Am I the only one who thinks B&W is mid-fi?


I know that title sounds pretencious. By all means, everyones taste is different and I can grasp that. However, I find B&W loudspeakers to sound extremely Mid-fi ish, designed with sort of a boom and sizzle quality making it not much better than retail quality brands. At price point there is always something better than it, something musical, where the goals of preserving the naturalness and tonal balance of sound is understood. I am getting tired of people buying for the name, not the sound. I find it is letting the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In these times of dying 2 channel, and the ability to buy a complete stereo/home theater at your local blockbuster, all of the brands that should make it don't. Most Hi-fi starts with a retail system and with that type of over-processed, boom and sizzle sound (Boom meaning a spike at 80Hz and sizzle meaning a spike at 10,000Hz). That gives these rising enthuists a false impression of what hi-fi is about. Thus, the people who cater to that falseified sound, those who design audio, forgetting the passion involved with listening, putting aside all love for music just to put a nickle in the pig...Well are doing a good job. Honestly, it is just wrong. Thanks for the read...I feel better. Prehaps I just needed to vent, but I doubt it. Music is a passion of mine, and I don't want to have to battle in 20 yrs to get equipment that sounds like music. Any comments?
mikez
Yes, I agree and my Hi Fi buddy agrees. A while back I got a good deal on a pair of those CDM 1s (I think they were called) that bs'er Sam Tellig raved on and on about. To me, they sounded exactly like you said, very sizzly and fatiging to listen to. I couldn't wait to get rid of them. Hearing some of there other models recently, I can only say: Too bad, in the late seventies and early eighties B&W used to make good stuff, now it's just more "product".
MikeZ and Fdaltoaolcom. I see you both have contributed to a combined total of 3 posts, and 2 of the three is this post. Welcome, but how much experience do you really have? B&W speakers tend to be very revealing (some ruthlessly revealing), so if you heard boom, sizzle and were fatigued, I will have to conclude that possibly something in the rest of your system is suspect.
I second Bowbow. B&W's have a sound of their own just like every other speaker and if you like it or not it's just a matter of personal taste. I, among others, feel that they make some phenominal sounding products (N802 for example) and represent a tremendous value in high-end loudspeakers.
I have a friend who has a nautilus 802 home cinema setup and it sounds good. I now use an old set of dm110's for the surrounds in cinema and they are good as well.

for audio I find them less than convincing. The top B+W models need lots of power, and need to be turned way up to get detail. Difficult to match, too. So I can't say Im a big fan.