I need help with my B&W DM 602 S2

[dvjorge]

Hi guys,
I need some help to see if I can correct the highs in my B&W DM 602 S2. I can not stand the bright highs anymore. I have another set of bookshelf speakers, Monitor Audio Silver S2 which has excellent highs. The B&W s are harsh and there isn't way I can enjoy them. If I can not correct it with some crossover modification, I will sell them. It is incredible how a company like B&W makes these speakers with such agressive tweeter. Please, what do you think can be done to correct it if possible ??
Thanks,
Jorge.

[dvjorge]

Hi guys,
I need some help to see if I can correct the highs in my B&W DM 602 S2. I can not stand the bright highs anymore. I have another set of bookshelf speakers, Monitor Audio Silver S2 which has excellent highs. The B&W s are harsh and there isn't way I can enjoy them. If I can not correct it with some crossover modification, I will sell them. It is incredible how a company like B&W makes these speakers with such agressive tweeter. Please, what do you think can be done to correct it if possible ??
Thanks,
Jorge.

I believe they will go... I don't know what can I do to correct the highs and nobody in this forum get motivated to give me some idea.
I also don't know if the problem is the tweeter design or the crossover. What is true is they are really brights. I am sure the problem isn't my amplifiers ( Sansui, Nad, Musical Fidelity ) because my Monitor Audio Silver S2 and my Paradigm Studio 100 V2 don't have this problem.
Jorge

[blackraven]

I'm not sure what to tell you. I found that B&W's really need proper room treatment, amp, preamp and CDP matching to tame the treble. You could try a used Yaqin or Grant Fidelity tube buffer or a warmer sounding DAC like a used PS Audio Digilink III. But you are probably better off selling them and buying something else.

http://www.pacificvalve.us/YaqinTB.html

If you decide to try the tube buffer, get the single tube buffer instead of the 2 tube. The single tube is supposed to sound better from what I have read. There are a lot of differing opinions on tube buffers so do some research and decide for yourself. In a very resolving high end system I would not use one but for a midfi system it may be worth a try.

[atomicAdam]

You can put a small amount of clothe in front of the tweeter to tame it.

Do you have them toed in or straight on? How close are you sitting to them.

And BTW - sometimes it will take a day to answer a question - so please don't bash the forum members for not respond at the drop of a hat. Sometimes, the 9-5 jobs actually keep us all busy.

[(O0o*o0O)]

Those tweeters are something else. I went to replace one and when I took that massive honker out of there I sold them as-is.
Are you bi-amping them?
I control my mids and tweets with my receiver. My woofers with my amp.

[mlsstl]

My comment is based on the assumption your speakers are functioning according to their design, but I always find it interesting when people buy something and then want to change the fundamental character of what they have. You should only buy B&Ws (or any other brand of speaker for that matter) if you like the way they sound in their stock condition.

It is one thing to do a tweak here or there to make already good a bit better, but it is rather odd to buy something only to modify it for a complete change of sound.

Since you own other speakers that you enjoy, I'd suggest you just sell the B&Ws and replace them with something more to your liking.

Of course, there are some people who are inveterate experimenters, but they already know who they are... ;-)

[JohnMichael]

I enjoy my Monitor Audio RS 6's when I use the DNM Reson interconnects. My other speakers have a silk dome and they sound best with Alphacore TQ2 interconnects. I would try some different cables before I would try to mod the crossover. I find that cables
can make a very audible change in the sound. I find silver coated copper cables to be very bright.

[Mash]

Messing with the crossover is neither simple nor low risk. You could shift the crossover frequency while your complaint seems to be more about magnitude rather than crossover frequencies.

If the tweeters do not have an attenuator, you could add one to each tweeter, but you would want them accessible from the exterior. Understand the probable impact on resale value.

Thin adiabatic foam, thin fiberglass or cotton/wool cloth over the tweeter might help. Might. Control of the process & results would be tricky but the risk should be low.

I would try fabric or acoustic wall treatments near the speakers first.

I am not a wire maven.

[RGA]

I don't have time to look it up - but go to audioasylum.com - speaker forum and look up posts by a poster named Layman - who has looked into the measurements of of B&W speaker's high crossover point and the characteristics of their Kevlar woofers. I concur with my ear and always have felt something was amiss with the mid/tweeter handoff and the sonic signature of these choices in materials. To me they make speakers that people tend to want to upgrade/modify - and any speaker or any product (perhaps except turntables) that you have to modify and tweak has problems - there are cottage industries out there and people making a living trying to "fix" numerous rather famous loudspeaker makers and B&W is one of them - and I'm never quite so thrilled with the sound of any of these famous very popular brands as they usually end up costing more after the modifications and numerous eqipment changes than something else that works and sounds better out of the box for considerably less money.

Interestingly though I actually like the 600 series more than some of their more expensive lines - but having said that the treble isn't as good as their more expensive lines. Their tweeters seem to have a designed in resonance - and even their advertising discusses this as you spend more on the better lines the treble improves with better tube tapering. However, reading between the obvious lines there that means the lower model tweeters have an obvuious issue that only the more expensive models fix. Still this is true for most of the competition so B&W is hardly alone. There is still a budget crunch. It's a sub $1k loudspeaker and you can't expect everything.