B&W 802d Room Placement


I'm posting this as a suggestion to 802d owners. The reviewers at Steriophile and Absolute Sound toed the 800d series in when they reviewed them. All of the photos I've seen on Audiogon, they are toed in.I've seen them in 2 dealers show rooms and they were also toed. I've owned these speakers for 3 yrs. and used them with a various equipment and room treatment. I would urge you to give them some time at 24" from the front wall, with no toe in.
It really opens up the sound and let's the virtues of the speaker come through.
phous
Depends a lot on the room acoustics and, particularly, what is on the side walls.

Kal
I agree with Kal. Since the 802 is not that smooth in off axis versus on axis response through the midrange then the room + toe in will make quite a difference and it could be a different toe-in for each room and listener tastes....
I use about twice that for my 802Ds but I think that side wall relationships are more significantly related to toe-in as is speaker to listener distance.

Kal
I think that side wall relationships are more significantly
related to toe-in as is speaker to listener distance.
That is an indisputable fact. However, it can be minimized by designing a
speaker with an off axis response that is wide with even dispersion and matches the on axis response very precisely in the shape of the response curve. A speaker that does this is more likely to sound the same over a larger area or sweetspot. This is because the response that you hear remains consistent at the majority of angles and the reflected sound field matches the primary sound field.

The B&W N805 horizontal dispersion plot is a good example. Note the relatively
small midrange scoop off axis (for a two way it ain't bad) and note how very consistent (in shape) is the behaviour of the off-axis response.