'New' Gallo Reference vs. 'old' B&W Matrix 802

Thanks all of you for the answers. They are very insightful.

Yes, Gallos are insanely backorder (good luck to me!). Also, I want black with a wood-base, but dealers only carry black on black or black on aluminum. They told me about 2-3 months!

Ohh well. At least I have more time to make up my mind.

I use to own a pair of B&W 802s. I have owned them for many years but I wasn't able to get them to sound good regardless of what gears I use with them. I have gone from Classes, to Manleys, to Macs. The 802s are very hard to drive and do not have enough low ends. The aluminum tweeter of the 802 also make them extremely bright sounding.

I have even tried putting damping materials on the walls and ceilings. No matter that I tried, the 802s are very bright sounding, and they have a standout midrange which really shouts at you. And unless if you get the 802s with the arcici stand, the bass response will be pretty bad.

Try playing violins on the 802, and the horsehair on the bow will sound like metal rather than horsehair.

Yes yes, my audiophile friends have called me an audio nervousa, having a bad case of tinni Itous, the audio version of abhorance of all things bright. While this may be true, but I have no issues with brightness with the Gallos.

Get the Gallos..... while the Gallos may not be the speaker of choice for me personally, it is still a very good speaker and will outperform the 802s EASILY.

BTW, I just sold my old MINT condition 802s on audiogon for $ 1500 USD. So $ 2500 is a little steep in my opinion. I sold them with my Arcici stand too, they're worth $ 200 bucks.

Looking elsewhere I finally found a place which has the Gallo Ref 3. I went and spent quite some time listening to them, also fully aware that they might require some break in to exploit their full potential.

Anyway, I was impressed with [what all Gallo owners know] it soundstage, transparency, speed, etc., but only with certain type of music. Also I don't know if it was the room (small) or the Gallo arrangements (woofers were facing out, not in) but there was a certain lack of bass (not bi-amp with it second coil 'though). I like them but for some reason not fully convince.

Suddenly the salesman makes me audition a pair of Monitor Audio GR-60 and GR-20. It blew me away and also spoils me! I almost bought them on the spot. The GR-20 cost a little bit more (3K). I'd like to give the Gallo one more chance to convince me since I like them a lot: Could it be the arrangement? Or may be that there were not properly broken in?

Thanks.

I just auditioned the Gallos at a dealer who, according to Gallo (I called them with some questions), sells the most of the Ref 3s of all dealers in the U.S. The setup was a Musical Fidelity A5 driving the Gallos with MIT cabling -- without a bass amp for the 2nd coils. I too was unimpressed. Though the Gallos did create a "big sound" for little speakers, they just didn't grab me. They imaged fine, but they still seemed like...little speakers trying to be big. I dunno. I was rfeally disappointed. I thought the room I heard them in might have been too big, LOL (compared to your room being too small). I walked out of that dealer amazed that he is Gallo's top rep. What possessed people to buy them in that particular setup?