Got my N802's!

[Amarkus1]

Well I received my N802's last night and I am very very happy. I picked up a set of excellent condition demos for a good price. I decided to go that route over any of the D series, because I already have N series center and rears. I did not want to have to upgrade all of my speakers. I am upgrading from a set of N803's. Well the upgrade was well worth it and I only just played for a bit last night. I have not put on my Soundcare spikes (left in the factory rollers), or calibrated the system yet. And still I am amazed at the difference between these two speakers. I am driving them with a Krell KAV 2250/Krell HTS 7.1/KAV 280cd (forget exact model #). First and one of the most significant differences is the soundstage. The soundstage is vastly improved without even tweaking the speaker positions. Albeit I did upgrade my balanced and speaker cables to Straightwire Virtuoso's. This is also probably a contributing factor, although they do need to be broken in. The soundstage just seems much wider and deeper with far more precision than with the 803's. Next is the bass, which is far more authoritative. This was one of my main reasons for upgrading. I like to run 2 channel stereo in analog bypass mode. With Krell in this mode you cannot use a sub, and I always found the 803's a little bit lean in this department. Well that problem has now been fixed as the bass is now almost perfect. The mids are much sweeter as well. Much more open and separate than on the 803's. The highs have maybe a marginal improvement which is what I suspected. I always found the 803's had beautiful highs. I find these speakers seem even more revealing than the 803's. This is good most of the time except of course with poorly recorded material. The only negatives with this upgrade are the room and woman. My room is probably to small and not the best acoustics. And the women, well as soon as they came out of the box, first comment "those are the ugliest things I have ever seen". “How can you put those gigantic things in the living room?” So I told her the solution is to convert the garage into a home theater room :W So this weekend I will start tweaking and playing, and I will report back with any new findings.

[johan]

Congrats Amarkus1, I too have N802's with Krell Fpb300cx and its a wonderful match. Good luck with theater construction, I dont have to, my women like the way they look.

[misterdoggy]

Congratulations Amarkus on your recent addition. I too am upgrading and have the Kav 2250. I am awaiting the delivery in the next couple of weeks of the 802D's. I will be using Nordost Red Dawn's xlr interconnects and biwire speaker cable. Does that mean your 803's are now going to the surrounds ? I was going to get the Krell 7.1, but hesitated because I heard that when in Satellite mode it hesitates a 1 second or 2 everytime you switch a channel, because it needs to recognize the type of signal "each" time. Since we watch a lot of Satellite TV this worried me and I went with the Parasound Halo C1. What has been your experience, do you have satellite TV. Also your Krell 280 CD, how do you think it compares with other Cd's out there. I am using a Rotel 1072 which is not in the same class, but listen to CD's only 20% of the time. Are you using a Sub in your system. If you are you probably want to go below 40hz as you are well covered with what you've got. I hope my wife likes the look of them as well. Keep the fingers crossed.

[Amarkus1]

Thanks guys! I will continue to use my 805's as rears. My problem was I just did not have the space to run the 803's as rears. Also I am a big 2 channel fan, so I do not listen to multi channel music therefore I do not think I am missing that much in the rear. I think the 805's do a decent job for movies. Besides I already sold the 803's on Audiogon. In regards to the HTS 7.1, yes it does hesitate. This unit is very mechanical, so you can hear loud clicks when it locks onto a source. It actually drives the woman crazy, but does not bother me. Besides you can set the time for it to stay locked on a signal, so if you increase the time it will not switch as much. Besides that, I think it is a awsome unit, especially for analog bypass. In regards to the CD player I did not do that many comparisons. I was offered such a good deal on this player I could not refuse. A store was closing out their inventory and I think paid about half of what it should have been sold for. So for the price I paid I do not think anything would touch it. But I do love the player and is far superior than my previous Denon player. Plus you can run balanced into the pre from it. I run a Velodyne HTS-12 original series as sub. I am a little jealous of your 802D's because of the glowing reviews. I gus=ess that will be the next upgrade . I personally have not heard them. Best of luck WAITING for them, I know the agony of waiting. And I hope for your sake she thinks they are a piece of art.

[misterdoggy]

Yeah you confirmed what I had read about the clicking and hesitation. If you don't do much satellite tv watching, it would not be a problem, but we are in France and the only access we have is Sky English TV and the French Canal Plus. The hesitation would drive us crazy. We use the system for 80% Satellite viewing, 10% DVD and 10% Cd. I'm using the 804S as surrounds with the ASW825 Sub which will switch below 40hz once the big Guns come. That will be more useful with DVD than anything else. I decided on 804S for surrounds rather than the 805S' because of the choice of going with lower LFE setting all around. I will experiment with both just Stereo and DPLII just for fun, but from what I read the 802D's don't need anything more in the room.

[Amarkus1]

Johan: Is your amp stereo or monoblock? I have thought about switching to monoblocks and was wondering how much of an improvement you get. What amp did you have before, and have you compared your amp to the KAV series? Wondering if it is worth upgrading to your series.

Misterdoggy: I don't think you have to worry about the bass at all. The N802 have fulfilled my needs and I heard the N802 & 802D are almost identical in the bass department. The only thing is they have to be cranked pretty loud for the bass to really shine. I think you find a tremendous difference between the 804S and 802D.