Up to 6k to Spend

[Scotteh]

Morning All,

Next weekend I shall be purchasing some new speakers, I have up to 6k to spend and recently demoed the CM9's, CM5's, CM2 Centre and ASW10CM sub. I was very impressed with them.

However I also have been offered the MA GS60's, GS10's, GSCLR and GSW12 sub.

My question is, with 6k to spend including amp would you guys consider the B&W's to be a better choice?

You lot have obviously settled on the B&W range of speakers after similar dilemmas and I just wanted your thoughts/opinions on which is the best option for the money and why you chose B&W?

TIA

Scott

[htsteve]

Scotteh,

First off, welcome to the forum! :T


As to your situation, you have a very nice budget to work with. Posting in a B&W forum will get you lots of B&W centric responses. I've had various B&W for 15 years now, so I definitely like them.

The best advise is to simply listen to both sets of speakers with some of your source material. Your ears are the best guide (even better is an in home demo, but that's not always possible).

The CM line is very good. I've not heard the others so I can comment specifically.


Hope this helps.

[Scotteh]

Thanks

Yeah I wanted some B&W centric advice as I'm sure a number of you guys have had similar dilemmas when buying but settled on B&W because you liked them. Was just curious as to why specifically?

I've listened to the B&W's and liked them, however with the MA GS range now out of production, being replaced by the GX, I cannot find anywhere to demo them. This is my predicament as a number of people swear by the GS range and to take a punt without listening.

As your rightly said though ideally I should be going on my ears, I just can't do that with the MA's.

I am tempted to lean towards the B&W's though....

[Uav83]

Haha, I made the mistake of posting a very similar post a few weeks back...You are going to receive TONS of different/conflicting viewpoints here. The absolute best advice was given to you through htsteve. Go listen. It's really that simple. The reason why there are so many choices out there is because everyone hears things differently and appreciates certain qualities over others. Enjoy the search, and let us know what you end up with!

[htsteve]

Was just curious as to why specifically?

I am tempted to lean towards the B&W's though....

Scotteh,

Good question. What led me to B&W. I went to my dealer at the time (15 years ago) because they had Paradigm amongst others. I wanted to listen to them and a few other models. To see what was out there.

I listened to a fair number of bookshelfs at the dealer. I was very struck by the overall balance of B&W, no one area seem to dominate the others (which I was noticing on other speakers). Also, I was impressed with how good the midrange was. Tonality was very good. At every price point, the B&W seemed to outperform other models in that price range. I got a pair of 601's and a center channel. And so began my B&W journey.


It's too bad you can't demo the MA GS series. But landing on B&W is pretty good......


What amp do you have or are looking at? With either set of speakers, a dedicated amp is the way to go. Receivers can work, but a dedicated amp will provide the performance you will pay for.


Hope this helps.

[Scotteh]

Thanks for the reply Steve, appreciate it.

It is a shame I can't demo the MA's as this is what has caused my predicament, but I did like the B&W's when I demoed them. I'm just not sure whether I will be passing up a good deal with the MA's as he's offered the lot for £3,999 (about $6,400).

As for the amp, what would you recommend? I have been looking at the Denon AVR-4311 or the Arcam 500 I demoed the B&W's with. Any help on this front is appreciated.

[bigjohn]

Scotteh,

I was in a similar predicament a few years ago, my solution was to spend about 4 months listening to every speaker in my price range and the next one up, and it came down to B&W, Paradigm and MA. luckily for me there were 2 stores that had these across the street from each other, so one day i picked a few of my favorite CD's and listened to all three back to back. to me the B&W's had a much fuller sound, the mid-range was better, and the staging was excellent so i bought the 683's. about 6 months later i was able to get a pair of the MA for a ridiculously low price and tested them and i was glad i chose the B&W's.
as far as amplifiers go i had mine hooked up originally to a Denon 4310, since then i have tried amplifiers from Bryston, B&K, Parasound, Carver, Rotel, and finally Emotiva, and let say that the all of the above beat the pants off the Denon, and the Emotiva amps sound phenomenal especially given there low price. my advice would be get the Denon and use it as a Pre/Pro and get a secondary amplifier you'll be happy you did.

[htsteve]

as far as amplifiers go i had mine hooked up originally to a Denon 4310, since then i have tried amplifiers from Bryston, B&K, Parasound, Carver, Rotel, and finally Emotiva, and let say that the all of the above beat the pants off the Denon, and the Emotiva amps sound phenomenal especially given there low price. my advice would be get the Denon and use it as a Pre/Pro and get a secondary amplifier you'll be happy you did.

Scotteh,

I agree with this. As nice as the Denon is, it's still a receiver with one power supply to do many things. The Arcam should sound better and likely have more current to deliver. But receivers have limitations when paired with the likes of the CM series. A dedicated amp is what is needed. Rotel (personal experience) and Emotiva (based on feedback on the forum) were two that came to mind.

If you have a receiver with pre-outs today, and you are looking at Arcam, then look into one of their amplifier models. Like the P777.

If you are willing to consider used gear, you might be able to find something a bit higher up the food chain in terms of performance.


Hope this helps.

[Briz vegas]

The posts above suggesting an audition are right on the money. if you cannot do an audition you are buying blind and spending a lot of cash. Monitor Audio seem to get good reviews but if you go to the MA site and read the GS60 review in Hifi world (whatever you think of that magazine) they seem very focused on the fact that the speaker has a strong character. Every speaker has a character of course, but after reading that review I would want to listen to it to make sure its version of reality was what I wanted to hear day in and day out. In a music first system that will get lots of critical listening I think a neutral balance and subtle character is the way to go. I think it would be less important in a HT first system however.

Buy either setup, but don't by speakers without an audition. If you want to try neutral sound to see if it is to your liking then track down a Martin Logan or quad dealer. The MLs would be more suited to ht, but those panels just tell it like it is. Be aware that they use a conventional bass driver however. Its a great lesson to hear different speakers to hear what they bring to the table, and its fun to get to know your options better. When I first bought my 705s years ago I knew little of the options out there.

Don't feel pressured into buying until you feel happy that you know a few options and you know which sound you prefer.

[Scotteh]

Thanks guys,

I do intend to run a power amp in the near future as I realise running speakers of the quality that the MA and B&W's offer require proper amplification to get the best out of them. However in the short term I will do with just the receiver to get things rolling, Rotel I've seen mentioned on many forums for power amps, they seem to get a lot of praise. This was another reason for me leaning towards the 4311 as it has a pre-amp mode.

I'm leaning more and more towards the B&W's at the moment, just depends if I can get a deal on them, just after Christmas there was a 30% off deal at Sevenoaks Sound and Vision, unfortunately I wasn't ready to buy at that time. However if I could get them for a price around £4k now I would probably go for them.

I will take another look at the Arcam receivers as that P777 is a very nice looking piece of kit for a power amp as a future purchase.

[leej]

I auditioned the CM9's, but found a good deal on the used 703's (like new), though I would have loved the CM9's. I've not heard MA, as I was sold the second I heard the B&W's. I guess all speakers have a personality and we all have different preferences. I'm sure you'll have fun shopping.
I recently purchased a 4311, intending to use the pre-amp mode, but my budget has me using the internal amp for surrounds, at this time. The many features of the processor, the Audyssey XT32 and Sub EQ for 2 subs (and price) led me to the Denon. I love the Internet Radio, HD Radio, flac decoding and connectivity, too. I do feel that the internal amps are the weakest feature of the receiver, though and like you, I will be looking at external amplification, like Emotiva and Rotel, or perhaps others. I currently use the Rotel RB1080 amp for the front 703's and have been very pleased with the results for 2-chanel music. I’d lean toward all Rotel amps, but I’m not so sure about their class D amps.
I would be interested to see what amplifier you choose, and if you connect it to the Denon.

[Scotteh]

Exactly my thoughts leej, I will want to use external amplification in the near future, but it's not essential right now. The features the 4311 has is also what is drawing me to it, the Arcam is nice, it just lacks a lot of features.

So many choices lol, if I had the money I'd get the P777 and the corresponding AV receiver but at around 7.5k just for the two, it's a little rich for my blood at the moment.

I will make my choice on the speakers depending on what Sevenoaks offer me for the B&W's. If they are willing to match the offer they gave me in January, then the B&W's it will be. If they don't then I think the MA's would be too good to pass up at that price.

I really appreciate everyone's replies so far.

[Scotteh]

Morning All,

I've made my decision and I've gone with the B&W's

CM9's, CM5's, CM2 Centre and ASW10CM sub also gone for the Arcam AVR400, I know this is underpowered for the speakers however I intend to shortly pair it with an Arcam P777 power amp and the 500 and 600 apparently don't have pre-outs?

So I will suffer initially with the 400 but in the end it will be a 400 and P777 pairing

I've also gone for chord company rumour 2 cabling.

Any opinions on these choices would be appreciated.

Scott

[Briz vegas]

Wow, the bigger amps don't have pre outs, thats surprising. Assuming the pre stage is basically the same I would say you made the right choice for those speakers.

Enjoy

[Scotteh]

Yeah the 500 doesn't have them, big debate at the time as to why not as it's a big feature to leave out. The 600 does I think however it's quite a lot more and has suffered from some terrible bugs. Hence me going for the latest, the 400, which has everything I want bar the wattage, but this will be solved in the near future

Appreciate all the advice on here that helped me decide.

Scott

[htsteve]

Scotteh,

Very nice choices. That will be quite a nice system. It will still sound quite nice witht he AVR400. And then a good bump up when the 777 is added.

What finish did you get?

Also, I dug up this nugget on the AVR400's manual (page E-19). This should help the CM9's.

Bi-Amping the Front Left & Right speakers
Bi-amping is the use of two amplifier channels per speaker. Bi-amping can
provide better sound quality than conventional single wiring. If you do not have
Surround Back speakers (i.e. you have a 5.1 surround system, not a 7.1 system)
then you can use the spare Surround Back speaker outputs to bi-amplify the
front left and right speakers, if your speakers support bi-amping.


Enjoy!! And post pictures when they're in.

[Scotteh]

I hadn't checked the manual yet, that is indeed a nice feature, thanks!

I went for gloss black (is there any other to have? :P )

I'll definitely post pictures once they are in

Scott

[Scotteh]

Morning All,

My purchase was made on Saturday and it's all being delivered at the end of this week hopefully

I asked them to hook up the fronts using bi-amping steve, definitely made a difference. I ran various things through it all from Classical/Soul CD's, Tiesto Blu-Ray (trance), Queen Live in Montreal Blu-Ray, there's a brilliant drum, tympani solo and guitar solo on there too.

I also got the Arcam iPod dock too, demoed that with my iphone, I have some high bitrate stuff on there and pumped that just through the bi-amped fronts at one point, all sounded excellent.

Overall I was very impressed and spent a good 2 hours demoing all sorts from movies to music.

I will get pictures up as soon as they are in

Scott

[Scotteh]

Finally got them all in on Thursday, apologies for the poor quality, crap iPhone pics.




Loving the AVR400, just need to get a power amp, probably early next year as I'm in no rush.

Overall I'm very impressed with them, thanks for all your help

Scott

[pcking]

Im running my CM9's with ROTEL 991 Power amp and NAD pre amp and they sound great,even the wife was impressed. Enjoy

Cheers Paul

[madmac]

Nice setup!!. You don't find the rear speakers are a little too close to the sofa listening area?. You might want to experiment with the placement of those. I have my rears mounted on the walls about 4ft above ear level and find the rear performance quite nice for both music and HT. I'm not sure I would want them firing right into my ears that close!!??.

[BWLover]

Throw a blanket over that glass coffee table during serious listening sessions. I do and find it helps. Glass is a horrible reflection point. Very nice set up btw

[Scotteh]

Nah I don't find them too close at all, I've found them to be about right as they aren't as close as they appear. Although I did jump like hell during Spiderman 3 towards the end when Venom decides to let out a loud scream lol.

Yeah I've been thinking about that one BWLover, I will try it this week and see how it goes

[JCLH]

Nice setup! Good choice to go for the 400. The 500 and 600 have bugs that do not get fixed with firmware updates! Since you want a power amp anyway, the 400 is the way to go! Maybe a good sugestion to look at a second hand power amp? Innovations are slow (if any) and even after 10 years they sound like new! So no shame in gooing for a model that is a few years old. Arcam with Arcam always works, but Rotel, Parasound and some others also make quality amps at a very nice price (second hand). Have fun with your new setup!