I thought I'd move this post over here from another thread ("90 min audio cassette"). It is something of a review. Last I knew however, these speakers were not posted in the review section of AR Dig

Quote Originally Posted by PDN
Hey Brett A:

How do you like your B&W 683's? ...Do you highly recommend them?
I really love my B&W's. What leads me to say this is how seldom I think about them. Rarely do they draw attention to themselves. I'd say their strengths -at least in my system- are detail resolution, soundstage, and frequency range (This can actually be disconcerting when i hear the heal pounding of a musician and think something is going on in the house) Music seems to transition through the crossovers smoothly and without fault.

They have handled every upgrade I have made to the components in between them. When I upgraded to an amp with a massive, deep soundstage, they produced a massive, deep soundstage, when I got more open, warmer IC's, they sounded more open and warmer. When I hook them up with speaker cables with crappy symbalance they produce crappy symbalance. Even the subtle improvements provided by AC cord upgrades are readily heard. As far as interpreting the sound from the equipment between them, I'd say they're pretty sensitive, dare I say transparent.

On the cautionary side, I'd say they may exaggerate forward, analytical sounding equipment. (I upgraded my Rotel 1060 integrated a couple months after buying these for this reason) Also, at 15x17x8, my room is about as small as I would recommend putting them in-I have some treatments behind them. Occasionally -and I want to stress occasionally- they seem to swell the frequencies produced by the upper-middle register of some piano recordings. This could be partly my room however as I experienced the same with my old AR floor standers.

They seem to work well for my jazz/neo-folk/chamber music diet and when I rock, they're good sports about it.

Quote Originally Posted by PDN
Wow, do you see the drivers actually moving back and forth with that much power? How loud do you listen in dB's?
I don't have an SPL meter, so i don't know how many db's I subject my ears to. I listen mostly to acoustic jazz (Monk, Coltrane et al) and set the volume something short of the actual volume a drum kit or sax would produce in my living room. Depending on the recording, this is achieved with the volume knob of my 200wpc amp between 8 and 9 0'clock (but sometimes 10).

And yes, you can see the woofers pushing air.