B&W 805 distortion question

Seems the first step might be to post the artist/title of the CD and at what point of which track the problem occurred. If you're lucky, others will have the same CD and can check their copy.

If they notice the same issue, then you can quit worrying about your system. It's no secret that there some recordings either have mistakes in them and/or are poorly recorded.

Its easy enough to check. Unplug your speaker cables at the speakers but not at the amp. Plug them into the opposite speaker and listen to the recording again. If the problem goes to the other channel, its most likely a bad CD. If not, its probably the tweeter.

The previous troubleshooting suggestions are valid and you should do so.

I had a similar problem the other day with a hi-res Steely Dan recording - the tweeter output sounded horrible for a few seconds. At first I suspected a blown tweeter. But I know that the Gallo CDT tweeter is virtually indestructible so I did the cable swap routine. It turns out it was the recording and not my gear - whew!!

But I must admit that I was quite surprised that a Steely Dan album would have sketchy sonics, they are usually 100% *perfect*.

So, let's cross our fingers and hope that your CD is at fault and not your gear...

-RW-

ZD542 has given you the logical first step.

If the problem travels after swapping speaker cables you can ONLY eliminate the speaker as the source of the distortion. The problem could be anything from the speaker cable to the source cd and everything in between.

Group,
Thanks for the input; I will switch speakers to see if this follows the speaker, or if remains in the right channel.

It was more of a static-type-sound that came out of the tweeter...during a stretch of high-pitched vocals at an elevated, but not irresponsible volume level....again, well within the Arcam's (and B&W's) capabilities. I never abuse my amp, or speakers.

If anything did happen to that speaker, I think I know what could have damaged it: there's a particular order I need to power off my system, and several weeks ago, by mistake, I powered off my CD player before my amps were off. I heard a loud pop in the right tweeter; nothing happened, and it played fine after that.

The speaker sounds great tonight: Joshua Bell is playing Mendelssohn and Beethoven: the violins sound very good, and there are high string notes which would test a tweeter.

Again, I will switch to see what happens.

Jeff