Old school shootout: Snell A/III vs. Original B&W 801

I managed an Audio store in 1980 and we carried the Snell Line. I ordered the Snell crossover designed for the type A and bi-amped them with a Threshold Stasis ll on bass and the Stasis 3 for the upper midrange and high frequencies. Dialing in that cross over. Wow. I kick myself for not buying a pair of those and as a retailer you had an employee purchase program which enabled you to buy them at half of retail. Wish I made more money back then.

I believe the original Type A used a Becker 10" bass driver and possibly in the Type A ll as well but the Type A lll used a 12 inch bass driver in a taller cabinet. I know Peter Snell used room boundary principles gaining a 3-db. boost from the rear wall   also some gain from a down firing woofer to get the speaker to a flat response. I know when i sold them they did sound better against a back wall. Very cohesive sounding speaker but not a forward sounding. The stage seemed to be more behind the speaker than in front of them. Depends on your choice of music but i do think a lack dynamics is from sound pressure. 

May have been a design change after Peter Snell passed away, i forget his name I want to say Kevin, but he is the gentleman that went to head up Revel was designing the later iterations of the Snell line of speakers. I remember a Snell model that had like a rubber flap that sat on the floor and I believe the tweeter was mounted right above where the flap attached to the loudspeaker. Strange look but they did sound pretty good. I never carried that model. Type ?  Does anyone recall that model?, it would have been a pre 80's floor standing speaker. Interesting design