Quote Originally Posted by Cincy2
I purchased a set of 800D's in July as an upgrade to 801's I had owned for six years. The one fact that is inescapable about B&W speakers is that they ruthlessly reveal the shortcomings of all upstream components. I am driving mine with a dCS front end and Halcro monoblock amps in a room that is liberally treated with ASC tubetraps. None of the shortcomings you noticed are present in my system. They are the best value for the dollar that exists in high end speakers but..... you have to feed them with the best signal you can afford.

Cincy, I hate to say this (okay, I lie), but this is a highly escapable fact. First of all, B&Ws aren't terribly revealing speakers. Kevlar's break up modes and lack of rigidity masks a lot of detail. The whole "ruthlessly revealing" fable is based on the fact that the breakup modes make it seem like the amps are straining or the other components are distorting or are harsh, but it is, in fact, the drivers. Kevlar is a VERY problematic midrange material, especially in its FST configuration. And it has cost many, many people thousands of dollars trying to compensate for it, with mixed results.

When someone says a speaker is "ruthlessly revealing", that means that the speaks are either harsh or bright. It's just the way it is. Measure any "ruthlessly revealing" speakers properly and you will turn up warts in the upper midrange that cause the problem, which is almost always improperly blamed on ancillary components which are several orders of magnitude lower in distortion. How does a ~1% distortion component "reveal" the distortion in a .01% distortion component, anyway?