B & W, are they as good as they are cracked up to be?

[snickelfritz]

B&W is known for their advanced driver technology, expert speaker engineering and long association with the professional recording industry.
IMO they deserve their status.

[Florian]

In my opinion nothing changed in the last 20 years. The Infinity IRS-V, Genesis 1.1, Apogee's and Dunlavy SC1 are the still the best speakers in the world and they dont use no Kevlar midrange or some papercoated drivers with some nautilus tweeter. To me its all a gimmick since they need to sell their speakers. Everytime i read something about Axiom, Paradigm, Dynaudio, B&W and about some new box and how dry the bass with the crispy midrange is, i just shake my head and laugh because the people fall for it everytime. Just look for a old Infinity Sigma, Epsilon, Dunlavy speakers, or the old B&W Matrix 800 etc... and get it over with. And if you have money to blow and the big room then look for giant planars and experiecne what "characterless" really means.

Is B&W good compared to Paradigm, Axiom, Infinity, Dynaudio etc... ?!? Of course they are, but this new driver and kevlar mumbojumbo is ridiculous.

-Flo

[Peter Duminy]

Quote: "Is B&W good compared to Paradigm, Axiom, Infinity, Dynaudio etc... ?!? Of course they are, but this new driver and kevlar mumbojumbo is ridiculous".


I don't usually disagree with your posts that much - but this time I do.

I have spent many of my years working for B&W in Worthing in their R&D Dept, and can assure you that at no time did we find Kevlar ever to be "mumbojumbo". It has taken many years to perfect the biasing of the fibers, and finding the best combinations of resins to use. It has proved itself now as a very worthy contender for a high quality driver material. Also many other Companies are also using variations of Kevlar such as Eaton Ltd to name just one. I hope this clears up many of the misconceptions I have read from you.

[oddeoowphil38]

Peter I personally believe it all boils down to the old addage "to each his own" so to speak. That is, we all have our own IDEAS as to how a speaker is suppose to sound and like it or not our perceptions(biases) are always with us no matter what. In other words, speaker preference is by far a very subjective thing. Thank God himself for that. If it weren't so we all would have the same exact speakers and listen to the same exact material. I say the heck with that!!! Personally, I prefer a stand mounted speaker that is very open and airy while maintaining superb articulation. Others prefer a more forward sounding speaker whereas others prefer the more laid back approach. Who is to say that one is right or that one approach is superior to the other???? Is there really only one way to define the "ideal" speaker???? The truth is we all have certain things we look for and prefer whether it be buying loudspeakers or buying a car AND thus it is that which defines us as individuals--each having his own likes and dislikes. IMHO, B&W makes excellent speakers and do so on various levels of refinement. I said it before and I will say it again the B&W 602s3 is one of the, if not the best, speakers in the $600 US price range period. Have a great evening.
Phil

[ryanpreusser]

thank you all for your help.....i didnt get b&w's instead i got a pair of NHT 1.5's. killer but lack bass, bigtime. guess ill have to get a subwoofer

[paul_pci]

thank you all for your help.....i didnt get b&w's instead i got a pair of NHT 1.5's. killer but lack bass, bigtime. guess ill have to get a subwoofer

Cool; hope you enjoy. Now we need to start a new thread: Are SVS subwoofers overhyped?

[ryanpreusser]

wats SVS??

[Florian]

Quote: "Is B&W good compared to Paradigm, Axiom, Infinity, Dynaudio etc... ?!? Of course they are, but this new driver and kevlar mumbojumbo is ridiculous".


I don't usually disagree with your posts that much - but this time I do.

I have spent many of my years working for B&W in Worthing in their R&D Dept, and can assure you that at no time did we find Kevlar ever to be "mumbojumbo". It has taken many years to perfect the biasing of the fibers, and finding the best combinations of resins to use. It has proved itself now as a very worthy contender for a high quality driver material. Also many other Companies are also using variations of Kevlar such as Eaton Ltd to name just one. I hope this clears up many of the misconceptions I have read from you.

I am not saying its a bad material, i am saying that its overhyped. I was trying to make a point. There is not much new to build, design anymore. We know what air volume we need, how to absorb resonant frequencys etc... but we need to make NEW speakers that are even more neutral, faster, crsiper blah blah blah and the use of a Kevlar midrange, Diamond tweeter etc.. is in my book a gimmick name that is picked because it reflects high class.

What slogan is more catchy?

Our paper drivers are the neutralest on the planet!

OR

Our krevlar midrange is the neutralest on the planet.

We all know what KEVLAR is and what a DIAMOND is and those materials and names are picked on purpose.

-Flo

[Peter Duminy]

There will be another name that will be used a lot more too, and that is Rohacell for the woofer cones made under license from Rohm GmbH. Excellent damping and strenghth characteristics.



Of course B&W use the words Kevlar and Diamond names in their products, as they use these materials during manufacture.

[kexodusc]

There will be another name that will be used a lot more too, and that is Rohacell for the woofer cones made under license from Rohm GmbH. Excellent damping and strenghth characteristics.



Of course B&W use the words Kevlar and Diamond names in their products, as they use these materials during manufacture.

I think Florian has a point here. I certainly won't blame B&W for doing this, maybe just their marketing department. Does anyone here really think the average consumer knows the benefits of Kevlar over wooven wool, paper, polypropylene, aluminum, magnesium, etc ?
Not a chance.
And the few that do know aren't going to buy into the suggestion that Kevlar woofers are superior to woofers of different material.

At the same time, I have yet to see one single speaker company not "hype" their own products in one fashion or another. It's unfair and pointless to look at advertising, no matter how exaggerated it may seem, as being deceptive or somehow wrong.

[snickelfritz]

The true benefit of Kevlar is in the FST midrange driver, in which the fibers are biased to produce a driver that varies it's effective radiating surface over frequency, and launches what is essentially a square wavefront. The driver literally pulsates rather than operating as a true piston.
The benefit is improved dispersion and breakup characteristics near the upper crossover frequency. A common problem with midrange drivers, which operate over a relatively wide and important frequency range.
The purported advantage of diamond tweeter diaphragms is the significantly higher resonance frequency; the driver is more linear within the audio range as a result.

IMO, the "hype" is mostly just interesting information for audiophiles, which B&W speakers have traditionally been intended for. Pure music lovers will just appreciate the transparent and natural sound reproduction.
The measurements of the latest $1000 603 indicate outstanding engineering; virtually flat response, very well controlled dispersion, no significant resonances, and very clean decay over the entire audio range.
These measurements would not be out of place attached to a $5000 speaker!

BTW, loudly touted frequency response and power handling specs are the most common form of misleading speaker marketing hype, similar to CPU "speed" in the computer market.
Both are aimed squarely at unsophisticated consumers, and usually have little to do with the acceptability or actual performance of the product.

Kevlar, on the other hand is fundamental to the performance characteristics of the Nautilus series, and is unique AFAIK to B&W.
One can hardly blame them for sharing the details of this innovative driver design with consumers.