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
Thank you greatly for your understanding. It wasn't an attack on their owners, but ANY audio company should put as much passion in a $500 dollar speaker as a $50,000 one.
Always listen
Mike
Absoultely. The orignal natulis was quite a speaker to be rekoned with. Where my thred came out of is what happened there? To that sound?
Thanks
Mike Z
I dont think B&W is mid-fi even though they make a wide variety of speakers in different price ranges.I dont really like the lower end speakers sound but i do like the 801s and 802s and the Natilus are even better sounding.Am I playing favorites because I have a pair...not really i listened to the speakers for a long time before I decided to buy the pair i have now.I can say you need lots of power to drive the 801s but the 802 series 3 dont need as much power as the series 2,and they sound very satisifying,.And of course everybodys entitled to their opinion.Cheers.
Hey Mike! Great that you are back! You certainly got us going. Congratulations!!

I guess we have learned that we should not match B&W with Levinson. Danheather did not like the match at all. Kheart sais he has owned a number of B&W speakers with mixed results. There is a new Levinson thread that Kheart posted on, saying he has owned a number of Levinson products with mixed results. I assume he owned both at the same time.

I personally don't care for B&W sound either. I have compared them extensively with several others in an unsuccessful attempt to see what all the clamor is about with the B&W sound. In a direct A/B comparison, the Thiel 2.3's sounded much better (to my ears) than the N802's. To each their own though, right???