i have wondered with great interest the reviews that the older B&W matrix speakers have received, especially during the time when digital audio was still in its early stages of developement. these speakers were designed as studio monitors, and their treble response was often criticized. i also would hear them driven by earlier levinson solid state amplifiers which were a bit too "honest" in revealing poor cd-recordings as well as the sound of "jittery" cd players. later on however, i had chance to hear the 801's with pass aleph electronics and a levinson #39 cdp, with far better-recordings to boot. i could hardly recognize the "signature B&W sound"- forward and overly revealing- all that had vanished, and was replaced by a sweet/smooth musical presentation, far more like analog- not colored, but simply no longer "in your face" brashiness. in fact these were the same speakers i traded away for a pair of eggleston andras, because of the superb soft-dome tweeters they had, plus admittedly better integration of the drivers. but i also gave up some of the superb subterranean bass the 801's could produce.
so when you re-read some of the reviews during that critical period when digititis was rampant and every 6 months a slew of newer/better dacs were introduced into the market (at ever-higher prices), the "sound" of everything else also took a beating, especially speaker systems.
if i didn't hear proof of this myself i wouldn't have believed that the supposedly inferior transducers (B&W themselves trashed their crossover and tweeter for the "anniversary or series-3 model", which was not all that superior to the series-2, just a little different) weren't all that inferior- they just told you (the truth of) what was going on further up the chain of command. of course stereophile and the absolute sound never dusted off some older speaker models and listened to them again, with "better everything" feeding them a "tastier meal". now it was more in vogue to talk about speakers that cost, instead of $4-5k, speakers that delivered the goods for $8k, $12K, and $20k. and before you knew it along came speakers for over $30k, and finally 40. they were "so amazing" that the time when the B&W 802 -$4000, or the 801-$5000 (RETAIL!) were assumed to be technically challenged-designs. well go back and read what the abs.sound and stereophile had to say about them not that many years ago- that you could pinpoint musicians in an ensemble or an orchestra, that you could tell what make of bassoon a musician was playing, that you could hear a truck idling outside the recording studio, crazy stuff like that. sure, speakers have gotten better in a lot of ways, but i swallowed HARD when i upgraded to the andra's- $15,000 at the time. i just never got to hear all the things my previous speakers were capable of until after they were gone.
so when you re-read some of the reviews during that critical period when digititis was rampant and every 6 months a slew of newer/better dacs were introduced into the market (at ever-higher prices), the "sound" of everything else also took a beating, especially speaker systems.
if i didn't hear proof of this myself i wouldn't have believed that the supposedly inferior transducers (B&W themselves trashed their crossover and tweeter for the "anniversary or series-3 model", which was not all that superior to the series-2, just a little different) weren't all that inferior- they just told you (the truth of) what was going on further up the chain of command. of course stereophile and the absolute sound never dusted off some older speaker models and listened to them again, with "better everything" feeding them a "tastier meal". now it was more in vogue to talk about speakers that cost, instead of $4-5k, speakers that delivered the goods for $8k, $12K, and $20k. and before you knew it along came speakers for over $30k, and finally 40. they were "so amazing" that the time when the B&W 802 -$4000, or the 801-$5000 (RETAIL!) were assumed to be technically challenged-designs. well go back and read what the abs.sound and stereophile had to say about them not that many years ago- that you could pinpoint musicians in an ensemble or an orchestra, that you could tell what make of bassoon a musician was playing, that you could hear a truck idling outside the recording studio, crazy stuff like that. sure, speakers have gotten better in a lot of ways, but i swallowed HARD when i upgraded to the andra's- $15,000 at the time. i just never got to hear all the things my previous speakers were capable of until after they were gone.