I would love to finally HEAR the B&W diamonds for myself so i can come to my
own conclusions. My 1st high-end speaker was a B&W 801 matrix, and the clarity in the midrange plus the DEEP BASS response was hard to beat for $5K (New) IF you had some excellent components upstream. The treble was a bit hashy (not surprising given a lot of CD's available in those days and the technology available to play them). BUT LATER ON i got to hear the same speaker sound very different and MUCH smoother with an advanced cdp and Pass Aleph amplifiers.
SO it is difficult for me to understand why B&W has not advanced MUCH further on in developing an even more transparent speaker in 2012. Of course now $5,000 only buys the smallest 800 series loudspeaker in the line instead of the largest (the 805). If the 801 was the "audio end of the road" for a stereophile reviewer back then, and the 802D2 got a rave review a few months back in the Absolute Sound, they must be doing something right. Not that they don't now have a lot of competition, but over the years the competition borrowed an awful lot of ideas from....(B&W...).
own conclusions. My 1st high-end speaker was a B&W 801 matrix, and the clarity in the midrange plus the DEEP BASS response was hard to beat for $5K (New) IF you had some excellent components upstream. The treble was a bit hashy (not surprising given a lot of CD's available in those days and the technology available to play them). BUT LATER ON i got to hear the same speaker sound very different and MUCH smoother with an advanced cdp and Pass Aleph amplifiers.
SO it is difficult for me to understand why B&W has not advanced MUCH further on in developing an even more transparent speaker in 2012. Of course now $5,000 only buys the smallest 800 series loudspeaker in the line instead of the largest (the 805). If the 801 was the "audio end of the road" for a stereophile reviewer back then, and the 802D2 got a rave review a few months back in the Absolute Sound, they must be doing something right. Not that they don't now have a lot of competition, but over the years the competition borrowed an awful lot of ideas from....(B&W...).