Bombaywalla - The BAF is a gimmick for a speaker whose designer could not design it correctly in the 1st place & had to add a bass extension/alignment filter to fix a flawed initial design. BW You can call it a Gimmick - gizmo - device - equalizer - booster - filter .... we can call it whatever we want. Do we know how many gimmicks are used to bring that CD, Download, or LP to us to buy ? Dan D’Agostino is a highly respected amplifier designer/builder. He cared enough about it (B&W BAF) that he had KRELL build a B&W BAF version that he used with his reference at the time Matrix 800’s in his own living room. http://hansvt.home.xs4all.nl/pdf/brochures/baf.pdf Now I value those opinions that come from direct ownership with details about the setup. This way one can determine if the opinion applies to them or not. Do you have this BAF experience with an 800 series speaker in your room ? I have been through 3 different BAF’s within a 22 ? year period. This is a topic for another thread but let’s understand something. For a speaker to have full bass extension at least two things are required. 1) The design itself needs to be capable and 2) the room it is placed in needs to be able to support the bass waves. You wonder why an Audiophile spends $$$$$ on an "advertised" flagship full range speaker; and then complains about bass, and needs to be bring in subwoofers? The Matrix 800 model itself does not need the BAF. They are full range without it. But what the BAF does is ensure a fuller range for the entire 800 Matrix Series line, especially if the room doesn’t support it. Like your average living room. This was also in an era when 2 channel was the focus and subwoofers not so prevalent as today. On the 801m without BAF, things start dropping off quickly around 40-50 hz. So I don’t see this as a Gimmick. I see it as Genius. I think most agree as they became the No. 1 monitor. The new D3’s are showing full range specs again. But even though they may "hit" the low notes, I can’t see them pressurizing the room due to their small size, again depending on the size of the room. I am assuming subwoofers will be needed for full range. Maybe an owner can chime in; or since Douglas Schroeder is on this thread maybe he can snatch a pair for review and let us know. :^) lalitk Funny ! As long as they don’t try to sing Adele’s - Hello. |
