A

and

Audiophyte
New member here and wasn't ever planning to register here. But decided to tell my worst experience with b&w DM 604 which I was stupid to buy in 1995 or 6. Both tweeters broke in a year or two. Since then each 5th year when I had feeling to struggle for changing them I tried to find the way to buy that tweeters. My local b&w dealer is nobody and why he managed to registered at that stupid b&w nobody knows ( may be to execute gray business to other destinations but not at home, that is for sure). So the only countries to buy that tweeters turned the country of origin England and the USA. Anything else in the world is of no interest to them and whenever I tried to apply to them all finished with one result - Apply to your local dealer. Can any one imagine that I was living with that since 1995? For 20 years? And after that some vote for the best speakers? May be for Americans yes, but not for the rest of the world. B&W is the worst company to support its users. 20 years ago I paid around 1000$ for a pair of their speakers which fastly turned complete crap with they refused to support even for my own money despite 5 year warranty at that time.
 
tyhjaarpa

tyhjaarpa

Audioholic Field Marshall
You should of done warranty trough the retailer and the speakers would of been serviced. If he wouldn't get them repaired you should made him take them back and return your money. I would say this sounds more of an user error than company error.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
You should of done warranty trough the retailer and the speakers would of been serviced. If he wouldn't get them repaired you should made him take them back and return your money. I would say this sounds more of an user error than company error.
Absolutely this guy is a nut job, and almost certainly abused his speakers. There is nothing wrong with the design of B & W speakers. You can blow any speaker if you have a mind to do so,
 
A

and

Audiophyte
Thanks for the dead advice. it is for yourself in Finland. I said clearly that my bw dealer is not a real bw dealer, he is also a retailer who is not a real retailer, he is Nothing. I know how that things work because I am a dealer/distributor of 10-15 companies/producers, not in music or sound. And from that point of view I never ignored any of my customers. bw just vomits on customers. I am not talking about warranty. I am talking about parts which bw stopped to produce years ago but they always refused to sell them to me. I hate that bw with each cell of my body.
 
billg71

billg71

Audioholic Intern
Thanks for the dead advice. it is for yourself in Finland. I said clearly that my bw dealer is not a real bw dealer, he is also a retailer who is not a real retailer, he is Nothing. I know how that things work because I am a dealer/distributor of 10-15 companies/producers, not in music or sound. And from that point of view I never ignored any of my customers. bw just vomits on customers. I am not talking about warranty. I am talking about parts which bw stopped to produce years ago but they always refused to sell them to me. I hate that bw with each cell of my body.
Well, it's pretty clear how you feel about Bowers and Wilkins as a company, anything else you need to get off your chest?

If they suck that bad why have you kept listening to them for 20 years? Why not just move on, buy something different and maybe from a reputable dealer? Give it up, you got screwed by the dealer you bought the speakers from and that's that. But flaming B&W because they won't violate their contractual obligations to their dealer network is going a little too far, IMO.
 
theJman

theJman

Audioholic Chief
I probably see the same thing the rest of you do; someone with an axe to grind, and 2 decades wasted needlessly seething no less. Talk about holding a grudge...
 
tyhjaarpa

tyhjaarpa

Audioholic Field Marshall
Thanks for the dead advice. it is for yourself in Finland. I said clearly that my bw dealer is not a real bw dealer, he is also a retailer who is not a real retailer, he is Nothing. I know how that things work because I am a dealer/distributor of 10-15 companies/producers, not in music or sound. And from that point of view I never ignored any of my customers. bw just vomits on customers. I am not talking about warranty. I am talking about parts which bw stopped to produce years ago but they always refused to sell them to me. I hate that bw with each cell of my body.
Like I already pointed out the user error. Buying products in first place from unreliable retailer is not the best move to do. Blaming B&W is going no where. Something that is responsibility of retailer / importer should be done trough them not by the company itself. It is the same with any company and for reason. I have only had good experiences when dealing with B&W retailer/importer customer services. And as you have both tweeters broken it indeed sounds like you abused the speakers big time. Maybe you should just learn to move on?
 
A

and

Audiophyte
Good point, yes! Why did I listen to them for 20 years? Frankly speaking I do not stop asking that question myself for 20 years and never find the answer. May be I am lazy to buy some substitution. May be I think Hi Fi equipment producers are just money suckers like bw, may be no orgasm on sound after experience with bw or may be something else. By the way, in 1982 I made loudspeakers myself, they never failed. Of course, the quality of sound is not Hi Fi but one can easily use that speakers as an anvil or support under a truck.

I am not going to give up but continue to declare that bw is the absolute crap company betraying its customers. Yes, I got screwed by the dealer from whom I bought the speakers, that is absolutely correct. But why bw refused to sell me the spare parts 2 or 3 times within that 20 years? Don’t they know they have a swindler in my country calling himself a bw dealer? I didn't ask them to do it for free. I was going to pay full.
Many years ago I was a dealer in some sound area and used to sell Cary players USA, Silthech cables Holland, Briston amplifiers Canada. There were some issues with the equipment. For example, Briston. My customer who bought the amplifier from me had 3 problems with his BST amp within 15 years after he bought it. Briston warranty employee Brian in 2013 and later on Mike Pickett (last time in 2015) were always friendly and extremely fast in any way to assist all problems with their amplifier although I am not their dealer for quite a long time. Now I am in different areas of business but all work similar, a producer/seller always helps to solve a product/production problem. Bw are pure f-ng bustards, because they are British. I was a dealer of two British producers, I quit both.
 
A

and

Audiophyte
he-he, never was on a forum with such Hi End level of communist censorship like here. My comments are corrected and deleted, ooooYYHHN!!
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
he-he, never was on a forum with such Hi End level of communist censorship like here. My comments are corrected and deleted, ooooYYHHN!!
It might be helpful if you posted your location.

BTW- if you're a dealer of anything that has a warranty, you should have known that buying from someone who's "not a real dealer" will result in no warranty coverage. Gray market was happening long before you bought your speakers, so it seems that you bought from them for the simply because you were getting a better price.

If you hate them, sell them- I'm sure someone will give you a decent amount for them and you can stop your losses.

Knowing what you use for the rest of the equipment and how you listen would help, too. Since you killed more than one set of tweeters, it would seem that your amplifier may have clipped or over-powered them but in that case, the woofers might have blown, too. Might want to check the caps for the tweeters, while you're at it.

Might be time to go back to building your own since so many good programs exist that would be far more advanced than doing it the hard way, as we did in the early-'80s. Better drivers are being made now, too.
 
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A

and

Audiophyte
I know very well how warranty works.
I bought speakers from official bw dealer listed on bw website, not grey. And I know how grey works as I started to work in grey at the early 90th. I see that everyone tries to teach me here how businesses work. Stop. I know that better of majority of you.
I appreciate describing the reasons why both tweeters broke, yes, these are the caps exploaded and need to be changed. This is because of my amp Harman Kardon which is also a complete crap but that is a different story. I van repair the amp locally without applying to HK. But unfortunately I can't produce bw tweeters locally.
Here I want to say that bw is one of the worst companies I ever had experience. In fact I didn't have experience with them as they simply ignored me.
I know a lot of audiophiles. And I am very glad the majority of them followed my advise not to buy bw.
 
A

and

Audiophyte
It might be helpful if you posted your location.

and why do you need it?
 
A

and

Audiophyte
I was a communist. Can it be helpful to ignore or admit that bw is a waste company deceiving its customers?
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
I know very well how warranty works.
I bought speakers from official bw dealer listed on bw website, not grey. And I know how grey works as I started to work in grey at the early 90th. I see that everyone tries to teach me here how businesses work. Stop. I know that better of majority of you.
I appreciate describing the reasons why both tweeters broke, yes, these are the caps exploaded and need to be changed. This is because of my amp Harman Kardon which is also a complete crap but that is a different story. I van repair the amp locally without applying to HK. But unfortunately I can't produce bw tweeters locally.
Here I want to say that bw is one of the worst companies I ever had experience. In fact I didn't have experience with them as they simply ignored me.
I know a lot of audiophiles. And I am very glad the majority of them followed my advise not to buy bw.
And after 7 posts, you have posted almost NOTHING useful about yourself, other than that you think you know about business better than most of us.

FYI- caps fail mostly because of excessive voltage, so you might want to get off your pedestal for a few seconds. If you killed the caps, YOU killed the tweeters, it's not a matter of the speakers being crap. If you had operated within the design limits, they wouldn't have launched.

As far as knowing your location, I asked because someone may want to help you but you have shown that you don't need our help, you just want to complain and slam B&W. If your posts here are any indication of how you communicated with B&W, I can see why they didn't want to help you- you don't seem to want to be helped and after killing more than one set of tweeters and at least one set of caps, it's your fault, not theirs. If the vast majority of people don't damage their speakers, what does that tell you? Probably that it's the equipment's fault, not yours.

WRT knowing a lot of audiophiles, Good, for you. You can reset the conversation so it's productive, if you want. If you only want to tell us that you hate B&W and to try to damage their reputation, you're yelling at clouds.
 
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BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
Dear OP,
Lot of good and reasonable people gave you solid reasonable answers. If your choice to disregard their opinions of course.

With that said, many would agree than B&W specific audio signature (vs Neutral and accurate) is not something most of us would like, but there are plenty people whom do like their sound.

I don't want to mention reliability as a factor, since damaging speakers components, regardless of their quality (and I don't believe B&W skimps on quality components) is NEAR impossible, unless you're operating them outside of their recommended range. DM604 stated min impedance is 3ohm, which might indicate that depends on volume, it may require significant effort from amplifiers, which your receiver may not capable of.
 
Bizarro_Stormy

Bizarro_Stormy

Audioholics Whac-A-Mole'er™
he-he, never was on a forum with such Hi End level of communist censorship like here. My comments are corrected and deleted, ooooYYHHN!!
That was I...

I don't see it as censorship when cleaning up crap...

It's more of a public service...

Like picking up after your dog when it poops while you're walking it...



No one likes to step in poo...
or read it...
 
H

herbu

Audioholic Samurai
my bw dealer is not a real bw dealer, he is also a retailer who is not a real retailer...

I know how that things work because I am a dealer/distributor...

I made loudspeakers myself...Of course, the quality of sound is not Hi Fi but one can easily use that speakers as an anvil or support under a truck.
Gotta love this guy!!!
 

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