Thoughts on bowers and wilkins?

[Scrappydue]

As you can see from my signature I own a good klipsetup already. I am looking for a living room setup and went to hear some rf-42ii today and I think they sound good for the money but they seem to sound a little hollow to me. I know they are small and that is what I like about em. What I'm looking for is if there are any previous b&w owners on here that can chime in there two cents. Was looking at the smallest 686 bookshelves all the way around with the smaller center channel. Also not sure if there are places to get b&w below retail. I can't seem to find any. Seems to be a lot of used ones on Audiogon. Anyways any info would be great. Thanks guys

[Youthman]

Only B&W speakers I've owned were the DM 602 S2's. Great bookshelf speaker.

You can read about my thoughts about them here.

[Magneto_Plasmoid]

G'day,

I know this isn't an ideal A/B comparison, but a friend of mine recently purchased the 684 tower speakers, and I went around there to help him set them up. To me, and my experience compared to other guys here is pretty limited, Klipsch and B&W are almost polar opposites. Where Klipsch are forward and upfront, B&W are laid back and a little more reserved.

That doesn't make one better than the other, just different. I really liked the 684s for music, and they had fantastic mid-range response and were very smooth and full sounding, so much so that he doesn't need a subwoofer for general 2ch listening. Klipsch definitley has it over B&W for efficiency, so depending on what sort of receiver/amp you are considering for your second system, that may come into play for you also. In the end though, I'm a huge Klipsch fan and love the Klipsch sound, but the few B&W speakers I have heard have really impressed, so much so that when I look at a second system for my study later in the year, I'll definitley be considering B&W myself. If you can get a listen to the speakers you are interested in, or something similar in their range and like the sound, then I'd say dive right in:)

Hopefully I've helped, and haven't just added further added to your indecision:)

Magneto

[derrickdj1]

The B&W speakers that I have heard do sound nice and seem to have a warm tone due to their midrange. It will all come down to preference.

[Youthman]

When I was comparing speakers for my HT, I originally wanted B&W but I really liked the sound of Klipsch as well. Both sounded different but since both were great speakers, I ended up buying Klipsch due to a much lower price point. I still would love to own a pair of the higher end B&W's one day (802's etc) just for kicks. As mentioned, B&W tend to be a lot lower in sensitivity so it will take much more power to drive them to their potential.

[Danzo]

I picked up a cheap old pair of 802 M series 3 and they are pretty nice; they seemed really shy at first and laid back but hooked up to Spectron amp and the beast was up and about!

It's all preference thing obviously and listening before buying is advised as usual although B&W do hold their value fairly well and market for them is quite active; B&W often employ forward midrange but nice tweeters; not to forget front port which helps to easier position speakers; i prefered sound over von schweikert vj4jr and thiel cs7 that i've heard recently but those were not in my room so comparison is nowhere near objective; i have been looking around at various speakers as i still find this pair a bit laid back and my Fortes can get slightly shrieky and fatiquing when listening to certain types of music like trumpets and harmonicas;

[Quiet_Hollow]

In the teen years, my friend's dad had a pair of 640's that we used to put the spurs to every now and then. Driven by an early-90's Sansui at reasonably sane levels, I found them to be a very enjoyable speaker to listen to. [Y]

[ivanhurd]

The places you've shopped at, have you actually called them?