your opinion of “Best Buy sucks” is really not relevant to the conversation or my original question. Yeah, the speakers aren’t set up perfectly but ALL of them are set up the same so it’s comparing them in a like environment even if it isn’t ideal. Also the receiver was a $1400 receiver not a piece of junk… I get it you hate Best Buy. More power to you. But that’s irrelevant to my initial question.
No, the speakers are not set up the same. They’re all set up along a long wall and not optimally set up at all for comparison. Some of them are like 15 feet apart, which is a joke and certainly not comparable to others that are set 8 feet apart. And yes, a $1400 receiver is pretty much junk so if you don’t know that it’s pretty telling, and if Best Buy is gonna demo a pair of $3k+ speakers they darn well should have a decent dedicated stereo amp commensurate with that quality of speakers and not some mass market AVR. It’s a mismatch and testament to how little Best Buy knows or cares about audio quality. They’re a volume shop geared to sell stuff to people who don’t know any better, because if they did they wouldn’t set up their shop that way. It’s a joke. I’m sorry, but you’re clearly inexperienced and that’s ok. But the recommendations I gave you for the Fritz Carbon 7s, Ushers, and used JA Pulsars are far superior to what you’re looking at, and most here will tell you the same thing. If you don’t wanna listen, that’s ok. Nobody here who knows anything would take B&W 700 series speakers over anything I recommended. But you can do whatever. I’ve been an audiophile for 50 years and wrote professional reviews of high-end audio equipment for 17 years plus worked at Best Buy and heard B&W 700 series speakers so I kinda know what I’m talking about here. But again, if you wanna buy B&W go ahead. There are far better options in that price range IMHO.
