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B&W 802N

To be honest with you I have never really liked B&W speakers but my brother loves them. He recently purchased a pair of them on here and now he is looking for the right electronics. Also with so many great things people have to say about the 802N's I am wondering why I do not like them. Maybe I have not heard them with the right electronics. I know that they are overall really efficent speakers (8ohms nominal and 91DB) so I am wondering if tubes would make them sound good.

I can get decent pricing on a pair of PrimaLuna Dialogue Seven Monoblocks (70 watts). Now as efficent as these speakers are I would figure these amps would power these nicely. One reviewer said that these amps would have no trouble with speakers as efficent as the 802n's!

Any thoughts on this combo??

Or if we need to go with a high power Solid State amp I was thinking that the Parasound A21 (250 watts) is a great deal here on Audiogon. We would pair the A21 with the matching JC2 preamp.

Any thoughts on this combo?
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brandonosman23 OP
20 posts
 
Most of his music listening is at low to moderate levels. Only gets loud on rare occasion.
angst0
13 posts
 
I have these speakers and find them to need a lot of power and respond well with tubes. I am using Carver Silver 7's that are highly modified. 15 KT88's a side. (see my virtual system). Even though they are rated at 8 ohms, I use the 4 ohm taps and find much fuller sound, great transients, sound stage and dynamics. I have read that the impedance drops quite a bit in real use. No way to get by "on the cheap" with these speakers. I am sure there are great (and expensive) solid state amps that do the trick. I think these speakers are not very forgiving and everything matters from cables, specific components to positioning. With the right electronics and set up you will be amazed at how much bass they can produce and how wide the and deep the sound stage can be. I also find they are very room sensitive.

Also, how old are they? I needed to upgrade my midrange drivers due to changes in the kevlar over time. Not an expensive upgrade, but a bit tricky to install.

Good luck.
rhljazz
1,250 posts
 
I would suspect 70 watts might be too little. The best bass I could get was with a VAC Phi 110. This was superior to Classe CA300 and DR8, and the VAC PA100. From the bass up, the VAC PA100 is the champ. I have a new Cary 120S and a W4S St500 which at some point in the future I will audition on the N802's. The speakers currently are not set-up.
steveaudio
331 posts
 
I spent years going down this path with my Matrix 802's. IMO you will go broke, or crazy, trying to use tubes w/large b&w's, unless maybe you could spring for huge VTL or ARC mono-blocs.

A large Parasound SS amp might start to do it, but like Angst0 said: "No way to get by "on the cheap" with these speakers".

OTOH: Your friend may like either of the amps you mentioned, for a while. If you don't pay too much used, you can always give an amp a try.....good luck!
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