2. home-theater
  3. 1033585979

HT Choice Aerial 10T or B&W N803?

Well, after hours of storefront listening sessions, I’ve narrowed my speaker choices down to three. B&W N803, Aerial 10T, or B&W N802’s. Due to WAF (Wife acceptance factor), anything with a larger foot print will not work. I’m looking for comments of experience, before I make a final decision.

We have some speaker position space restrictions. The N803’s will fit fine, but the other two will press the physical space a bit more. The final pair will set 6 feet apart and 2 ½ feet from the wall, with a fireplace angled across one corner. I have sound absorption panels behind the speaker positions, side walls and rear wall. The space contains heavy padded furnishings, on a cement slab covered with carpeting and sheet rock walls. It has 9ft ceilings and is a total 30ft long, 15ft wide. The actual listening position is 11ft from the fronts of my current speakers.

We listen to HT and just music 60/40, although I’d prefer more 2 channel music. :-)
The current equipment set-up is the following:
Class’e SSP-30 pre-amp
Class’e CAV-180 5 channel X180 into 8ohm or 360 into 4ohm
Energy Sub XL-S10 200W (Planning upgrade to better sub)
Source components Jolida JD-100 tube CD, Denon DVD-2800, no turntable… yet.

I like a good balance of bass with vocals, mid and high freq detail, so getting equal and realistic sound coverage is the objective. Long term, I’m still looking at other amplication upgrades as an option, so the power requirements of the Aerial’s don’t deter me too much. I’ve leaned towards the Aerials, the dealer has had great upstream power Class’e CAM-350’s to do the demos, and the room width is comparable. The B&W dealer has used 80W – N803’s to 125W – N802’s amplification to drive the speakers, and the ceiling heights and room widths are much larger than my space. I like the smaller footprint of the N803’s, but don’t want to regret my choice. I did see that Stereophile, has given the N803 an ‘A-restricted LF’ rating (Oct 2002), but how would it sound head to head with the Aerial’s? In the listening sessions, I’m now having trouble determining a clear winner, given the differences in power and space sizes used. I do gain the sense that the Aerial’s are a bit laid back, but the vocals and space realism are stellar. The N803’s have a nice broad sound stage. They are both great speakers. Is my only choice to do an in home demo of each speaker? Other options?
lbietz2001
fefer77
37 posts
 
Home audition is always worthwhile if your dealer will permit it - most good ones will. Personally I prefer the 10T's but B&W does sell a lot of speakers. You do commonly hear some long term listeners complain about an overly bright or harsh top end on the B&W's. Some of this can be ameliorated by using a complementary amp and room treatments. I think speaker choices can be the most difficult and important system choices - don't put too much stock in lists of recommended components.

You definitely should seriously consider vinyl down the road. There are so many great affordable tables and well done LP's available now. It's a lot of fun.
sarmi
7 posts
 
Well you definitely seem to get a sympathetic pairing of Classe w/B&W. I've got the CAV 150, w/B&K Ref 20 and Nautilus 805's and really like the combo after having tested Krell, older Levinson, Aragon, ATI, and Marantz in home. B&W must agree with me as they've taken on distribution of Classe' gear in Europe. That being said, I've got my eye out for a good deal on Aerial 7b's. I don't think you can really go wrong unless maybe you go for 803's and then move into a bigger space.
tswhitsel
126 posts
 
I would recommend the 10Ts over the B&W. I find the Aerial to be more musical and easier to integrate with your room. B&W can tend to be bright sounding and this combined with many poor quality sounding movie soundtracks can be painful. I've owned many speakers over the years, and while no speaker is perfect the Aerials are the best I've owned by a large margin. I'm sure you will not regret choosing the 10Ts. In your small room you will not need amps as big as your dealer's Classe amps, but I would suggest a minimum of 100 watts/channel.
bmpnyc
713 posts
 
Just one comment, as I like both B&W and Aerial equally. My B&W 805's don't sound bright AT ALL. If anything, the midrange is a little dull, but highs? crystal clear. B&W uses Classe` in their test environments and they would complement each other well. Why sell the amp?
lbietz2001 OP
10 posts
 
Thank You for the personal experience comments. They have been very helpful and confirmed what I was feeling about the sound quality as I heard it. I appreciate the feedback.

It appears that the rumors about the Aerial 10T’s being discontinued are happening. The Aerial web site http://www.aerialacoustics.com/ has been redone, removing the 10T as an option. I suspected that when the rumors started, that it would freeze sales of new 10T’s, and maybe that had come to pass. It would be great if more detail were available about the upcoming replacements, but so far nothing. With the 10T being such a great speaker, you would think that a replacement would be communicated at the same time that the present line was removed.
More to discover