Owning the F208, the first two things to review is the bass and treble compensation switched. With varying rooms and speaker placement within in the room, they aid in helping the speaker work a bit better in many situations.
The Arcam in question certainly has me quite curios on how they achieve a class A operation output of 20W until it switches over. My own Pass X250.5 used to power the Revel's hit about 15wpc before going A/B, and are far heftier and run decently warm from the get go. The Arcam appears very light for running that many watts in class A, which often requires plenty of heat dissipation.
As for the F208 sound, its a very good speaker and does greatly benefit from proper setup. If you like a speaker that has a very forward sound, they may not be best suited to your preferences. While certainly not reticent, it plays a balance that is just slightly stepped back than some. To me, its a little more livable and doesn't really ever get fatiguing. On the other hand, other speakers I have owned and listened to have offered more immediate vocal performances with well recorded material. Few loudspeakers will be better all around and a large part has to do with how a recording was mastered. Its very important to use your own music to evaluate and take your time and get a sense of what they do with them differently.
During my experiments, they offer the best balance when directly pointed at the listening spot and like most speakers, prefer some distance to surrounding objects and walls.
The Arcam in question certainly has me quite curios on how they achieve a class A operation output of 20W until it switches over. My own Pass X250.5 used to power the Revel's hit about 15wpc before going A/B, and are far heftier and run decently warm from the get go. The Arcam appears very light for running that many watts in class A, which often requires plenty of heat dissipation.
As for the F208 sound, its a very good speaker and does greatly benefit from proper setup. If you like a speaker that has a very forward sound, they may not be best suited to your preferences. While certainly not reticent, it plays a balance that is just slightly stepped back than some. To me, its a little more livable and doesn't really ever get fatiguing. On the other hand, other speakers I have owned and listened to have offered more immediate vocal performances with well recorded material. Few loudspeakers will be better all around and a large part has to do with how a recording was mastered. Its very important to use your own music to evaluate and take your time and get a sense of what they do with them differently.
During my experiments, they offer the best balance when directly pointed at the listening spot and like most speakers, prefer some distance to surrounding objects and walls.