W 800 diamond driven by Accuphase electronics (not top of the line models!) easily outperforming a twice as expensive system from Gryphon and a similarly priced MBL system.

Unfortunately for B&W, this is the case only for the 800 diamond model, i.e. the rest of the models in the 800 diamond series are easily outperformed by similarly priced speakers of the competition. The Q1 may be overpriced, but should have no problem to outclass the 805 diamond. This is the point I made also in my previous post here.

Eelii08 you need to update the pictures on you system page. The TAD speakers are very special indeed. Congratulation!

Usermanual, I have never heard TAD systems sounding bad (unlike other brands/systems stratospherically priced). In fact, whenever I heard TAD system they where always the best in the show (IMO of course). However, we all hear differently and have different preferences when it comes to sound. Also, I would take with a grain of salt everything that JA and/or Stereophile says/writes. Placebo effects are actually running this industry. (If one magazine writes something, then one can be sure there will at least 100 people hearing that something).

Regarding TAD prices, indeed they are very hard to swallow. I remember reading somewhere on a forum a comment by somebody who was wondering whether TAD is selling their electronics or only showing them. While a funny comment, it seems to not be very far form the truth - the TAD importer in the TAD room at Munich 2012 told me that all of his clients are form Russian.

Finally, is there also an older version of the CR-1 monitor? At 40k euros here in Europe, they are certainly out of my budget.

Very cool, it seems that the three of us, i.e. me, Usermanual and Eelii08, are online lurking on audiogon.

While this thread has run its course, and thus it is less important that we are off topic, it might be better to continue this discussion on a different thread, i.e. one about TAD speakers/electronics. Other might be interest in the topic. There is not a lot of information about TAD on internet (or at least I did not find much).

Regarding TAD speakers being played loud at shows, it is certainly not my experience. But I have only heard them at two shows. Last time, at Munich 2012, the Evolution one was playing and to me they produced the second best sound in that day (only the 87 years old horn played by Salbatone Acoustics bettered them). The volume was certainly moderate (I typically listen at 60-70 db) and I do not like loud rooms. The sound was very well balanced top to bottom, detailed but warm and full, certainly not forward thin and/or bright.

Usermanual, I hope I do/did not give you the impression I am debating your comments. Just relating my experience.