[saleencobra]

just picked up a pair of 802d's.they are not blowing me away like i was expecting.i am using a rotel preamp and adcom7850 to power them. i am thinking the adcom is going to take the blame but i wanted some other opions

 

[El_Doug]

how's your room setup? that will have a MUCH bigger impact on acoustics, unless the amp is severely underpowered

 

[saleencobra]

never mind this probably not the right place

 

[Dinan]

Don't take this the wrong way but your electronics are SEVERELY under par for your speakers and power has little to do with this. What you have is a system similar to running an $2,000 headphone out of the headphone jack on your computer...generally tolerable but not involving.

It is amazing how many shops sell people Rotel with these things.

Take a look at some BAT VK250/VK32SE, McIntosh 2102/C2300, Electrocompaniet, or Levinson. These are all great matches for your speakers and are comparable to their performance.

 

[4N6]

I agree with the above. The speakers are wonderful and they are simply letting you know everything that is going on up the chain. McIntosh and Classe are wonderful with the B&W speakers, and are worth checking out.

 

[Cool_Torpedo]

While I can agree with the above, I wouldn't be advising spending big bucks on upfront components without knowing more about the speakers placement, room characteristics and any acoustical ancillaries. Big speakers are very hard to set up and the room is very frequently the weakest link, which can't be fixed by using "better" amps, sources or wires.

 

[zx10guy]

I concur with the room/speaker setup, room acoustics group.

 

[4N6]

In the end, both camps are right. Good speakers only reproduce what is fed to them, so quality ancillary components are critical. However, poor room acoustics or speaker placement can severely degrade the sound put out by the speakers, regardless of upstream components.

That is what makes headphone listening so great. One potential pitfall in music reproduction - the room - is taken out of the equation.

 

[Skylab]

There is another thing - B&W speakers are not designed to be flashy. They are designed to be natural sounding. They do not give you that 30 second "boom boom tweet tweet" kind of impression, but rather they will thrill over the very long term as they deliver music in a very natural way.

Also, they require at least 150 hours of break in before they will sound as they should, if you bought them new.

 

[tarnajiro]

I would be better if you could let us know all the system component. We might be able to find the weak link and identify the problem more accurate.