I cannot tell you how often dealers are doing demonstrations with speakers that are not even close to being broken in, but it is too often. The 800S in my experience needs around 800 hours to start sounding their best.
Pat McGinty of Meadowlark Audio told me how to cut break in time in about half or less. If I am remembering correctly you point the speakers at each other and wire the polarity of one backwards so there is a push pull effect between the two.
Perhaps someone here knows of the trick and can correctly say how it's supposed to be done?
Point being the B&W's sound really edgy and tight before they are well broken in. I used to deal with quite a few guys who wanted to trade these in on Meadowlark Blue Herons and heron 2's, I talked most of them into trying a wire upgrade that they were very happy with, but I did get two sets of 800S's and loved them. I liked the Blue Herons as well or better and they were priced at $6000 less.
These speakers come onto the used market being hundreds of hours under the hours needed to sound good. I've always considered the price someone who is not happy with the 800S is willing to sell speakers they are not happy with to be one of the great deals on an excellent set of speakers. I've seen them as low as $6000/$8000 here on Audiogon.
