Exactly. Apparently over 230+ people (& counting) disagree with your personal opinion.
Everyone has a different opinion. And they are all as valid as yours and mine.
Here is the thing. We all know the room, placement, and setup of the speakers is crucial. Yet most of us audition speakers at stores that aren't optimal and we form our personal opinions.
I used to think the same of B&W. My 1st and 2nd impressions of them were both at the dealers. My 3rd impression changed because the dealer did a better job with the setup, placement, etc.
But more importantly is how great they sound in my own system.
Have you ever heard the 802D in your own system? I rest my case.
§ 1, I'm always right
§ 2, If I should occasionally be incorrect, refer to §1
I know how tricky placement is, I spent 3 months once just to find correct placement for my Duntech’s in one occation, and they ended up in a position I never imagined would be advantageous but in the end a position far from the front wall, close to sidewalls and with extreme angling provided spectacular end result. This would only work for one particular combination in this room and a particular seating arrangement.
The thing that a speaker brand sells well doesn't mean they make good speakers (no offense intended)
It means they make popular speakers which is not the same as high quality speakers
The Vienna Acoustic Mahler transforms from a mediocre speaker with the Electrocompaniet AW180 to sensational if you hook up Electrocompaniet Nemo poweramps, then you can question, do you have good speakers or amplifier?
No, I never auditioned B&W with my own gear, if I get a chance I will be happy to do so
Can I borrow your speakers for a while? :d
I never had a pleasure listening to any B&W speaker at any point in my life, that means that I may be more fuzzy than any of you 230+ B&W owners out there, or it can mean that I never heard them with any good amplifiers or in a good room setup.
Fact is that I don’t like 99% of the speakers that I auditioned, it’s only very very few products out there that I find to be accurate, I believe most speakers out there are not very transparent and linear and accurate
It’s also strange to me how B&W totally changed strategy to their design some years back, either they have been wrong for a long time or they are wrong now. They previously made the 800 series using extremely complex filters with a gazillion components, there were so much correction in there that electrons would have a hard way to find their way to the driver voicecoil, probably killing all chances for dynamics, unless you had a 2000W amplifier.... suddenly they totally changed going to simple first order filters, contradicting what they previously claimed were correct way to make filters, so when a producer suddenly change direction stating that mostly everything they did before is wrong, can you really trust them?
It would be interesting to bring my own electronics to the store and audition the speakers, once upon a time I brought my own speakers to the store for comparison too, probably some of the store owners since then starting to look away when I get there because it's too much job demoing for me
I agree with you mate, we should have an open mind