Bower&Wilkins 704 s2 vs Canton Vento 876

M

MrPirate2882

Junior Audioholic
Today I had the opportunity to listen and compare these two floor standing speakers. They are both very good, high quality sound, good range, the B&W have probably a more crystal sound.
It's very difficult to choose between the two, do someone have these speaker and want to write a brief review or opinion?

Thank you.
 
S

snakeeyes

Audioholic Ninja
Today I had the opportunity to listen and compare these two floor standing speakers. They are both very good, high quality sound, good range, the B&W have probably a more crystal sound.
It's very difficult to choose between the two, do someone have these speaker and want to write a brief review or opinion?

Thank you.
I believe @KEW has the 876 model. I’m not sure if he has heard the other one though.

I have the Canton 836 bookshelves and I really like those.
 
B

Beave

Audioholic Chief
704 S2 measurements from Soundstage (NRC) are here:
B&W 704 S2

I see a very colored frequency response, with a large dip in the upper mids to low treble, both on and off-axis, and a tough impedance (esp the large phase angles in the mid-bass).

Unfortunately there are no comparable NRC measurements for the Canton, and I can't' find measurements from any other site, either.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
The 704’s listening window (avg. of 5 measurements) is +/-3.5dB from 80Hz-20kHz. Not the best, but not the worst.
 
KEW

KEW

Audioholic Overlord
I believe @KEW has the 876 model. I’m not sure if he has heard the other one though.

I have the Canton 836 bookshelves and I really like those.
No, I have not heard any B&W's from the 700 series!
The Canton 876's are fine speakers, but that is about all I have to offer!
 
M

MrPirate2882

Junior Audioholic
Thank you all...very interesting comments and links!
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
I had the opportunity to listen and compare these two floor standing speakers...the B&W have probably a more crystal sound.
If B&W speakers continue to have the more crystal clear sound, then they are the speakers for you.
 
M

MrPirate2882

Junior Audioholic
If B&W speakers continue to have the more crystal clear sound, then they are the speakers for you.
Sure, but what if that "crystallity" is artificial, is built just to make the sound seems better. Like the photos you take with your smartphone, they are super-saturated.
That's why I'm not still sure about the B&W.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
Sure, but what if that "crystallity" is artificial, is built just to make the sound seems better. Like the photos you take with your smartphone, they are super-saturated.
That's why I'm not still sure about the B&W.
If you don't trust your ears, then just go with speakers that have been shown to have good measurements. So don't buy the speakers unless you can see independent 3rd-party measurements, not measurements from someone's room or measurements from the speaker company.

So stay away from B&W speakers since they have been shown by Stereophile, Soundstage, S&V Magazine to not have the best measurements.

Here are on-axis measurements of the B&W Diamond towers series generation 1-3. If these $20-30K B&W speakers can't get great measurements (the cheap Infinity P362 has better on-axis and off-axis), I don't think their other B&W speakers will measure any better.



 
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pcosmic

pcosmic

Senior Audioholic
If you don't trust your ears, then just go with speakers that have been shown to have good measurements. So don't buy the speakers unless you can see independent 3rd-party measurements, not measurements from someone's room or measurements from the speaker company.

So stay away from B&W speakers since they have been shown by Stereophile, Soundstage, S&V Magazine to not have the best measurements.

Here are on-axis measurements of the B&W Diamond towers series generation 1-3. If these $20-30K B&W speakers can't get great measurements (the cheap Infinity P362 has better on-axis and off-axis), I don't think their other B&W speakers will measure any better.



B&W = The Walmart of Speaker Engineering (mas o menos)
Canton = Solid engineering aptitude/effort at many price points. The Canton reference i heard once sounded like it should cost 10 to 20k more.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
B&W = The Walmart of Speaker Engineering (mas o menos)
Canton = Solid engineering aptitude/effort at many price points. The Canton reference i heard once sounded like it should cost 10 to 20k more.
1st, you better have your Fire Suit on because a lot of people would take offense to your comment regarding B&W. :D

2nd, do you have many independent 3rd party speaker measurements of Canton speakers (especially the high-end models) to back up your statement? :D
 
pcosmic

pcosmic

Senior Audioholic
1st, you better have your Fire Suit on because a lot of people would take offense to your comment regarding B&W. :D

2nd, do you have many independent 3rd party speaker measurements of Canton speakers (especially the high-end models) to back up your statement? :D
- Have owned B Walmart & W before (so i can speak volumes to that)
- Never owned Canton before
- After i spoke some broken German (language of my ancestors) and cracked a few jokes with the Canton engineer at Munich a few years ago, he pulled up some pristine looking measurements on his laptop. They sounded fantastic at the show btw.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
he pulled up some pristine looking measurements on his laptop.
Here are some Canton speaker measurements from Stereophile. The 3.2 DC looks the best. But overall, I would say the Canton's measurements look alright, but I wouldn't say they look great.




 
pcosmic

pcosmic

Senior Audioholic
Here are some Canton speaker measurements from Stereophile. The 3.2 DC looks the best. But overall, I would say the Canton's measurements look alright, but I wouldn't say they look great.




Fckk..These measurements don't look all that great....I guess that Canton engineer either fooled me or i was way too drunk in Munich. I take it back....They don't measure all that great, but they sounded great....

Let me throw in a hurrah for the B&W bros.
Long live B & Walmart dubya and the B &W bros! Long live! Hail Hail! Hurrah Hurrah!
 
K

Kleinst

Senior Audioholic
Here are some Canton speaker measurements from Stereophile. The 3.2 DC looks the best. But overall, I would say the Canton's measurements look alright, but I wouldn't say they look great.




Thanks for sharing... Sooo, what speakers that are somewhat reasonably priced (similar to the Canton's (1K per tower or less) measure real well and does that translate to sounding better? (Canton's by all accounts sound great but I only have their ceiling speakers) :)
 

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