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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

Showing 7 responses by sugarbrie

sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
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.
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
Krell1 (and others) you're right. I still laugh at a review on Audio Review where one guy trashed some high end B&Ws because they did not sound good connected to his Yamaha receiver. Another person returned their B&W P series to the store for being too harsh, and went out and purchased Cerwin Vega. I can only imagine what cheap gear the rest of the system must have been composed of.

B&W are used as monitors by many sound studios for the simple reason that they accurately play back what they are given, good or bad.

sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
Very interesting! There are old Agon threads that describe Levinson as being "sterile, clinical, lacking in palpability, soft, dull, and to get it right, proper speaker matching with them is important". Are you sure it is the B&Ws?
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
I've heard a Levinson / Revel system that sounded great. Many dealers that sell Levinson, also sell Revel. Those two companies are owned by the same parent company. They better sound good together. That does not mean B&Ws are bad speakers.

I wonder if the parent of Levinson/Revel have tuned their product differently from most brands, so you'll hopefully buy the whole system from them to get the proper synergy and the best sound??? They would'nt be the first.

It really comes down to system synergy.

One reason B&Ws have become very popular is they sound great with a very wide variety of electronics compared to other brands. Many B&W dealers sell other British gear. Makes sense.

sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
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.

sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
B&W is a big speaker company because of what sells below the Nautilus line (CDM down to the 300 series). Being a British speaker, they tend to sound good with most amps with a British heritage including Creek, Arcam, Cambridge Audio, Musical Fidelity, NAD, and Rotel. This short list is basically all of the major players in budget and mid-fi audiophile gear. It is no wonder B&W sells so many units. They also have great resell value and sell quick when it is time to upgrade; usually 66% to 75% of list. If you buy a used pair you can most likely get most of your money back.
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
I think B&W has gone downhill in their crossover design in the current line. This is partially because they changed the way the make them. In many cases they mass produce them on separate circuit boards and then plug them in. They use to make them indivdually in each speaker. This helps production in larger quantities; but it looses something in changing how they traditionally designed them. They are a victim of their own success I guess.

One of my systems has a pair of the original CDM-1. It has a first-order crossover not found in the CDM-1SE or CDM-1NT. I have heard the newer versions and they are not quite as musical. They probably work better for HT though. The original CDM-1 was the one that won all the audio awards including Loudspeaker of the year in Europe, but they don't tell you that in their marketing materials; they make it sound like the current models are award winning.

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