Side-grading from B&W N805, need advice!

[koven]

Are those yours with the story about financial difficulty?

yes.. my financial difficulty is that i have too many speakers and need some of my cash back now!

I see a lot of nice stuff, but how is your power? I heard, over and over again in my own experience and at demos, great equipment turned sour w/ bad power.

hi adam, that's a great point but i'm fairly satisfied with my equipment... it may not be high-end, but i wouldn't call it inadequate either.. my amp is a 100wpc SS mcintosh which i think provides plenty of clean power for my relatively small room

i wish i could have taken this one step further and demo'd a bunch of amps along w/ my speakers... but unfortunately i dont have THAT much money to throw around

i really wish i could have tried some tube amps with the proac's... that could have won me over, but oh well, it is what it is, i'm extremely satisfied with the carbon 7's

Kovan,

I'm glad you are really satisfied with the Carbon 7, and I cannot doubt Fritz's honesty. ( I don't know the man). I don't want to stir you wrong, but he's not the one who decides which tweeter sounds best. It is possible he's just trying to reduce his inventory by selling overstocked items. Then again, we are just talking about a pair of tweeters here.

Don't let anyone decide what sounds best to you. I'm not saying that you are not aware of it. What if Revelators sound best to your ears? After all, you are auditioning tons of different speakers. Higher price tag does NOT guarantee satisfaction in this hobby, but different components change sound characteristic every time.

But I guess if he doesn't have a Revelator pair for demo, then it would be very hard for your audition. Also I doubt you can downgrade to less expensive tweets if you don't prefer the upgraded tweets. Congrats on your final pair (for now). Keep yourself away from the Upgradititus.

JRA

hi JRA, i totally understand your point and it's a very valid one. however, i don't think it's an issue of overstocking... fritz builds speakers to order, he does not have a room stocked full of carbon 7's or anything like that.

and yes, i completely agree with the statement that higher price does not equate to better sound... the carbon 7's are a perfect example.. it also goes to show just how big the profit margin is for those large companies like b&w, proac, totem, etc

here's an interesting fact that fritz told me... he's played with plenty of proac response speakers including the new 'D' series and he told me, they actually DOWNGRADED the drivers on the new 'D' series to increase profit.. in the original response series, they used custom Seas drivers of nice quality, but now in the 'D' series, they use drivers that are half the price

as for revelators... plz see my next comment

I would still want to hear the revelator series drivers though. I have too much good press about them to not want to hear the revelator drivers before spending a good deal of money of speakers if the revelators were is a design that was good and the price was right.

hi harley, i agree. when i called fritz to tell him i'm keeping the carbon 7's, i brought up the revelators again.

fritz told me if i really wanted to hear the revelator series, he'll be glad to arrange something. he's also willing to put the carbon 7's in a tower for me.. further more, he's even willing to build a pair w/ the newest Illuminators, if i wanted to hear it

when it comes to sales, i've never dealt with a better person than Fritz. he is the epitome of customer service and the cherry on top, i can confidently say his speakers are giant-killers w/ top notch build quality.. a true hidden gem/diamond in the rough


anyway, like i mentioned earlier, i'll probably spend some time this weekend to write a final summary/conclusion of my "journey", but it'll likely be focused on how and where the carbon 7's excels over the other options i tried