B&W 604 S3 vs 684s

[Romulus]

I'm finally ready to buy my speakers and have settled on B&W. My system consists of an HD-A3 dvd player and Yammie RX-V2700 receiver. The local store I'm buying from is having a yearly sale tomorrow night (sunday) and I expect about a 10% discount off everything in the store.

They have all the new 600 series speakers and so far I have settled on the 684s (smaller of the two towers), 685s for surrounds, and HTM61 for the center. The 684s retail for 1000/pair, so I assume I can get them for around 900 tomorrow. They also have one pair of 604S3's that were in-store demo's. They retailed for $1400/pair and are currently marked down to 1000. Tomorrow I am guessing they will be a little less.

Would the 604s be the better buy over the newer 684s? I know the tweeter was updated in the new line, so I'm not sure if that would cause any problems between the HTM61 center and 604s..

Should I buy the system and ask to take both towers home to see how they sound? I would demo them first, but the store is only opening tomorrow night for the sale and from how I understand, the night of the sale things are pretty busy in the store and people really only come to buy, not shop.

Thoughts?

 

[Tod]

Pity you need the information now rather than in a couple days when I could give you some feedback on part of the issue. I have the 604S3s and LCR60 centers (I run one above and below the screen). They were sort of temporary when I got them, and I'm just now upgrading to the HTM 61s which are a large leap up in design/freq response at least.

I expect them to still be a pretty good match with the 604s, or I wouldn't be doing it. Until I get them home, hopefully on Monday when the store gets them in, I can't tell you if the match changed from what I've got now. That is a good price on the 604s...

The one other thing is the unfortunate mismatch of the fronts of the two speaker series. If you have the grills on it wouldn't be so bad, but I like having mine off. It's worse since I have the oak finish.

As far as my own opinion of the 604s so far, with nothing really to compare them to, there are certain times they could have maybe used a bit more cabinet bracing. Instruments in the mid-bass frequencies such as timpani seem to have just a bit of extra resonance. I don't know if they changed that in the new series, but you might ask. Other than that, and it's not bad, I love them. I wouldn't want to go smaller if I didn't need to for some reason.

 

[jostenmeat]

I would opt for the newer 68 series if only for the 1st-order x-over and improved looks/finish. However, I have only heard the older 600 series, and not the newer line. Maybe you can compare in auditions. GL.

 

[Romulus]

My guess about the sale tonight was correct.. they had pretty much their entire stock sitting on the floor (as in all the boxes) and prices on each.. it was not the time to sit and audition.

I went with the 684s just b/c I have heard them before and liked them.. They were marked down to 800 (the 604s were 950), so I think it was a good buy.

I quickly ran through the setup (my first HT, so I was half guessing) and listened to a bunch of songs. I can tell I have a few kinks to work out, but for the most part I am in sonic nirvana