Bowers and Wilkerson B&W 802 D3: an impolite Brit?

I listened to the 803 D3 earlier today. The sound quality was incredible. The room setup was a bit small, and whoever set them up put them close to the wall, which caused the mid-range (voices especially) to sound muffled and raspy, and caused the bass to be boomy. I quickly used the WASP setup method and found a much better placement. I'm sure with more time and tweaking I could have fine tuned them more, but oh well, the Best Buy employee was giving me an odd look already.

Once set up decently they sounded spectacular to me. The high frequency was incredible. The sounds of symbols and high hats were realistic. Their decay sounded authentic to me as a musician. What impressed me the most was that the notes across all ranges had a correct sound to their decay. Musicians used to playing instruments through crappy speakers, and who don't play acoustically, may not notice it, but the decay on instruments were as close to the real thing as I have ever heard without it being an acoustic instrument in the room with me. The room was not conducive to a large soundstage like I would have available in my apartment. I plan on going back and playing with the toe-in, as they were set up pointed directly at the listening position in Best Buy. I'm excited to bring some of my own CDs and experiment with the setup a bit to see how wide a soundstage these speakers can thrown without losing coherence in between the speakers.

BTW, I actually had a bottle of milk with me and it did not spoil.... LOL...

BTW, I would love to find a pair of these on sale or discounted once they've been out for a bit. I'm a ready buyer when they come along at the right price...

I totally agree with most that is said above.

I found all B&W speakers I have heard for the last 10 years unbalanced, unnatural, colored and not enjoyable to listen to.
I even heard them combining the downfall of laid back and forward at the same time. Sounding dull overall en too forward in a certain part of the sound spectrum at the same time.

I owned a 800 series B&W in a time I did not know any better.
And I had listening fatigue even a year after I sold them.
Must sound like a joke, but in a way it is true.
They always portrayed a certain edge or harsh strain that I battled to get away as long as I owned them.
Resulting in selling them and having some kind of listening trauma.
Had to listen for a year to ultra-smooth systems afterwards for my listening focus to be balanced again. (I am probably the only one who understands me right now)

I read B&W defenders stating a lot that the combining gear is the answer for the mentioned B&W "flaws", but I can't agree.
The combining gear will have an influence on how obvious the typical B&W flaws will be in the sound, but I never heard them without. At least not in loudspeakers produced in the last 15 or so years.

Sunnyjim, you tell it like it is !
A 1300$ of Rega RS-3 sounds better.

Overall, I hope these responses will help out our comrade, Tom. If learning to fly a jet plane was compared to learning the steps to audio nirvana, many of us would have crashed and burned long ago.

Unfortunately, no matter how many audio primers and product reviews there are, there are as many if not more obstacles to overcome to finding the sound quality you enjoy and more importantly, find just right.