Upgradeitis recently took its toll on me and there is only one prescription for it - give in to the symptoms and UPGRADE!
My current system is no slouch, at least I don't think it is. Emotiva 8.3 towers for mains, 6.3 center and ERD-1's for my 2 surrounds. They are powered by an Emotiva XPA-5 amp and Pioneer Elite SC-07 doing the processing. My room is not a dedicated room, measuring 16' x 32' x 8' and I do have some acoustical treatments on the walls and tri-traps in the front corners. My sub is an SVS PC13 Ultra which I run in 15hz mode. My listening habits are around 75% HT/movies and 25% music. I do employ the MCACC room calibration that my Pioneer gives me but not totally sold that it's doing a good job. No independent crossovers so the universal crossover is set to 50hz.
I've had my current speakers for almost a year and of course, when I got them, I thought they sounded terrific. I think that is mainly because they were such a step up from what I was using. Now that the new smell has worn off and I've gotten more educated on what things SHOULD sound like, I know I can do better and get something that I'll be happy with for many years. So I set out to find the best in my price range which is $5k and my research has led me to the B&W CM9's. 800 series is out due to price.
So I stopped by local B&W dealer and I was there for a good 2 hours yesterday. He had CM9's set up next to the Paradigms Studio 100's so I tested some material on Blu-ray and CD and I much preferred the laid back, warm tone of the B&W's. The Paradigms were just a bit too harsh and in my face. Just didn't care for their tone. I was simply blown away with what I was hearing out of the CM9's. It made me realize what I'm missing and what it feels like to hear "high end". The neutrality, nice tight bass along with detail and clarity that I'm missing from my current 6.3 center. In my setup, pans just aren't as seamless as they should be. Someone walks off camera while they are talking and their voice jumps from the center to the right speaker. Hearing the same scene yesterday on the CM9's, the voice made a gradual movement from the center to the right. Perfect. Imaging was spectacular. As you can probably tell, I fell in love.
The dealer did say I could take home the demo mains for an in-home trial so I will take him up on that. I want to be sure they sound just as great in my room. I do have one problem with the series - I hate the bookshelf surrounds, the CM1's. I do not want to go back to a direct firing surround, as I really like the dipole/bipole design of my current ERD's. I use them in bipole mode mainly. My options would be to go with the DS3 or stick with what I have now. Here are the specs on the ERD's. Can anyone tell me if they would be a good blend with the CM9's just going by the numbers and specs? I think for movies they'd be fine but I worry about multi-channel music.
ERD-1:
• One 5.25" Woofers, two 25mm tweeters
• Sensitivity: 89db (2.83volts @ 1 Meter)
• Recommended amplifier power: 50-200 Watts RMS
• Frequency response: 80-20Khz +/-2db
• Four possible switch postions:
1. Left/Right Bipole
2. Left Dipole
3. Right Dipole
4. Left/Right Inverted Dipole
(read more about Bipole/Dipole settings in the ERM1/ERD1 PDF manual)
• 4.25" deep, 13" wide, 9.5" tall
• 29.5 lbs. pair (boxed) - 11 pounds each, unboxed
ALL ERM/ERT/ERD SPEAKERS:
Drivers
• Proprietary tri-fiber composite cone is light weight and rigid with low resonance
• NBR surround for enhanced cone edge termination
• Proprietary high performance motor structure
• Integrated copper and aluminum shorting rings to reduce distortion and 2nd and 3rd order harmonics
• Flat progressive rate spider with venting under spider
• Cast aluminum frame
• 25mm tweeter
• Wide surround silk dome diaphragm
• High power motor structure
integrated heat-sink mounted on motor structure
• Ferro-fluid cooled voice coil
• Internally damped, low resonance rear chamber
• 4 ohms
So that is one question. The other question is are these ever on the used market? If so, where is the best place to look for them used other than Audiogon? The dealer will not come down from the MSRP of $3k for the mains plus $1250 for the CMC2 center. I'd really like to get a break on the price and find mint used ones but other than Audiogon, not sure where else to look.
Thanks for reading this and I welcome any and all comments/suggestions. Hopefully, I'll be joining the B&W family soon. 8)
My current system is no slouch, at least I don't think it is. Emotiva 8.3 towers for mains, 6.3 center and ERD-1's for my 2 surrounds. They are powered by an Emotiva XPA-5 amp and Pioneer Elite SC-07 doing the processing. My room is not a dedicated room, measuring 16' x 32' x 8' and I do have some acoustical treatments on the walls and tri-traps in the front corners. My sub is an SVS PC13 Ultra which I run in 15hz mode. My listening habits are around 75% HT/movies and 25% music. I do employ the MCACC room calibration that my Pioneer gives me but not totally sold that it's doing a good job. No independent crossovers so the universal crossover is set to 50hz.
I've had my current speakers for almost a year and of course, when I got them, I thought they sounded terrific. I think that is mainly because they were such a step up from what I was using. Now that the new smell has worn off and I've gotten more educated on what things SHOULD sound like, I know I can do better and get something that I'll be happy with for many years. So I set out to find the best in my price range which is $5k and my research has led me to the B&W CM9's. 800 series is out due to price.
So I stopped by local B&W dealer and I was there for a good 2 hours yesterday. He had CM9's set up next to the Paradigms Studio 100's so I tested some material on Blu-ray and CD and I much preferred the laid back, warm tone of the B&W's. The Paradigms were just a bit too harsh and in my face. Just didn't care for their tone. I was simply blown away with what I was hearing out of the CM9's. It made me realize what I'm missing and what it feels like to hear "high end". The neutrality, nice tight bass along with detail and clarity that I'm missing from my current 6.3 center. In my setup, pans just aren't as seamless as they should be. Someone walks off camera while they are talking and their voice jumps from the center to the right speaker. Hearing the same scene yesterday on the CM9's, the voice made a gradual movement from the center to the right. Perfect. Imaging was spectacular. As you can probably tell, I fell in love.
The dealer did say I could take home the demo mains for an in-home trial so I will take him up on that. I want to be sure they sound just as great in my room. I do have one problem with the series - I hate the bookshelf surrounds, the CM1's. I do not want to go back to a direct firing surround, as I really like the dipole/bipole design of my current ERD's. I use them in bipole mode mainly. My options would be to go with the DS3 or stick with what I have now. Here are the specs on the ERD's. Can anyone tell me if they would be a good blend with the CM9's just going by the numbers and specs? I think for movies they'd be fine but I worry about multi-channel music.
ERD-1:
• One 5.25" Woofers, two 25mm tweeters
• Sensitivity: 89db (2.83volts @ 1 Meter)
• Recommended amplifier power: 50-200 Watts RMS
• Frequency response: 80-20Khz +/-2db
• Four possible switch postions:
1. Left/Right Bipole
2. Left Dipole
3. Right Dipole
4. Left/Right Inverted Dipole
(read more about Bipole/Dipole settings in the ERM1/ERD1 PDF manual)
• 4.25" deep, 13" wide, 9.5" tall
• 29.5 lbs. pair (boxed) - 11 pounds each, unboxed
ALL ERM/ERT/ERD SPEAKERS:
Drivers
• Proprietary tri-fiber composite cone is light weight and rigid with low resonance
• NBR surround for enhanced cone edge termination
• Proprietary high performance motor structure
• Integrated copper and aluminum shorting rings to reduce distortion and 2nd and 3rd order harmonics
• Flat progressive rate spider with venting under spider
• Cast aluminum frame
• 25mm tweeter
• Wide surround silk dome diaphragm
• High power motor structure
integrated heat-sink mounted on motor structure
• Ferro-fluid cooled voice coil
• Internally damped, low resonance rear chamber
• 4 ohms
So that is one question. The other question is are these ever on the used market? If so, where is the best place to look for them used other than Audiogon? The dealer will not come down from the MSRP of $3k for the mains plus $1250 for the CMC2 center. I'd really like to get a break on the price and find mint used ones but other than Audiogon, not sure where else to look.
Thanks for reading this and I welcome any and all comments/suggestions. Hopefully, I'll be joining the B&W family soon. 8)
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