Have you changed your mind about a brand? Was it you, or them?

I used to have a lot of respect for lower end B&W speakers; bought my dad some in the 1990s and they sounded nice with NAD gear.

On my recent outings to audition bookshelves, all the B&W speakers were over-bright to the point of aggressive harshness. I understand this was a choice on their part, perhaps?f

@twoleftears And I held them in *really* high esteem, so they have really fallen.

I like your question about the reverse. And one has to be careful with these questions, since there can be a gap between the lower line of a brand and their upper levels of product. So, can be an apples to oranges comparison mistake.

I will add one comment, namely, that I really thought Adcom was very mediocre, but I realized that of my two units -- a tuner/preamp and the amp -- that once I paired a really good tube preamp with the adcom power amp (535L), it sounded pretty darn good. In other words, the amp is still only mid-fi, but it has much greater potential paired with a good preamp than I previously thought.

@erik_squires Thanks for the link. I always enjoy your blog posts and have learned a lot.

I think about the B&W move akin to the salt-fat-sugar approach to food. Get their attention and hook them with primal urges. (Only at home to they get fatigued and wonder what's wrong.)