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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. 

seb_audio
audphile1's avatar
audphile1
4,920 posts
 

@oneofew +1

that’s why I asked the OP for room size, speaker placement details and listening chair distance to speakers.
To move the woofers on those B&Ws, which is what you need to produce the bass you can feel, you need current. And the 200w/ch Classe amp is most likely not going to cut it. Especially if the listening is at lower levels. You will hear the bass but there will be no feeling it. In either case, to @ghdprentice point, these speakers are very accurate and all the drivers are integrated and tuned for accurate reproduction. You can’t compare the bass subs reproduce while playing a movie to the bass reproduced by speakers while playing music.

coppy777
141 posts
 

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.

jon_5912
605 posts
 

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

limomangus's avatar
limomangus
1,426 posts
 

Make sure all the wiring is correct and then  Turn Up the Bass.

nagel
56 posts
 

In my 25 year quest for good bass in my "new" 24x20 ft room, I finally started addressing SBIR head on with acoustic treatments. It made a _profound_ improvement and now I know the answer to my problem. SBIR will really mess with your bass in a large room or just if the speakers are far from the walls. I think the theory says to use largest possible traps on perpendicular surfaces so it’s very different from treating first reflections for mids-treble. I’m using GIK acoustics soffit traps standing on end and placed to absorb bass from both mains and subs with additional 244 ER traps used on walls. Next, I’ll add bass some bass traps to ceiling mount above the mains.

As to why the 2 pairs are so different, are they both plinth loaded/ported? Agree that a larger amp with more grunt might do more than you’d expect. Amps do sound very different and each 3db of increase requires doubling your power.

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