Woofer diameter matters because it affects the size of the sound wave. I've had a few different speakers in my room with dual 7" woofers that produce "apparent" less bass than some other pairs of speakers with dual 5.5" drivers that actually filled the room much better. My best guess in your situation is the 802's simply play "nicer" than the 800's. There are different reasons why companies offer different size of speakers, one often overlooked reason is the size/shape of your listening environment. I sure hope you get your situation figured out!
No bass on B&W 800D2
Hi,
I’ve been a B&W fan Since the late 90s and have owned many different speakers over the years. I’ve owned a pair of 802Ds (first gen) For a long time and those had always been my dream speaker.
I recently had the opportunity to upgrade to a pair of 800D2. I had never heard the 800 or the second generation diamonds before, but was tempted by the idea of owning the flagships. I don’t like the looks and sound of the newer generation 800 so in my mind, I was upgrading to the top of the line speaker of the last generation that I like.
I’ve had these speakers for three months now, and I’ve played around with positioning and levels of my subwoofers. when I first set them up I immediately noticed a lack of bass compared to the 802’s. I listen in the near field and have the 800 approximately in the same position as the 802, although with slightly more toe in and a little further away from the wall as they seem more sensitive to room placement than the 802s did. Even pushed up to the wall there is not more bass, just boom.
I’m powering them with a Classé sigma amp 2, which doubles to 400W a channel on 4 ohms. Before you say it’s the amp, the 802s sounded exactly the same on my Denon 4520 as they did on the Classé amp after I upgraded to that - so I don’t really subscribe to the “more power” idea and believe an amp won’t change the sound dramatically as long as it’s decent quality and has enough power. I mostly listen at lower levels anyhow.
Has anybody had the same issue with the 800D2 lacking so much bass compared to the 802D? The midrange sounds about the same and the highs are way more tame, which I like, but this lack of low end authority is making me seriously consider selling these again which makes me sad - since they are absolutely gorgeous in the looks department.
thanks for your thoughts in advance - would appreciate hearing from actual owners of these.
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@oneofew +1 that’s why I asked the OP for room size, speaker placement details and listening chair distance to speakers. |
Many years ago I owned a series of B&W speakers, working my way up through the Matrix series to the Nautilus 800s. I bought them off the dealer’s floor and they sounded great there. My living/listening room at the time was 9X13X8. The N800s, really big speakers, could only be about 20 or less inches from the front wall. I could never get them to image well or produce the prodigious bass they were capable of. Ultimately, after a couple of years I traded them in on some then new Wilson Watt/Puppy 7s. They were marvelous. Those great N800s were just simply too big for my room and could not do their thing. They needed more space and to be four feet out from the wall to make decent sound. All my Wilsons since are in larger space and 40+ inches out from the wall sounding transparent and disappearing completely. |
I'd go to a tone generator site and listen to see if the bass sounds way down at low frequencies. My guess is it won't be and what you're missing is the bass transients/texture. I've had this experience a couple of times and the solution was to double the power. I don't know the technical explanation but having a lot more power then you'd think necessary solves this problem.
Online Tone Generator - generate pure tones of any frequency |
- 46 posts total