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spuppy517
01-22-2005, 01:35 AM
Is it worth it to drive about 2 hours (give or take a 1/2 hour) to go listen to some B&W's?
There really isn't any other brand at this store that I am interested in hearing, but I know it's a good idea to listen to as many speakers as I can. So worth the drive?

MikeyBC
01-22-2005, 08:20 AM
Hmmm if you dont make the drive you will never know, if you do make the drive and find somthing that really males you happy then its well worth it. Why not plan a day for shopping and dinner at the other town so your time's not a total waste if you dont like them.

topspeed
01-22-2005, 09:26 AM
That's inspired advice from Mikey. I wish I would have thought of it :D.

I drove all over the state of California to audition speakers before I found what I was looking for. In case your unfamiliar with it, Cali isn't small. Considering most people will hold on to great speakers for decades, if not forever, I'd say the drive is definitely worth it. Speakers, in particular, are not something you should compromise on in your audio chain.

btw, my speakers are B&W's, so consider me biased.

Lord_Magnepan
01-22-2005, 09:54 AM
I drove 8hrs (one way) to listen to a 1.6 ;-)

RGA
01-22-2005, 12:10 PM
What else does the store carry - are you not interested because you've never heard the other brands they carry - you might be surprised that the one's not plastered in every magazine actually sound the best and that's why the store has bothered to carry them. Take a look at what my dealer carries http://www.soundhounds.com/ One brand there every single person in the store owns in their own home - and if that company decided to stop making equipment this dealer will close shop after 30 years because they have nothing they themselves feel passionate about selling.

There is no point in listening to stuff in isolation - a caveman would be very impressed with a black and white 8 inch tv(assumig he doesn;t bash it with a club) - and in isolation that tv is a modern marvel - until you look at a 70 inch colour front projector or big LCD display - now in comparison the Black and white tv is basiclaly unwatchable. Moral - make sure you listen to the speakers against somehting subnstantive - go to audioasylum.com and just read through posts about speakers you may not have heard about. Things like Green Mountain Audio, JM Reynaud, ELAC, Audio Note, Harbeth, and probably a pile of others not coming to me at the moment. This is not to say you won;t like the B&W's better you might - but I personally could not go back to B&W - though I still like it against most of the mainstream brands.

spuppy517
01-22-2005, 09:28 PM
are you not interested because you've never heard the other brands they carry - you might be surprised that the one's not plastered in every magazine actually sound the best and that's why the store has bothered to carry them.

You are right of course. There are a few I'm not real familiar with. They carry ADA - ACP - B&K Audio - B&W - NILES - SONY - PHASE TECHNOLOGY - YAMAHA - JVC.

When winter subsides a bit I am sure I will take Mikey's advice and go up for the day (it's a real nice part of Maine to begin with) so even if I don't decide to go with any line they carry it won't be a total waste. But I guess it won't be a totoal waste anyway - it'll give me more to go by.
Although - there is this one store right near me that has this awesome speaker policy, where if with in a year you want to go with different speakers they will give you FULL price on trade in. I thought that was an awesome deal. They carry Definitive Technology
Energy, Klipsch, Paradigm, Paradigm Reference, Monsoon,Vandersteen.

topspeed
01-23-2005, 12:47 AM
You are right of course. There are a few I'm not real familiar with. They carry ADA - ACP - B&K Audio - B&W - NILES - SONY - PHASE TECHNOLOGY - YAMAHA - JVC.

When winter subsides a bit I am sure I will take Mikey's advice and go up for the day (it's a real nice part of Maine to begin with) so even if I don't decide to go with any line they carry it won't be a total waste. But I guess it won't be a totoal waste anyway - it'll give me more to go by.
Although - there is this one store right near me that has this awesome speaker policy, where if with in a year you want to go with different speakers they will give you FULL price on trade in. I thought that was an awesome deal. They carry Definitive Technology
Energy, Klipsch, Paradigm, Paradigm Reference, Monsoon,Vandersteen.
If you are in the New England area, there are some truly awesome hi end shops in Massachusets such as Goodwins in Waltham. Maybe you're going two hours in the wrong direction?

shokhead
01-23-2005, 06:43 AM
That's inspired advice from Mikey. I wish I would have thought of it :D.

I drove all over the state of California to audition speakers before I found what I was looking for. In case your unfamiliar with it, Cali isn't small. Considering most people will hold on to great speakers for decades, if not forever, I'd say the drive is definitely worth it. Speakers, in particular, are not something you should compromise on in your audio chain.

btw, my speakers are B&W's, so consider me biased.

I did the same here in So Cal,every weekend going someplace to listen and then after i found what i wanted{B&W also} i went everwhere looking for the best deal. Its part of the fun. Its the hunt,not the killing.

spuppy517
01-23-2005, 11:39 PM
If you are in the New England area, there are some truly awesome hi end shops in Massachusets such as Goodwins in Waltham. Maybe you're going two hours in the wrong direction?

I think you may be right. I just actually looked on map quest - and Waltham Mass is actually closer by about a 1/2 hour. So I will definitley go check them out! Thanks for the tip topspeed! Any other good New England stores you know of???

topspeed
01-24-2005, 02:36 PM
I think you may be right. I just actually looked on map quest - and Waltham Mass is actually closer by about a 1/2 hour. So I will definitley go check them out! Thanks for the tip topspeed! Any other good New England stores you know of???
Not off the top of my head, sorry. You might try doing a google search or looking in the yellow pages. When I was there about a year ago, I remember there was at least two or three that I wanted to visit but never found the time. I do remember these shops carried some pretty hi-end equipment such as Halcro, Hovland, etc. so bring your wallet.

Woochifer
01-24-2005, 04:52 PM
You are right of course. There are a few I'm not real familiar with. They carry ADA - ACP - B&K Audio - B&W - NILES - SONY - PHASE TECHNOLOGY - YAMAHA - JVC.

When winter subsides a bit I am sure I will take Mikey's advice and go up for the day (it's a real nice part of Maine to begin with) so even if I don't decide to go with any line they carry it won't be a total waste. But I guess it won't be a totoal waste anyway - it'll give me more to go by.
Although - there is this one store right near me that has this awesome speaker policy, where if with in a year you want to go with different speakers they will give you FULL price on trade in. I thought that was an awesome deal. They carry Definitive Technology
Energy, Klipsch, Paradigm, Paradigm Reference, Monsoon,Vandersteen.

It's worth a two hour drive if the dealer has a full lineup around your price range that you can audition. The closest B&W dealer to me had demo models available for their entire lineup from the DM303 all the way up to the Nautilus 801. B&W well worth auditioning because their speakers usually offer good performance relative to comparably priced competition. Whether they're the best for you totally depends on your preferences.

Otherwise, it's perfectly fine to start with the brands available from your nearby audio store. The brands that you listed are pretty well regarded, and you got a pretty good range of characteristics to compare and contrast. Generally, Def Tech and Klipsch will be a bit more forward and aggressive sounding than the Paradigm and Energy speakers. The B&Ws will probably sound a bit more balanced overall and more pronounced in the midrange than the others.

I've only heard Monsoon's car audio systems (very nice BTW), but from what I understand, they make planar hybrid panel speakers for home and multimedia use, which is a similar design to what Magnepan uses. The Vandys have a unique sound because they are built with an almost obsessive adherence to phase and timing accuracy. I wasn't a huge fan of them, but a lot of people whose opinions I respect swear by the Vandys as the most accurate and lifelike speakers around. I will say that for create a dimensional sound and pinpoint imaging, it's hard to beat the Vandys.

In general, that's a good start, and if any of those speakers match your preferences, then you definitely wouldn't go wrong by choosing one of them.