803D versus 802D

[gsengmaq]

I'm in the process of investing in a home theater/music entertainment room. The room is fairly large, some 30x40 feet. I have already purchased the NAD Master Series M15 7 channel amp and M25 pre-pro. I am now considering what front speakers to buy and I'm thinking about B&W 802D's or 803D's. I am also thinking about a Velodyne DD12 or DD15 sub. I would be interested in advise as to which front speakers to go with. I have auditioned both but not at the same time and both sound great. What would be the greatest differences assuming that the sub would take care of a possible bass deficiency in the 803's or is this an incorrect assumption? Also, which center speaker would be the best choice for the respective front speakers? I will be going a little cheap on the rear and side speakers for decorating purposes, i.e. the B&W Signature 7 in-walls. For TV I will go with the new 60" Pioneer Elite.

Any comments and suggestions would be welcome.

Gert

[hifiguymi]

If you plan on using that amp long term I'd suggest the 803D. It's much easier to drive than the 802D and will still work in a room that size. The center channel would be the HTM2D for the 803D and either the HTM2D or the HTM1D (prefered) for the 802D. For the rear speakers have you looked at the CWMDS8 or the CWM8180? The CWMDS8 would be the speaker of choice for the rear (the ones on the sides) speakers and the CWM8180 would be the surround back (the ones in the rear) speakers.

As for the subwoofer, look at the DD15 first because of room size. Finding the right subwoofer is more about the room size than the size of the speakers.

Eric

[moonlightdrive21]

I recommend splurging for the 802D's and going for the JL Fathom F113 subwoofer. See these great articles:

http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/1205bw/index.html

http://www.stereophile.com/subwoofers/1106mitr/index1.html

If you get the 803D's, you might always wonder if you should have picked up the better model and might always have that doubt in your mind.

The JL Fathom F113 sub has been blowing people's minds over the last year. You MUST either go listen to it for yourself or research what most people are saying who have compared the Fathoms with the competition. Start by asking about that subject here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=113

Disclaimer: Because of your room size/setup, you should consult with JL experts first to see exactly which Fathom (s) you would need. Call JL at 954-443-1100 and ask for Ward.

Just my two cents.

Good luck!!
Dave

[gsengmaq]

Eric,

You write "if your planning to use that amp long term, choose the 803's". Are you saying that 160 W/channel isn't enough to drive the 802's?

Gert

[hifiguymi]

Not all amps are created the same so it's not the 160 watt number that's important. For example, I sell Rotel and Classe (and B&W) and the Rotel RB-1092 is a wonderfull amp at $2500.00 US. It's rated at a whopping 500 watts per channel and does a good job of running the 802D's. Classe on the other hand has the CA-2100 that is 100 watts per channel at $3500.00 US. The Classe may not play quite as loud as the Rotel, but it sounds better. The bass is faster and the midrange is much more detailed. The CA-2100 just has an easier time running the 802D's so it sounds better. It's not just about power output on paper, it's about how well the amp controls the speaker and 802D's can stress amplifiers.

Eric

[gsengmaq]

I thought I'd let you know where I ended up. I have purchased the following pieces which I hope will sound and look great.

B&W 803D's front speakers
B&W HTM2D center speaker
B&W Signature, in-wall, surrounds, back and sides
McIntosh MX120 prepro
McIntosh MC 207 7-channel amp
Velodyne DD15 subwoofer
(for now) a Denon DVD2930, DVD/CD player
Pioneer Elite Pro-FHD1 50" plasma (got agood deal since they are being replaced by a new model)

I'm having the stuff installed in about two weeks but, in the mean time, does anyone have a similar setup and can offer some insights?

Gert

[ShadowZA]

Way-to-go, Gert. :T Your front end speaker array matches mine. I think you've invested in a top quality system which, I'm sure, will provide many hours of pleasure.

Congrats & Njoy!

[dave shepard]

Mac stuff.... NICE,NICE,NICE. I really like Mac equipment, not only do they perform great, they look fantastic. The meters really do give them the cool factor. In your first post you mentioned that you already bought the NAD Master units, did you return them in exchange for the Mac's? I think you will be really happy with your choice. I found that the more you give the B&W's (especally at that level) the better they will perform, the more you give them the sound just keeps getting better and more detailed.
My wife and I were out auditioning B&W's yesterday and the 803D's sounded better then the 802D's running off a Classe' set-up with a 5x100 Classe' amp the 802's needed at least 2-3X the power min. to start performing better for me to justify the price differance but they didn't have anything there to power them better. My wife said the samething so atleast it wasn't just me thinking that. We also felt that even the 803's would have been better served with atleast 200wpc min..

Great choice I really look forward to hearing your impressions as I'm on the hunt also.

Dave

[gsengmaq]

Dave,

I'll update this thread when I have auditioned the stuff in my home. And, yes, I returned the NAD stuff. I am sure that it is great equipment for the money but, and a big but, the prepro doesn't support upscaling of component to HDMI, i.e. it is version 1.0 and that's just a little too "obsolete".

Gert

[Glenee]

You Gonna Love that Stuff !
Congrat's,
Glenee

[jericho]

Very good stuff, I also love the combination MdIntosh & B&W

[gsengmaq]

A short update. Instead of the Pioneer Elite Pro-FHD1, I bought the Pioneer Elite Kuro PRO-150FD 60". Am getting the stuff installed Thursday this week after a delay of a week. Can't wait.
Gert

[Sounder]

Another nice thing about your decision is that most dealers offer a trade-up program. So, if you don't like the 803s, you can probably trade for the 802s up to a year. More flexibility that way! I assume most dealers because the few I've dealt with have this program.
Steve

[hifiguymi]

A short update. Instead of the Pioneer Elite Pro-FHD1, I bought the Pioneer Elite Kuro PRO-150FD 60". Am getting the stuff installed Thursday this week after a delay of a week. Can't wait.
Gert

I know this is off topic, but you'll love that TV. The new Elite TV's are GREAT!!! :T I've been in the A/V industry for 15 years and I haven't seen a better TV.

Eric

[RobP]

Congrats on the new system Gert! Photos are a must once you get everything set up. :T

[gsengmaq]

Photos will be coming, if not tomorrow, so the day after. I hope the guys will be able to set everything up tomorrow as planned since I can't wait to take a test drive.
An additional question which may not belong here but nevertheless. I have read that the Pioneer plasmas need to be run up to 100 hours using a Pioneer DVD, does anyone know anything about this?
Gert

[Briz vegas]

Photos will be coming, if not tomorrow, so the day after. I hope the guys will be able to set everything up tomorrow as planned since I can't wait to take a test drive.
An additional question which may not belong here but nevertheless. I have read that the Pioneer plasmas need to be run up to 100 hours using a Pioneer DVD, does anyone know anything about this?
Gert

:rofl: ..............you are kidding about that last bit, yes ?

Isn't that like saying you have to run your B&Ws in with Classe gear.

[gsengmaq]

I'm not talking about the hardware, but about a DVD disc containing, I suppose, material to "burn in" the plasma.

gert

[Briz vegas]

:idea: ok, but that is still a bit .............. :stupidpc:

If this is correct how many folks would bother. I can imagine the thought process of the average plasma buyer

"Whatever! Just put on Botswanian Idol. You're doing my head in with this burn in talk"

[Dmantis]

Who is installing it? I can't wait to see the photos.

[btf1980]

I'm not talking about the hardware, but about a DVD disc containing, I suppose, material to "burn in" the plasma.

gert

I think you mean the break in dvd. Many swear by it.

Here's a link with some info on it.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=583089

[gsengmaq]

I bought all the new stuff from MyerEmco in Fairfax, VA. and they are also setting everything up.

Gert

[gsengmaq]

Alright, here's the current status.

The setup took all day, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., but the guys from MeyerEmco did a great job.
So, first impressions.
1.- The 60" plasma is HUGE, but the picture is awesome. I have never seen anything better but I'm no expert. I have only a Sony LCD and a Bang Olufsen 42" plasma to compare with.
2.- I had to move the 803's around a bit to make them sound good. I mean they sounded good everywhere but to get them just right, I had to move them out from the wall some foot and a half and toe them towards the listening area.
3.- I've had (and have) more problems with the Velodyne DD15. The roome is a little oddly shaped and initially I had some slight booming. Moving it around a bit and employing the built in equalizer microphone to level the output a bit better it is now acceptable. I have quite a bump at 100hz which I would like to get rid of, however. I am using the McIntosh crossover filter at 80hz and no crossover filter on the VELODYNE.

I believe, because of the shape of the room, that I will have to think a bit about sound dampening, cones or screens or something. The room is not furnished yet, we're still waiting for the soft furniture, sofas and chairs, so I'll wait until the room is inhabited before I start the modification.

All in all, after only a couple of days and minimal adjustments, I am ecstatic about both the audio and the video. I couldn't have wished for anything better.

Gert

[ShadowZA]

Great pic, Gert! Congrats again on your top notch system. You might want to run your system in a bit whilst waiting for the soft furnishings to arrive. Over the next few weeks I'm sure that your sound should improve quite a bit.

Enjoy :T

[gsengmaq]

Thanks ShadowZA. Yeah, It'll get a LOT of burn in, trust me :B

Gert

[Gump]

Hey Gert,

Congratulations on a beautiful system. You're really going to love it. I've got the 803D/htmd2 combo together with the Mcintosh MX-135pre/pro and the MC-205 amp and backed up with a Rel sub. Also have a Pioneer 60" Kuro 6010 plasma. Similar system to yours. I'm on the search now for a good CD player as well as upgrading the cables and speaker wire. Took me awhile to tweek/tune it with my room to get it where I want it, but with the right cd it sounds incredible...and I know it'll sound even better.

Is that a Salamander equipment rack? It all looks very nice (I might move the lamp though, little bit distracting).

Enjoy!!

[gsengmaq]

Gump,

Thanks. Yes, I am very pleased with everything so far. I still need to figure out the optimal placement for the sub though, it's OK now but still a little boomey depending on where you are in the room. As I mentioned below, I'll wait to do anything about sound dampening until the room i fully furnished which will be another couple of weeks. Not until then will I know what I have to deal with exactly, if anything. I can agree with the lamp placement, it's more of temporary situation until everything else is in place. I'm thinking some form of light behind the plasma, though.

[jack667]

Great looking system, bet you are very happy with it.. those 803Ds look smaller in your photo for some reason... almost like 803S?

Once the furniture arrives it should all ease out!

[Dmantis]

Maybe the DD15 is to much for your room. What is the size of the room? Maybe a smaller B&W sub would work much better. I never found the DD series to be musical. They tend to Boom and sound forced. For theater they do very well.

If you have a long enough sub cable, maybe you can try a further point away from the system to try to get a smoother sound from the sub. It's worth giving it a try.

[Joey_V]

Congrats on the 803D! I hope you figure out your sub issue out. I know you will though, the DD is a versatile subwoofer.

[Glenee]

Just wait until you get your furniture in before Knocking yourself out on the Sub. One of the things I have figured out with subs on music, is that people try to turn the volume up too high on the sub. This sometimes defeats the cancellation of sound waves by the bass from the other speakers, which in the end will help some with the boominess. Try setting the sub at 1 DB lower than the main speakers on your SPL meter on music. That way when you use in Home theater.The Dolby side will increase LFE 10 to 15 db by the sound engineer with no adjustment to louder the sub. It will just be there. Try and do all adjustments possible from the Sub itself with the least amont of adjustment in the bass managment of the reciever/Pre-Amp as possible if any. Try using a crossover at 60 in the Mac when using this type of sub setting. Got a New Pioneer Elite Pro-150 on order myself can't wait. By the way that it one Kick-Ass sytem.
Glenee

[Stevebez]

3.- I've had (and have) more problems with the Velodyne DD15. The roome is a little oddly shaped and initially I had some slight booming. Moving it around a bit and employing the built in equalizer microphone to level the output a bit better it is now acceptable. I have quite a bump at 100hz which I would like to get rid of, however. I am using the McIntosh crossover filter at 80hz and no crossover filter on the VELODYNE.

Howdy ... a trick to Velo EQing is to place the sub at the listenting position and move the mike around to find the optimal position. When you found it swap the mike and sub around. Easier moving the mike than the sub !!!

Also I suggest try letting the sub electronics do all the EQing .. send full signal to the sub and let the sub sort out the bottom end i.e. no crossover from the Processor. Also set the sub to setting No.4 I think it is Jazz/Music - this is the most agressive setting for the digital correction.

[Briz vegas]

Do you find that you get a huge sound and relatively small picture with that setup?

I would have thought that Shadows setup would give you a more appropriate soundstage for movies. I have my speakers at either edge of the picture and find that this scales the best for a good relationship between what you are seeing and what you hear.

[gsengmaq]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I'll try them all out and let you know which one works best.

As far as soundstage, the placement I have now gives quite a large soundspace (the speakers are equidistant from the listening position forming pretty much a likesided triangle and a bout a foot and half from the back wall) but this is how I like it for music and this is more important to me than theater. I feel that with the center speaker is still sounds coherent and not too wide.

As far as the DD15 possibly being to big for the room, I will audition the DD12 to determine if maybe the smaller one is sufficient.

I am curious about sending full signal to the sub, it's not quite what is suggested in the manual. I have the speaker settings on the McIntosh as small for front and center and the cut-off frequency at 80Hz as per the manual. I don't use any presets but have a linear curve.

[Relentless]

As far as the DD15 possibly being to big for the room, I will audition the DD12 to determine if maybe the smaller one is sufficient.

your room is 30x40 there is no way a 15 is to big for the room. I would suggest 2 DD15 for that room for HT. For music I would suggest not using a sub at all. It has to be placement and lack of absorption in the room that is causing the boominess.

[ShadowZA]

Gert, whatever you do, I recommend that you do not let go of your DD15.

I deliberated between the DD12 & the DD15 when I was choosing. I went for the DD15 and have not looked back. A sub is THE most difficult piece of hardware to sound-tweak imho. It can take some time. Wait until you have completed your furnishings before equalizing and I'm sure that you will notice your sound to be less problematic due to increased low frequency absorptions.

Good luck!

[Stevebez]

I am curious about sending full signal to the sub, it's not quite what is suggested in the manual. I have the speaker settings on the McIntosh as small for front and center and the cut-off frequency at 80Hz as per the manual. I don't use any presets but have a linear curve.

I have the front speakers set to full range large. I do this so I can have a full signal sepctrum with sub or not - I then EQ in the sub with the xover set to either 40hz or 60hz with a shallow slope. This will largely depend on your room characteristics and personal preferences. The EQing just smoothes out the rooms bass response. If you find peaks / troughs higher up the range just set the xover higher up but try not to go much above 80hz and steepen the slope.

This allows you to get the max out of your fronts and fill in any gaps at the very low end... it also alows you to listen to music with/without sub. Using fronts crossed at 80hz you could never do this. To me music at 2.1 is just awesome as I have a flat bass response now down to 15hz.... 2.0 is just bland to me now. The 803D's has a low end range tail off at 35hz which is not particularly low, so a sub filling in the 15-40hz range fits perfectly to me.

With so many music recordings these days using sounds with very low frequencies allot is missed to me if you do not use 2.1... but each to his own!!

BTW the DD15 is not too big for that room size...

[Dmantis]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I'll try them all out and let you know which one works best.

As far as soundstage, the placement I have now gives quite a large soundspace (the speakers are equidistant from the listening position forming pretty much a likesided triangle and a bout a foot and half from the back wall) but this is how I like it for music and this is more important to me than theater. I feel that with the center speaker is still sounds coherent and not too wide.

As far as the DD15 possibly being to big for the room, I will audition the DD12 to determine if maybe the smaller one is sufficient.

I am curious about sending full signal to the sub, it's not quite what is suggested in the manual. I have the speaker settings on the McIntosh as small for front and center and the cut-off frequency at 80Hz as per the manual. I don't use any presets but have a linear curve.

Didn't the audio video company who installed your system perform a full calibration? Thats standard when you get a system Installed.

[ssabripo]

gert, congratulations....looking good.

As for the sub, if you really want a class subwoofer that will not only blend well with music, but give you deep LFE with plenty of headroom and extension, while maintaining low THD, there are several options other than the Velo DD15 (which is outstanding in its own right).

There are several subs that have really taken the standard level to another notch, including the JL Audio Fathom (and if you can afford it, Gotham) F113, the new SVS PB13Ultra (which has had some phenomenal subjective reviews that have outclassed even the mighty Fathom), and of course, the new kid on the block, the Epik Tower/Conquest.

There is the DIY route as well, of course, which will give you pretty much incomparable performance within your budget.

The subwoofer is a critical component, and the hardest to seemlessly blend to the rest. You will need a good EQ (such as the Behringer DEQ2496), some room treatments/bass traps, and level matching and phase calibration.

[gsengmaq]

Dmantis,

As a matter of fact, I have already spoken to the installer and they will return with a full calibration. Maybe the guys that were here were just exhusted after 12 solid hours on the job. They did a "self adjust" of the Velodyne but that could only do so much.

A question, and probably a silly one, but if I want to equaloze only on the sub, how do I disable it on the McIntosh preamp? It seems to adjustable between 60 and 120 Hz but not to totally disable.

[Relentless]

A question, and probably a silly one, but if I want to equaloze only on the sub, how do I disable it on the McIntosh preamp? It seems to adjustable between 60 and 120 Hz but not to totally disable.

do you mean the crossover is only adjustable from 60-120HZ? IF the processor gives you the option to crossover the sub separately from the mains you can set the mains to what you want then set the sub to 120 and use the SMS to crossover the sub. I would recommend just using the processor do the crossover work and just turn off the crossover in the SMS...... now if your processor has a EQ for the sub and you want to use the SMS instead you can just leave the settings FLAT(on 0 setting) on the processor.

[ssabripo]

if you stick with the DD15, then obviously the SMS-1 is the EQ you would be using. However, if you go with something else (JL, Epik, etc), you are MUCH better off with something like a Behringer DEQ2496 or Dolby Labs, etc.

the SMS-1 has some serious distortion and rolloff issues:

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/bfd-forum/6346-behringer-fbq2496-velodyne-sms-1-distortion.html

[Stevebez]

if you stick with the DD15, then obviously the SMS-1 is the EQ you would be using. However, if you go with something else (JL, Epik, etc), you are MUCH better off with something like a Behringer DEQ2496 or Dolby Labs, etc.

the SMS-1 has some serious distortion and rolloff issues:
http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...istortion.html

With the DD series you dont need an SMS-1 as the EQ electronics is built into the sub ... the SMS-1 is only required for subs without digital correction.

[gsengmaq]

Yes, it looks like the SMS-1 "software" is built into the Velodyne.

I'm going to outline how my setting are right now and would appreciate some feedback.

McIntosh prepro set to:

Speakers front: Large
Speaker center: Large
Sourround (side/rear): Small
Subwoofer: Yes
Cross-over freqency: 60Hz (Adjustable from 60Hz to 120Hz)
BC: On (As I understand it, the BC allows full range to the B&W 803's while sending bass up to 60Hz to the Velodyne.)

Velodyne setup:

Cross-over filter: Off (Rationela being the it only gets signal under 60Hz anyway.)

If you think these settings are off or incorrect, I'd appreciate you letting me know.

[ssabripo]

With the DD series you dont need an SMS-1 as the EQ electronics is built into the sub ... the SMS-1 is only required for subs without digital correction.

that's what I said! with the DD series, you won't need an outboard EQ as teh SMS-1 is what you are using (built into the sub).

the point was, if you gonna go with another solution, there are severe problems with using the SMS-1 as the EQ option.