B&W demo! Wow! Long post.

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Dan110

Guest
Went to my local Superfi and Richer Sounds today looking to buy some speakers and receiver. Firstly, its amazing how helpful the shop assistants are on weekdays compared to the weekend! Nothing is too much trouble for them when its quiet in the shop, Superfi closed up early to let me have a listen to various setups! Anyway went into Richer Sounds first and tried the Mission M73, M7C1 and M7DS, which were quite good to my ears and always have sounded good to me but I found out today that is because I've never listened to anything else alongside them. I have always demo'd something then waited a week till I try something else in a different shop and you just can't compare speakers against each other unless you have a trained ear, which I haven't! Anyway Missions were good, then the shop assistant setup Mordaunt Short 908s, 905c and 903 bipolars and a MJ acoutics sub. Hmmm much nicer than the Missions, dialogue was much clearer, deeper bass (cos of sub I expect) and generally sweeter sounding. Anyway I was leaning towards buying these until my mate said lets go and look at Superfi first. Goes into to Superfi and tells the guy that I'm looking for a home cinema setup and what I'd just listened to RS and he goes come and have a listen to these. Closes the shop at 4.00 and takes me up to the demo room where they have kef eggs setup, B&W 604s, Kef Q5s and Q1's and various other speakers. Anyway, I tell him my room measurements and budget and he sets up B&W 602s, lcr600, 600 rears and ASw 600 all with a yamaha rxv630rds. All I can say is wow, the best setup I've heard yet, blew away the missions, Mordaunt shorts and the eggs which he also put on. Watched about 10mins of blade 2 and I was just blown away at how good it sounded, not exactly sure why it was better but it simply was! I was tempted to ask for some B&W 603 to be put on but the room was similar in size to mine and the 602s were plenty and as the system is mainly for movies he said go for 602s and a sub rather than 603s. Anyway, he's offered me the whole setup for £1400 which I though was a mistake but even when he realised he had totted it up wrong in his head he said he would stand by his price. So I agreed and got him to right me out a quote and sign it and i will going back tomorrow to purchase. Anyway, a couple of things before I part with my money.

1. Would uncle Erics Velodyne CHT10 powerbuy be a better sub with 602s, 600s and lcr600 than the ASW600 which is £350.

2. Is the LCR60 really inferior to the LCR600 when used with the 602 fronts? The LCR600 I demo's sounded amazing and is huge but maybe the lcr60 would be a better option with the 602s?

Thanks
 
Ive just bought a complete new speaker set up , ended up getting the B & W CDM range with a rel strata 3 sub , was much better than any thing else for the money , and they look really cool too.
 
I've heard good thngs about the CDM range, a bit out of my league and price range though I think! Do you mind me asking how much you paid for them?
 
The price quoted is quite good as the B&W speakers alone come to £1,400 according to their web site so effectively you are getting a free Yamaha receiver.

I have no first hand experience of either centre speaker but as a disproportionate amount of the film sound track comes from this speaker it is always adviseable to spend as much as you can on the centre.

Don't forget that it's a big fella so make sure that you can house it before going ahead and also don't forget to factor in the cost of a pair of decent speaker stands for the front pair at least.
 
Hi Dan110 , I got the CDM 1s for £450 , they were only 3 weeks old so a real bargain, the rest were brand new , the centre was £350 , the rears £675 and the stands £175. They were all in cherry , there is a pic of them here,

http://community.webshots.com/scripts/controlPanel.fcgi
 
Glad you like the 600 series. I have been sitting at a desk in front of two 601 s3's and a REL Q100E listening to music for about 8 hours now. The day has flown by... :D

Originally posted by Dan110
2. Is the LCR60 really inferior to the LCR600 when used with the 602 fronts? The LCR600 I demo's sounded amazing and is huge but maybe the lcr60 would be a better option with the 602s?

The LCR600 is a beast, yes. Having demo'd both (albeit in different environments) I am of the opinion that it is definitely worth paying extra for over the LCR60, as long as you can accomodate it. I was using it for a while as a centre with the 601's (!) and it never seemed to overpower them. Centre-channel pyrotechnics aside (the spaceship crash in Planet Of The Apes almost killed friend of mine, hehe...), I think the larger drivers/larger cabinet add more weight to even low-volume dialogue compared to the LCR60. Morpheus never sounded so good...

MuFu.

P.S. I believe dAve6 was selling his almost-new 603 s3's
a short while ago for £350.
 
BTW, forget the LCR600 if the only place you can mount it is directly on top of your TV. It isn't sufficiently shielded to stop picture distortion. Not quite, anyway.
 
After a lot of research and comparison, I decided for this setup:

2 x B&W DM 602 S3
2 x B&W DM 601 S3
B&W LCR 60

Compared to the 602s, which are really huge bookshelf speakers, the LCR 60 seems to be pretty small.

Nevertheless, the LCR 60 harmonizes perfectly with the 602, the voice- matching is excellent.
I don't think that the LCR 600 is worth the extra money in this speaker setup, though I never really compared them. If you went with 603s or 604s that would be different of course.

But I strongly recommend you to demo the setup at home before buying it. Any good dealer will give you this possibility, as the sound of the equipment also depends a lot on your room acoustics.

I'm using a Marantz SR 7000 to drive the B&Ws, they seem to harmonize perfectly.

Anyways, have lots of fun with your speakers.

Cheers
 
Get the lcr 600 or you will be sat looking at the lcr 60 thinking...'wonder if the 600 sounds better than this!'

I went in to buy the 60 and came out with the 600! :D

Taz.:cool:
 
I got to demo the B&W a few days ago and I loved how they sounded. This was running with a 3802 and it was fantastic. I went for the 602.5's with the lcr60 along with 3 Kef eggs for the rears.

I haven't got enough room for the 600's as rears in my room so the eggs are just what i'm after.
 
Believe the guys when they say the 600 is big . Dimentions are:

Height: 204mm (8in)
Width: 545mm (21.8in)
Depth: 311mm (12.2in)

But it really does kick ass as far as resonably priced centres go.
 
Thanks for the comments guys, like I say I was really impressed with the B&W setup, I've just gotta have that LCR600, its just awesome, I don't think I would ever be happy with the lcr60 after hearing the 600 although i'm sure its a really good speaker. Tempted to use a bit more of my savings and have a look at the 603s but then that would probably mean a bigger sub! Anyone got any thoughts on the ASW600 sub by the way, and how it compares with similar priced rivals?
 
Originally posted by Dan110
Tempted to use a bit more of my savings and have a look at the 603s but then that would probably mean a bigger sub!

Hey, this does not make sense! Going for the 603s may mean that the only sub worth getting may be a deeper sub, but if you go for bigger mains you won't need a bigger sub. If anything it means you can get away without a sub (at least for a while).

I bought the 603 S2 and for a long while couldn't afford a sub. I found (after hours of shifting the big things around and tweaking there position) that I got a very punchy bass from them. OK, once you add a dedicated sub (I went for REL150E, which I think is very good - yes, I know there are better value for money but I hadn't found this forum yet!) you'll discover what you've been missing, but I honestly think that with something big at the front you can get a very enjoyable movie experience without a sub.

This means you could save up for some big beast with an 18 inch driver or something ;).

Charles.
 
Originally posted by Dan110
Anyone got any thoughts on the ASW600 sub by the way


Yeh! it looks the mutts nuts in Sorento finish when sat along side the S3 range in the same finish!

;)

Taz.:cool:
 
I have the 602s S3 and a LCR60. I didn't even consider the LCR600 as the 60 only just fits in my Centre Speaker space.

I cannot fault the LCR60.

I also have a pair of Mission 77ds for rears and a Velo CHT-10.

Powered by a Denon 3802.

Personally I cannot fault anything. So if you get some near the above you won't be disappointed.
 
Splinter - I like your setup I currently have the egg speaker package but have managed to shift my sub and intend to use the front eggs elsewhere.
So I need fronts and a sub. I have been interested in the 602.5's - how much did you get yours for?
I intend to go for the velo cht-10 as the sub but I would love to change the centre. I have a 28" Widesreen tosh and it is great and I dont plan to change it yet but the LCR600 does seem very big to set on the top of the tv - any suggestions? And does the 60 fit better.
 
i have cdm1nts as fronts with matching stands,lcr60 as center,600s3 as surrounds,and a pair of mission m70s as rears,using with 3802,pdr8 sub,i would have liked to have been able to use cdm center speaker ,instead of lcr 60 or lcr600, my center sits on top of vcr under my tv ,the cdm center was to (large for me to incorperate) for av use system sounds fairly good in 4mby 3.5m room, but not really happy with 2 chan with 3802and cdm1nts, so i put this down to 3802 sterio capabilities,
 
I got my 602.5's for £360 from Audio-T and the LCR60 for £180. I've got the Velo CHT-10 sitting in my room at the moment with my speakers and 3802 arriving tonight so I can't comment on how the sub sounds with the B&Ws.

I'm not sure how long it will be till I get it all fully set up as I need to redecorate and sort out some stuff first. But you can't go wrong with the B&Ws up front - just buy the best you can afford from the 600 range. You could always just screw some shelf brackets on the wall behind the TV to mount the centre if the LCR60 or 600 are too big.
 

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