B&W 685 Theatre

yoyopowder

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After a lot of reading and thinking I think I'm ready to plump for the above package. However I do have a small few questions that need answering, so any help on these would be helpful.
The above package comes with 2 x 685 Speakers

View the 685 at Bowers & Wilkins - The World's leading Home Theatre Brand

2 x 686 Speakers

View the 686 at Bowers & Wilkins - The World's leading Home Theatre Brand

Outstanding questions involve the centre speaker and subwoofer. The 685 Theatre includes the HTM62 Speaker. Now the bigger brother, i.e. HTM61 is an additional £150, I guess my question is would it be better to go with this if budget allows. Has anyone any experience with upgradng the centre speaker.

I have a similar question around the Subwoofer, ASW608, do you think Im better off paying the £100 and going for the 10" Sub equivalent or does the 8" provide enough additional low frequency?

All this should bear in mind my room is approximately 40msqr and may be matched with an Onkyo 806 (is this good enough?)
 
Hi,

Have you actually demoed these speakers? I suggest you do. Maybe compare them with similar speakers in the price range. They are good speakers, but everyone's tastes are different. For stereo (music), you also might consider front floorstanders?

Just remember you'll need stands for the 4 bookshelf speakers - wall mounted surrounds might work better than bookshelves with regards to mounting/placement? But looking at your room size, you should be able to place the speakers nicely on stands all round which would be good :)

As far as the subs go... most people here seem to think there are other subs for similar money that out perform the B&Ws - check the subwoofer forum (search for ASW608 and ASW610)... you'll probably get pointed towards SVS, BK ,etc. I think for you room size, a pretty big sub might be needed. Maybe a BK Monolith :D Or large SVS?

Cheers
Greg
 
Personally I think that the 685 theatre that you mention will be great. The 686's are magnificent as surrounds. Greg mentions floorstanders. Sure...you can always do things differently, and purists may argue in favour of floorstanders but I think that even if you're doing two channel music...with the aid of a well integrated sub, you'll be fine for stereo duties with the 685s (not that they lack bass anyway...from all the standmounts I have demoed in that price bracket, they're up there with the best in terms of grunt!)

As for the centre....go for the smaller one. You'll not gain a great deal - if anything from going large. And it will look very big in comparison to the 685's!

The HTM62 has been designed for use in the 685 set up. Whereas the larger centre is designed to compliment a 684/683 theatre set up.
 
I hear you Greg. The problem is auditioning in Ireland is pretty difficult. In the UK you'll find variations and comparisons with little hassle. In Ireland it's a disaster.

McCraque, thanks for the reply. That's interesting about the Centre. Would you have similar thoughts on the Sub, or would you lean towards the 10" or different Sub altogether?

Out of interest would you think the Onkyo 806 would suffice or perhaps you'd recommend a different one altogether?

Thanks again! :thumbsup:
 
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I would go for a sub with a 10" woofer. The 8" will be quite quick and musical but I think that in order to get the welly that I suspect you're looking for, I would go for a 10" - but that's just my opinion.

BK's offer great value for money. Was also impressed with the MJ acoustics Pro series (I think that the old version has just been replaced with shiny gloss black so maybe able to pick up a bargain??).
 
I hear you Greg. The problem is auditioning in Ireland is pretty difficult. In the UK you'll find variations and comparisons with little hassle. In Ireland it's a disaster.

I'm in South Africa :) It wasn't easy getting demo's of everything I was interested in - I phoned the distributors of each brand (Monitor Audio, KEF and B&W) and they told me where to go for the best demo.

At least I could demo B&W and Monitor Audio together.

Good luck :)
 
Where are you based Yoyo? There are a few places in the Belfast area to demo the 685 theatre set-up.

Kildare, but I'll be buying in the North. Quotes from down South are just p!ss taking!!
 
if you get a good discount for buying the package it might make sense to get it all together but I've heard the BK subs are better and cheaper than the B&Ws and they also come in differant woods.
 
Am after this myself, anyone know where has stock of this?
 
I have just ordered the 62 myself, had the same thoughts about going for the bigger one or not, but looking at the B&W website the 61 is only for large rooms, where as the 62 is for small or medium rooms.

From a quick look at pictures on their site, when they say large, they mean it:D, so i opted for the 62, saves some cash, gets me closer to buying the 685's next and I think I would either not be able to tell the difference, or the 61 would be too much in my smallish room.

When I saw it was the 62 that was sold in the theatre package that I am building up to, then it was an easy choice.

As for Stock, I think you will be lucky to find anything in stock, and truely blessed if you get the right colour.
I ordered mine and they said 2 weeks, and thats only because they ordered a spare one for stock, was looking at 6 weeks otherwise:eek: (sucks when the speaker cabinet maker closes!). Still worth the wait IMO, will be so nice to get the centre to match with my fronts and not have a low powered centre, now got to make time to re-watch all my movies again!
 
Ordered my 685 theatre set in Wenge 5 1/2 weeks ago. Sigh.......:(
 
which amp would you recommend with the entire B&W 685 set. Budget for the amp would be under £400
 
well it depends. Personally i got the 61 center, but that was because i knew I was going to get floorstanders to make it 7.1. If you don't plan on adding floorstanders then I would say the 62 will be enough.

As for the sub I use the sub from that package and it has enough bass for my taste. Although i am sure some (bass junkies IMO ;)) will tell you to get SVS or BK, which are very good, it just depends how much bass you want. NB the 685 have really good bass as bookshelves allready, so you need to decide if you want massive bass (OTT imo) or not

As for amp, there is nice choice at that price point => denon, pioneer, Sony, Onkyo and Yamaha, again down to personal prefernce as these are all good brands - I would try to get the most power for the money as the 685 love power imo
 
cool thanks,
The 21 I have looked at are
Sony STRDH800 @ £259.95
Onkyo TXSR507 @ £250.00

Looking at the forum the Onkyo would not really fulfil the potential for the 685. The Sony looks good but not had any reviews comparing this with the 685.
I'm hoping to pop to Richer and ask for a demo.
 

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