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Narrowed to 3: 802D3, Sopra 3, Reference 3

Hi all,
Here's the situation:
Room is 14x17 with vaulted ceilings from 9" to 14", and the room is mostly open to a foyer with high ceiling and is about 10x10.

I'm currently running a setup scavenged from my home theater:
Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ > Rotel RC-1590 Preamp > Rotel RB-1582 mk2 amp > B&W 805 D3

The sound overall is excellent, but it's a little bright and lacks bass presence (as you'd expect for a 2 way bookshelf). Here are my top speakers I've auditioned:

B&W 802D3 ( Auditioned with: Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ > McIntosh C52 > McIntosh 601) at Magnolia

KEF Reference 5 (Auditioned with Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ > McIntosh C47 > McIntosh MC452) at Magnolia at the same time as the 802.

Focal Sopra 3 (Auditioned with NAIM DAC > NAIM NAP 500 DR Amp - 140W per channel) at difference location

I also heard the KEF Reference 3 and Blade but ruled them out, the Ref 3 for sound, and the Blade for price and it being kind of ugly.

Here's the thing, I feel like I'm not sure what to get. I love the general sound of the 802, but I'm afraid even with the MC452 it'd be a bit bright. It also really lacked the presence in the bass like the Reference 5.

The Reference 5 sounds wonderful, and the bass is prolific, but I'm a little concerned about it being too warm. I heard the Ref 5 and 802s in the same room with virtually the same equipment, back to back, and they were so very different. The Ref 5 was warm, with rich full mids, that maybe were even too lush, with bass so good I honestly thought the subwoofer was on.

The 802 had good bass, but nothing to write home about (and it even had the more powerful 601 monoblocks), but the clarity was astounding, I just fear it'll be a little too bright for my room, which seems to lean bright already. That said, there is just something so exciting about the sound of this speaker playing orchestral. The problem was I much preferred the KEF for rock/r&b.

Then, to add to the mix, I liked the Focal Sopra 3 a lot, but I also felt it lacked bass presence, though it was on the weakest amp by a wide margin. The Focal seemed to be the middle ground between the B&W and KEF, but the bass concerned me. I'm not a bass nut, but I do want my bass to be powerful and don't want to have to add a sub. (Even for orchestral, I felt the Focal lacked a bit in the low cello and bass parts)

My plan was to keep the Mytek, and probably get a McIntosh C47 and MC452 or MC462, as I think the Rotels are probably too bright and underpowered for any of these setups. I was definitely hitting 300+W on the 802s during my audition while listening to orchestral music.

Thoughts? Is the KEF really that pudgy in the middle, is the B&W really that bright, and does the Sopra 3 really lack bass presence?

p.s. I thought the Blade was better balanced, but also still pretty warm.


Ag insider logo xs@2xmayoradamwest

Showing 8 responses by audiotroy

audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,603 posts
 
Mayoradamwest, We are major KEF dealers and we display the entire Kef Range, the KEF's are wonderful speakers, we don't feel that they are too warm, most people find them quite detailed with a huge panormamic soundstage.

As per the KEF vs the B&W the B&W are way forward with the Diamond tweeter being a bit on the hot side for many people, your comments on their clarity with the top end being a bit too hot is quite common.

You need to hear the Kef's at a better dealer than Magnolia, we have visited the Magnolia design centers and most of the store's setups are not good.  Magnolia doens't play with different combination of cables or source components,  they don't know anything about upsampling and how to maximize streaming setups, and they really don't know how to derive the maximium sound quality out of these higher end products. 

If you are on the East Coast come over to our shop and hear what a well setup pair of Kef Ref 5 sound like.

The Sopra's are also very musical, they don't punch as hard as the Kef's but the new Sopras are very very good. If you crave detail, speed, punch and a huge well focused soundstage the KEF's are hard to beat.

If you like a silky smooth tweeter, good detail, a rich midrange, but less dynamic presentation you should hear the Sopras again.


Dave and Troy
Audio Docdtor NJ
audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,603 posts
 
Izhak what are you talking about. 

Kef, B&W, and Focal are 3 of the most prestigous and advanced loudspeakers manufacturers on Earth.

ATC, and Spendor make  very good speakers with their own drivers Bryston speakers are made by Aperion and they are okay and Proac are certainly good speakers but class leading they are not.

These 3 companies produce some of the best models in their respective price points.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,603 posts
 
Milipai almost every company offers the same margins and we dont sell B&W nor Focal. Not huge B&W fans as the Diamond tweeter is a little too much for us. We love the Focals but we dont need the line as we have the Paradigm Persona line.

Lets face facts Proac was a player in the 90s same as Audio Physic both make good speakers but are hardly the go to lines they were 20 year ago.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ 
audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,603 posts
 
Milipai, we are glad you love your Proacs, they are very nice speakers, our point was that the Proac is not the most popular line of loudspeakers these days if you noticed we did not knock their sound quality. 

We choose our loudspeaker lines based on their  sound quality, value, technology, and sonic attributes as well as their position in the market.

A pair of Legacy Signatures at $7k can easily compare to a Proac D48R which is a $12k set of loudspeakers with even deeper lower bass and greater efficiency. 

The Pardigm Persona's use the most advanced drivers on the market today, with a pure Beryillium midrange driver which is unhead of at these price points, plus a pure Beryillium tweeter.

The Kef Reference line do so many things well, with one of the largest soundstages for a speaker of this size, they are very dynamic and have very deep bass for the size of the speakers, the Kef Ref 5 in particular are amazing sounding and do not dominate a room the way many otherr reference loudspeakers do. 

We are also Mytek dealers, the Brooklyn dac is excellent it does not have a particularly warm sound it is not bright either, it is a neutral dac, if you want warm and musical listen to an Aqua Hifi Lavoice,

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,603 posts
 
If you want warm Kubala Sosna cables are very warm and liquid particularly the Emotion range. If you are using Mcintosh with B&W and the system sounds bright than you have a very live room and have to address that.

Our golden rule on cabling is that cabling should be 30% of a systems overall budget. So if you are using $10k amp and preamp you should be looking at $1,500-3,000k for your inteconnects and $2-3k for your speaker cabling.

Older Cardas Cables are very congested sounding, the Hexlink 5C and Quadlink are not the last word in openess. 

We are firm believers in power conditoning, active units have way more issues than passive units, we have tested many PS Audio units and don' t like them at all, give us an Isotek, or Audio Magic any day of the week. 

Personally with all three of these very high end loudspeakers we would love to see you upgrade to even better components than the Rotel gear whiich is good but not as refined as the much more expensive stuff. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ


audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,603 posts
 
Prof lets make the comparision with a sports car you going to spend $80k on a sports car and just replace the expensive stock tires with just anything and expect the system to perform?

The fact that most people in audio who have acutally demoed cables will agree with premise that cables will make a rather audible difference in the performance of a system. 

We have purchased our demo cables at a very ridiculous amount of money, if we couldn't hear the difference do you think we would have shelled out the money ourselves?

The fact that sometimes changing one cable in a system can make the sound pop to life is proof that cables can be a huge part of getting a system to sound right. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,603 posts
 
Mayor the analogy was when it is time to replace warn tires on an expensive high end car replacement tires are expensive, don't put on the good tires watch the car's performance suffer greatly.

The only way you know if you really like the B&W better than the Kef's or vice versa is to hear both on the same system or at least setup with electronics similar to what you are using or going to use.

The KEF's you might have actually liked better than the B&W on the correct electronics, the B&W are excellent we have heard the 802 and they didn't rock out boat but what you like is up to you. 

As mentioned before these are all fantastic state of the art contenders and with a suitably well setup system any of these loudspeakers should make you very happy.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,603 posts
 
Prof,

Please try replacing those $800 each Pirelli Pzereos on a Ferrari with some nice Copper glass ply, tires and see where that takes you.

Cables are one part of setting up a system and yes they can highlight certain frequencies or reveal more information. or mask informatin.

Your evidence may be valid to you and your ability to hear, or it may be that the "expensive cables" you heard were not worth the money or it may be that your system does not have the resolution required to enable you to experience these differenences or your speakers don't have the resolution required, it could be a zillion reasons.

Without hearing your set of variables we can not come up with an answer.

Most cable demos we do are very audibile and we can show through demontration how better cables dramatically improve a system. 

We did one demo where we changed one ethernet cable and the system sprang to life that cable cost $210.00 and was the only change we made.

We have changed a single USB cable and have similar differences. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ


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