Advice RE B&W Setup

JoeF2k2

Ex Member
Joined
May 10, 2006
Messages
1,045
Reaction score
25
Points
328
Location
Bolton
Hi

Finally getting round to setting up my surround and buying things, so far have got DM 601 S2 fronts which will go to rears when i get floorstanders and a CC6 S2 center, now in regards to my fronts, what should i be going for as there is may different models and prices, should i be looking at the DM603 S2 floorstanders or other? please let me know.

Cheers
 
Hi

Finally getting round to setting up my surround and buying things, so far have got DM 601 S2 fronts which will go to rears when i get floorstanders and a CC6 S2 center, now in regards to my fronts, what should i be going for as there is may different models and prices, should i be looking at the DM603 S2 floorstanders or other? please let me know.

Cheers

Hello. Well, the DM603 S2 make indeed sense (specially since you chose B&W, I assume because you like how they sound), and you'd put a nice system together.
I'd rather go for another two DM601 S2 (unless there is a reason why the floorstanders should be better from 80Hz upwards...), again assuming you like them, and put them in decent stands. The rest of the money can be saved for a subwoofer, then (above 300 pounds you'll get nice subs already that will match good with your speakers).
 
Hello. Well, the DM603 S2 make indeed sense (specially since you chose B&W, I assume because you like how they sound), and you'd put a nice system together.
I'd rather go for another two DM601 S2 (unless there is a reason why the floorstanders should be better from 80Hz upwards...), again assuming you like them, and put them in decent stands. The rest of the money can be saved for a subwoofer, then (above 300 pounds you'll get nice subs already that will match good with your speakers).

Yes i do like how they sound and some suggested them so i went along with that, so far i am liking them and think they are excellent. Is there ay reason why u say go for another two dm601 s2's? will they sound any better/different being front and rears? in terms of money the 601 s2s would be a cheaper option as they floorstanders go £200+ where as there others can be had cheaper at the right time.
 
AFAIK, the only difference between the floorstanders and the bookshelf ones is the bass extension. Since you will be using a subwoofer anyway, this is not an issue, so I'd go for the cheapest solution. :)

Listen to both speakers and see which sound better to you (apart from bass extension). If they only differ in the bass extension to your ears, go for the cheaper solution :thumbsup:
 
Just to throw in an opinion which will be heresy to many people...

I have a B&W speaker system - XT4 floorstanding fronts, XT2 bookshelf rears, XTC centre and PV1 subwoofer. In spite of advice to the contrary, this is set up with no bass management in my Arcam system - all 5 speakers are getting a full-range signal, and the crossover is set as high as possible so the PV1 gets as much signal as possible. (This is not what B&W advise with this system - they suggest a 60Hz crossover frequency, with signals above this going to the speakers, and below this going to the sub.)

That said, I much prefer the sound of my speakers with the bass management doing nothing. It isn't as stupid an idea as you might think - the response of any speaker rolls off gradually outside the range in which it works, so the fact that I am sending full-range signals to the speakers means that I simply won't hear the bits that they can't reproduce. Bit it also means that I have no signal processing applied in the amplifier, and to me, this produces a sound I prefer - in effect, instead of applying digital filtering in the amp, I am allowing the speakers to do the filtering for me.

The reason for all the above waffle is this - even if you have a sub, I recommend getting floorstanding front speakers. The less bass management you have in the system, the better stereo music sounds (IMHO), so front speakers with good bass extension are worth having.

As I said, the above is my personal heretical viewpoint, but for me it sounds better like this, so I would strongly recommend going for floorstanders at the front and moving your bookshelf speakers to the rear.
 
As I said, the above is my personal heretical viewpoint, but for me it sounds better like this, so I would strongly recommend going for floorstanders at the front and moving your bookshelf speakers to the rear.

Burn him, burn him :devil:
No heresy, just your personal experience :thumbsup:
If it sounds better to you after trying it out, then it is fine.
It surprises me that you get good integration with the flat slopes of the built-in crossovers, though. Then again, you don't integrate, because sub and speakers reproduce different parts of the soundtrack. Now that I think about it, it is a good idea as long as you don't require all the headroom available in your system, because you only need to optimize the response of the sub, without looking at the crossover with the speakers.

Note that you are not filtering out, so you will be limiting the max. output of your system. Nothing to worry about if you don't go crazy loud. If you do, then you'll certainly benefit of steeper crossovers, which will provide extra headroom.
 
alot of technical stuff bein exchanged lol, some of which i yet dnt understand as im new to all this stuff, some makes sense though and i guess its down to me and money
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom