B&W DS3 / DS6 Dipole Speakers - A Pragmatic Opinion

B&W DS dipole speakers - The Practical Merits of Dipole Surrounds

The internet is always filled with rage around topics that have strong views.
A lot of extremism exists around Dipoles for Surround use.
The pro-THX clan argue it is 'not Hifi' & the Home Theatre guys argue that HT is all about Dynamics, not just 'Hifi'.

I am hoping to bring a rational opinion here for the common consumer...

My view on Dipole in general:

Yes the DS is not 'HIfi'.
But putting a hifi speaker the best way you can still doesn't guarantee THX class perfection in an HT setup, simply because most living rooms are not THX class listening areas.

Ladies & Gentlemen, once you realise that Dipole speakers were designed as an 'imperfect solution' for our 'imperfect listening areas', you realise that there really isnt much to debate about.

Most people cant leave an empty 1.5 metre gap between their couch & the back wall in a typical 25-30sqm lounge that houses their TV & Sound system.
Many people with young kids or pets prefer to wall mount things for safety.

These constraints require us to adapt the 'hifi' technology to create as capable an experience as possible that resembles what should have been 'hifi'.

So we are creating a hifi quality experience, to the best degree possible, by creating imperfect speakers for our imperfect situation. Two wrongs can sometimes make a right I guess.. ;)

Part of the problem is that dipole speakers are defined as speakers that 'diffuse sound' & make it appear from no particular place.
This textbook definition may seem correct, but it is practically speaking too hollow.

A dipole speaker diffuses sound to remove the overpowering effects of angled tweeters, & not to diffuse the point source location.
Its not that a dipole speaker goes off & you cant tell where its coming from.
It is obvious there is a speaker on the top left/right - it just doesnt distract you or overpower the fronts, & when you realise their duties, you appreciate what they can do.

The B&W DS6 - a well designed speaker:

The DS3 & DS6 are actually very similar sounding for their dipole purposes.

They marry beautifully with any 6 series B&W speaker around.

They go low enough to render all the directionally audible bass clean & clear.

The DS3 goes lower than the DS6 by a fair margin, but for surrounds this is less important once we achieve a good timbre match in the 300Hz-3KHz range.

Their midrange sounds very clean & the vocals very clear even in dipole setups.

The DS3 has a tweeter there to satisfy you if you insist that you were missing out on crucial surround information between 8-16KHz before (come on, really?) & want to use it in monopole mode.

You mean to tell me you were watching a movie & the first thing you notice is that one of the dipole surrounds cant render higher than about 8KHz too well - doubt it..

Most people cant even hear past 12KHz clear enough, & sound engineers don't put in such high treble content in the back channels because they know shrill sounds are very directional & would distract the audience.

High pitch sounds are fronts, medium treble is the centre, & the 1-6Khz range is the predominant one used in surrounds for special effects.

So when a DS6 'diffuses' - no scratch that word, its deceptive in this context - when a DS6 reduces the 'directional overpowering characteristics' of the sound, its allowing you to be less distracted by individual pieces of sound & more immersed in the audio image, like the audio recording would have wanted you to.

And I like to stress this - By using dipoles you are getting a listening experience that the audio engineer possibly wanted you to have.

That experience may not have been as good on your standard hifi bookshelf which you have directional tweeters pointed at you in your average living room & create a audio image far different to what the artists intended.

If you think about it this way, you realise that dipoles do have a place in the hifi world.

If you are in an imperfect listening environment where you cant place full range speakers correctly, or are in a room too small to allow creating an envelope using hifi speakers, then I definitely recommend the B&W Ds6 & DS3 dipole surround sound speakers as satellites.

Even if your room has the space, get he DS as they are easier to get right, they will not disappoint.

B&W VM1 - Horizontal & vertical speakers

B&W VM1 - An Amazingly Good Centre Speaker!

I couldn't believe my ears when I heard this speaker.
On the outside, I wasn't expecting much because I normally find speakers with flat baffled enclosures to not deliver great sound.

The VM1 was designed to complement modern flat panel TVs so they are long & flat, but not deep.
I normally find such speakers to be quite poor, so I was very impressed with what I heard.

The VM1 can be mounted vertically, or horizontally.
I was particularly impressed by how well it worked as a centre channel in HT use partnered with the B&W 686.

What really intrigued me is that the VM-1 & LM-1 are theoretically supposed to be identical speakers, with the same drivers in only a different enclosure. Yet the VM1 somehow stands out vocally.
And thats despite it being a flat enclosure, & the LM1 being a rounded baffle.

The VM1 vocals are crisp & it has a lot of detail in the bottom end.
Its a 2 way speaker but doesn't have the muddiness I often complain about with centre channels.
The VM1 wont go as deep as anything new like a HTM62 but thats perfectly fine, its not the target competition.

If you were on a budget, & owned B&W 6 series bookshelves, I would highly recommend buying these second hand for around $100 they are a steal.

The LM1 is also a great speaker, but a tad out of place for centre channel use as it cant be laid flat down, & wont look good laying flat down.

If I had a choice between a VM1 & LCR3 - which the VM1 reminds me of, then I would go with VM1 for small bookshelves & LCR3 for bigger 3 way floor standers.

I wish B&W make a new Vm2 - There is surely going to be a target market for it.
At least the market that the poor M1 left out on!

B&W M1 Theatre speakers

B&W M1 - Looks a million dollars, sound, not so much.

Sorry dear B&W but this speaker is going to get a little bit of slamming, please take it as constructive feedback & not hate speech because I like 99% of what you deliver.
And it saddens me more than you realise because this is the first B&W speaker that disappointed me!

If you want to buy a BOSE but instead want B&W written on it, then get these...

These satellites look awesome, they are built exceptionally well, internal metal bracing & weighty build.
Sliced paper & damped polymer 4 inch driver.

You think youre about to be blown away, but instead you wonder if the speaker is blown!
Gutless, low sensitivity, poor frequency range & missing the classic B&W midrange vocals.
Sadly the sliced paper cone woofer doesnt even deliver as good a bassline as the LM-1 that they were meant to replace!

I think most people will agree that B&Ws key strong point is that their speakers deliver fantastic imaging in the midrange region, this is why we buy their speakers time & again.
These speakers lack the B&W signature sound - then why would you buy them..

I cant help but wonder if B&W get the M1s made elsewhere at some OEM company in China & just put a B&W badge on the grille...

The Aluminium housed PV1D sub is the star of the show aesthetically, but Im not reviewing it in this post because the M1 & the Sub are sold separately & can be purchased for use in your system.

The overall frequency response is really lacking below 100Hz - now you might say thats the design, but why have such a design?
If the LM1 could deliver 70Hz so well that it felt like you were actually listening to a monitor rather than a satellite, why not improve on that with the M1?

Just because satellites are being made by one & all doesnt mean B&W has to follow suit & make a dinky little 'Sony Home Theatre in a Box' equivalent satellite speaker & start pushing them out.

I really hope an M2 is in the works Bowers & Wilkins - And Im sure you wont repeat your mistakes.
I had high expectations from the M-1 because I appreciated  the LM1 & VM1so much.

Please give us back the sound we love, even if it means making a speaker just a little tad larger.
Thanks B&W!

B&W WM2 - More than just a weather proof monitir!

The excellent B&W WM2

For a while, the best B&W budget speaker has been a second hand B&W 601 S2/3, however the WM-2 is a real contender for the best of the small speakers B&W make.

Let me tell you more about this hidden gem.
Whilst sold as a weatherproof outdoor speaker, the WM-2 is very capable indoors.
Its tweeter is not a aluminium dome nautilus tube design, its the cheaper plastic tweeter that B&W use with their 'solid' series & the LM-1 etc

However, the midbass units in the WM2 are not the same as the LM1 or VM1, despite the similar naming initials.
The LM/VM use a 4 inch paper cone speaker.
The WM2 uses a 5 inch kevlar re-inforced cone that is similar to the newer 600 series!
And this makes a lot of difference.. in base but more importantly in midrange vocals.

You get from the WM2 the same warm vocals that you get from a 600 or a 601.
The speaker cone can be pushed a bit without risking distortion.
I gave it a +6db of bass increment & the results were excellent - it handled perfectly.

The speaker has a small footprint but is ported - & that tells us that the driver is capable of moving a lot of air, thus a reflex design was chosen & it worked well.

The outer rounded rectangle appearance make the speaker look like something designed to hang outside a shop or in an open ground.
But if you are happy to live with industrial looking speaker brackets, the rest of the design is quite sleek & very usable at home.

My only feedback is that they should have paired it with a slightly better tweeter, so that the treble was more smooth & went higher up.
It appears this speaker needs to be crossed over lower than other 600 series speakers, & this does seem to affect the sound.
Perhaps changing the crossover frequencies slightly would have made some difference but I wont comment on that as I am not the designer - Im sure they did their best with the componenets.

I also wish they would have release the WM2 under a sibling model, like IM2 - same speaker but with slightly better outer materials, or colours even.
Its simple plastic housing does tend to give away some of the sophistication B&W customers would get with speakers like the LM or VM, & definitely with the 600 series.

But other than that, get a WM2 - it is currently the best small speaker by Bowers & Wilkins.

B&W LCR 60 vs LCR 600 vs HTM 62 vs HTM 61

Comparing the B&W lcr 60 to lcr 600 & to the HTM6xs

For the purposes of this comparison, we are assessing speakers for their centre channel performance, & not so much as a full range front or centre. The LCR was designed to be used in either config, but I doubt that actually worked for B&W the way they expected...

Findings:

The LCR600 is an amazing speaker, compared to the LCR60.

The smaller LCR60 impressed me in its versatility, but not so much in its overall vocal depth.

The LCR 600 blew me away, & reminded me of the HTM61
The 61 has more presence, but the 600 is what the 60 should have been I think.

The LCR60 & 600 are both very big for what they are.
But the 600 makes it at least worth while.

The LCR 600s vocals are amazing.
It is not as muddy as the other speakers of the older designs.
The only thing it lacks is a bit of low level extension, which the HTM62 in particular excels at.
The 62 though doesn't have the openness that the 61 has.

The 600 thus seems like a lovely compromise between 62 & 61.

If you cant afford the HTM61, get the LCR600 over the HTM62 would be my opinion overall.
(we're referring to S1 which doesn't have any series number written on it, not talking about the not the newer HTM61 S2)

But if size matters & hifi audio is the only thing you do, the HTM62 gets the slight upper hand.
But for movies, the LCR definitely clearer for dialogue.

Price wise, LCR600 wins again as it will be cheaper.
If you have been considering a LCR60 & have the option of paying just a bit extra/got a bit of room for a LCR600, I cant recommend that enough.

After listening to the 600, Id go so far as to say that you scratch the 60 out of the equation completely & focus on HTM62 vs LCR600 as your final contenders, or go straight to a HTM61.
On a very tight budget & if looking for a dedicated centre, a B&W CC6 would be my preference cost wise & size wise.

I have high hopes from the HTM61 S2 vs CMC2 - I think thatll be a great battle. I'll audition that someday & report on it :)
Until then, happy listening folks.

B&W 686 vs Wharfedale 121 vs Wharfedale Diamond 10

Comparing the B&W 686 vs Wharfedale 121 vs Wharfedale Diamond 10 speakers

Summary:

The 686 wins clearly & for good reasons.
The diamond 10 have had rave reviews claiming they are great for the price.
If you are on a budget, buy a used 686, it costs the same as a new diamond 10.

If buying new, don't even consider the 121s because they cost the same as the old 686 (now called Series 1 since the S2 have been released)
If you want lots of mid bass & don't want to put a sub, then you could argue the 121 is better for you, but if you want something that sounds like that go buy a cheaper set & save your money.

I would not recommend the 686 S2 unless you really want to have a bigger speaker, in which case buy a 685, or a 685 S2.
I discuss this in my previous post comparing the 686 to the 600 series etc
Speaker are passive electric components, they don't die for years. If youre really out of luck something may go wrong, but otherwise, don't settle for new junk over second hand goodies.

Testing:

Rotel 5.1 receiver with USB input.
I use usb flash drives & CDs quite extensively. I am not an analogue audio purist.
I use my ears, rather than argue over stuff I cant tell apart, or ever afford.
I like the way CDs & MP3s extracted nicely sound, & I see no need to only use vinyl or a $4000 preamp before any speaker testing can be done.

Details:

The dealer told me the 121s have the most bass & are the newest & have had rave reviews.
He's right about everything else, except, they don't sound the best at all.
Typical wharfedale making it cheap & grabbing the spot light didn't help this time because the 121 is not cheap! Priced the same as a 686 (not the 686 S2) this speaker is easy to look past.

Bloated bass. No point having more if it sounds so muddy. The bass overpowers the vocals completely.
Speaker has practically no sound stage!
The diamond 10 bookshelf had better top end than it, but then the diamond is treble bright as hell & has no low end vocals, its a tatty flat speaker.

The 121 was warmer than the Diamond 10.1 I admit, but no where near the clarity of the B&Ws.

There was some kind of disconnection between the bass & the treble in the 121. Think of a system where a sub was crossed over poorly & felt like a separate component going off rather than a nicely rolling bass line. That's exactly what the 121 sounded like.

There is good bottom end base, I can feel it, but because the mid bass is also oddly high, this bottom end becomes muddy rather than clean & defined.
Fix this wharfedale folks in maybe a 122 & you might actually have a decent speaker.

The diamond 10.1, well, tatty, bright, gutless, no real bass, I cant see what people rave about with these speakers I tell you.
Maybe you need to really tune your bass & treble settings or your eq. But what the heck, a good speaker shouldn't need you to do all that for its inherent sound to be pleasant.
The diamonds go off & I actually move my ears away & cringe.

I put the treble down & the bass up & yes they sounded slightly better, & the top end of the vocals was not as muddy as the 121 which is a plus.
The 121 has a softer higher end, but that's all plagued by excessive bass that's probably caused people to keep the volume low, & thus the relative volume of other freq must be low such that the treble seems soft. Louder, these speakers have more prominence, but not in the vocals sorry.

The 686 is pleasant, & still grunty bass line contrary to what you might think. I discuss it in my post comparing it to other speakers B&W 6 series speakers here

If you want a small speaker that sounds great as a hifi full range speaker, get the 686, you wont regret it.

B&W 686 vs DM 600 S3 - vs the 601 S3 & the 685

B&W 686 bookshelves vs the older DM 600 S3

If you dont want to read the whole thing, heres the Summary:

The 686 is leaps & bounds better than the dm-600.

Why exactly that is, Im unsure because the only thing we're told has actually changed is the crossover & tweeter placement.
Sure, that's enough to cause change in sound, but I cant see how such a substantial change can happen just by changing that much, because if just making such a little change can make the 686 sound so much better, why on earth even bother releasing such an inferior speaker like the 600 S3..!

Its almost like B&W made the 686 first & then decided to muck it up & sell it as a 600, just so that they can sell the 686 a few years later.

Testing details:

All the testing was done with speakers used in fronts, not as surrounds.
They were placed on a large strong wood cabinet.

The critiques among you will argue that I need to use these on $1000 stands, but sorry guys my style of auditioning is that I compare things in standard operating conditions & highlight their differences.
Things don't have to be taken to Abbey road studios each time for a test.
End of the day a good speaker will sound better than the inferior speaker. As long as the testing conditions such as placement, amp, wires, room dynamics etc stay the same & we don't have any background noise, I feel the test is conducted accurately enough.

They were first tested without a sub with the speaker size in the amp was set to large, so nothing would be cut out or cross over.
And then with a sub (crossed over at 60Hz from the amp) with the size set to large, never small.
The sub was a simple B&W AS-1 which I discuss in this post here (set to music mode).

The amp used was not as good as I would have liked but I must say that the Kenwood KRF rated at 140Wpc had plenty of power to drive these & get those vocals out which my lower powered Technics could not achieve, which we connected at the end just for fun to see how much degradation there would be.

But the good thing is that this less than ideal amp, we still got the clear winner, & goes to show you don't need to have a $2000 amp to do the sound test.

On a side note:
This amp sounded much much better than anything out of Yamaha. I still cant see why Yamaha is such a recommended brand, its a good 'fail safe default' but I have yet to actually like any of their hifi products.
Even onkyo which was once considered second class, makes better sounding stuff these days, for cheaper...

First the DM 600 S3

The Good:

The sound is warm. The detail is there & you can tell the instruments apart, but not as much as the 686.
The sound matches nicely with cheaper speakers, like a cheaper centre, the 686 demands you to do better. Yes you cant quite call it a plus I guess because it means the speaker is like a cheaper crappy one, but sometimes if you have a small budget & want to just get slightly better fronts without breaking the bank or having to upgrade everything, this could cut it.
The speaker is longer than 686 but still quite compact & not as deep, this makes it look nicer when close to a TV or wall mounted.
The grills are the older style, far easier to detach than the new tight thin studs on the 68x series that break too often.

The Bad:

The vocals are poor, rather gutless, no real bassline in them, no depth in the vocals, in line with the 685.
The bass overall is very poor, get a sub. Not just bottom end, but even mid bass suffers.
See my previous post mentioning how I disliked the new 685 to the older 601 in comparing the 685 vs 601 here.
The speakers seem less sensitive, I could not hear echos & transitions in the 600 that I can with the 686.

The mighty 686

The Good:

The sound is beautifully detailed.
The vocal are rich, deep, & clean.
The bass is mind-blowingly good from a speaker this small.
Remember we are not talking about just mid-bass, these babies can actually go low enough to not need a sub, if properly placed!
That's amazing, most people tell you to that you will certainly need an ASW 608 with these, but with 685 you might get away. What non-sense, the 686 is infact better!
If you tell me the 686 needs sub, then the 685 needs it even more.
If you want something small, this is it.
Don't bother with the wharfedale 121 which some people love to recommend just because its slightly newer. Check this post here comparing the B&W 686 to the Wharfedale 121 & the Diamond 10, where I discuss how the wharfedale 121 has the most bass boomy bass, but not half the definition & vocal detail the 686 has.

In the B&W world I compare this speaker to the 601, & not the 685, because I feel the 601 is better than the 685.
I discuss why in my previous post comparing the 685 vs 601 here

So its a little less open than the 601 but Id rather have this in a speaker with its tiny foot print then have the same issues in a bigger 685.
I would say that the vocal depth & slight loss of imaging in larger rooms make the 601 a better speaker for the mid vocal detail, but otherwise these 686s are nice.
Again, let me clarify that everything good about the 686 is impressive simply because of its small size.
If these speakers were large, this would be a very different kind of review.

Quite senstive, you can hear sounds that you cant in any other speaker, dare I say not even in the 601 which I also recommend.

The Bad:

The list of bads may seem long, that's just due to the details, very little wrong with it.

The sound is a little less open, so the mid vocals is good but the higher end slightly less so.
Take my numbers with a grain of salt, but it feels like the response is great up to 2Khz, not so good from 2-4Khz, & then good again. This is what it feels like, & quite likely not the fact, please feel free to measure & let me know how far off I am.

You truly are better off using these in small-medium rooms. In a large room get the 601 at least.

The imaging is definitely inferior in larger rooms, making placement rather critical.

Rotation inward toward the centre does not help very much either.
The sound stage they create is not very spectacular & you need to move them further apart in medium-large room while still being close to them (which is difficult) to get anything out of them.
So to clarify, in a room say 5m x 5m, youd have to place the speakers 4m apart, & be only 3m away from them, weird but it works. If you go back to 4m, the sound changes.

The interesting synergy between the 68x & the 60x series

In this previous post comparing the 601 to the 685, I recommended the 601 over the 685.
The opposite has happened here. How could this be?
I cant help but think there is some kind of product development strategy going on here.
Make the 601, goof up the 600 - tick
Make the 686 goof up the 685 - tick
Make the 685 s2 & goof up the 686 s2 - tick
At this rate, next we'll have:
Make the 686 s3 & goof up the 685 s3.
So you could either buy the 685 S2 or wait for the 686 S3 - OR, save the dosh & buy a 686 (not the S2)

The new 686 S2

I did not audition these properly except for a slight listen, & frankly I didn't want to because I fundamentally cant make sense of why B&W did what they did to a good speaker.
Lets get something straight, the whole point of the 686 was to make the speaker as small as it could be, & yet sound good.
Why make it longer, & so long that its the same size as the 685!

You may argue that its not just smaller but also cheaper, but lets be honest, if you can afford a $900 686 S2 then you can afford a $1100 685.
And if you are crunching on a budget, you wont touch the new ones anyway & buy second hand.

Sure, front porting it opened a whole lot of placement options & would improve bass, but as above, the 686 already delivers enough bass from a compact monitor & if you wanted more bass, you would attach a sub anyway, most of us do.
So the design philosophy doesn't make sense to me, happy to stand corrected though.

Sorry Bowers & Wilkins Im ditching a bit of dirt at you folks in this post compared to my other posts, but as much as I like your products, my reviews are very honest & unbiaised.

Sure the new tweeter is a welcome addition, but that has nothing to do with front porting a speaker & making it 2 inches longer. It kills the whole point of having a discrete little surround monitor.

You are welcome to challenge any of my opinions, Im always happy to stand corrected.

B&W LM1s as surrounds with 6 series speakers

Reviewing the LM1s as fronts as well as surrounds

The B&W LM1 may very well be a great starting point for hifi on a budget, but frankly if you're on a budget & want fronts, get the inexpensive B&W 601 S2/S3. Please read my last post here to get some more details on that.

If you want to place them on the wall, direction them, & want a great overall speaker with a tiny foot print that doesnt sound like a tatterbox bose satellite, then the LM1 is probably your best choice.

Its not that the the LM1s wont do a good job as fronts, but the 601 will outperform as its a true full range front bookshelf rather than a small speaker that was basically designed for those that have to work with smaller sapces & cant have its bigger brothers. So LM1 would be your only real choice if you couldnt afford the smaller 686 bookshelf (which I havent owned but have been impressed by)

The LM1 has a few advantages:

1) Easy to mount & orient with built in rotating mount cum stand mechanism

Though its not impossible to buy speaker mounts that can do the same, its just nice to have a speaker that comes with one of these, so that you dont need to make holes or modifications of any kind & can simply find a suitable place to hang them off.
The wall mounts rotate to become stands, so any flat surface is ok, & you can rotate them for a beautiful lineup to the listener ear.

2) Extremely good bass for what is a small speaker

Do not under-estimate this baby. Those small drive units have a fair bit of power. They will like your grunty amp dont you worry, & they will deliver that low end nicely. The mid bass is not as smooth, but the deep end of the bass is superb & clean. Yes, you will need a sub when you get serious, but my point is that this speaker isnt a clatter box tweeter inside a piece of plastic. This is a REAL speaker!
It doent roll-off as nicely with a small sub like the b&w asw608 that I was using, but since I wasnt going to use them for fronts on the long run, it didnt matter too much.

3) Beautiful timbre matching with the new 6 series speakers - even the floor stander 683/684!

Not often will a little bookshelf do justice to a front thats way out of its league. This little bookshelf is a different story. In HT setups, for almost any movie, the LM1 is more than adequate with a well crossed over sub. For hifi music, a bigger bookshelf is slightly better, but not by a lot.
Its nice when your surrounds dont sound a world apart to your fronts & center.

If you can afford it & have the sapce to use the 685/686/601 for surrounds, then they are definitely better, its all about what you can have in the LM1 for its small size.

I havnt yet auditioned the new M-1 & Lm-1 side by side, but I doubt they will be as good at delivering the bottom end. Most people have agreed the M1 is a tatty speaker. I hope it doesnt remind me of something from a typical Sony 5.1 HT in a box stuff.
Do you own a M-1? What do you think? What amp/sub do you use?

B&W 601 S2 vs B&W 685

Bowers and Wilkins DM 601 S2 S3 vs 685

If you are out for a bookshelf, & dont know if the Bowers & Wilkins 601 is a good buy compared to the newer 685 then I have good news.
Get the cheaper older speakers!!

I would go so far as to say that even if you can afford the new 685s, save the dosh & buy the older 601 S2/S3.
If you have a good floor stander like the 683/684 & want to use the 685s for surrounds, the you might have some marginal benefit in going with 685 as there is the probability of better timbre matchting, but I personally doubt you would tell them apart in surround use anyway...

Advantages of the older B&W 601:

1) Better bass

I think its the bigger cone that helps, but the bass out of the 601 sounds quite smooth.
It has a particularly nice roll over with the B&W ASW 608 subwoofer.
If you're using bookshelves for mains, I highly recommend the ASW 608, its one awesome sub & often a tad under-estimated due to its small size, but dont let that micro footprint fool you.
Have a read of my article on the Bowers & Wilkins ASW608 sub woofer here.

2) Better Vocals

Contrary to what a moajority of reviews seem to find, I felt the newer speakers actually had an unpleasant sharpness in the vocals. You want frank sinatra to sound crisp, but not shrill, if you get what I mean. The older speakers were significantly mellow & had the signature bowers and wilkins sound of warmth that we usually like. Maybe the older bigger cone was more mellow, but there is definitely a lot about the new 685 vocals that I wasnt impressed with.

4) Cheaper to buy now!

The older speakers are cheap, & being quite under-rated are often selling for a couple of hundred dollars on trademe & eBay. They are the best bargain hifi speaker for anyone on a budget, or new to hifi.

I cant say if the 601 S3 woulc be the same as the S2, but given they both share the newer tweeter & what looks like the same bass/mid drivers, I would hope they sound similar.
The 601 Series 1 has older drivers & I havt tried those.

Any of you folks tried the 601 with the golden tweeters? Are they as good as the newer 601 Series 2 & series 3?

Let me know what you think, & what amp you were using.

Creating Punchy bass from the Sub Woofer

Sub Woofer tuning for clean & fast bass

In this post I share some techniques I use when optimising speakers with sub woofers in situations when the bass seems too muddy. 

Its like everything is hammering the bass but there is no distinct beat & all you hear is a thunderous vibration.

Many Home theatre & audio enthusiasts have faced problems with bass cleanup at some stage of their setup, & hopefully some of these tips will help investigate & fix your particular issues.

When I say punch & mid bass, one would assume I want things to sound like a car boom box, but thats not the case.

There is no shame in expecting better or more amounts of bass, but in some audiophile forums if you bring up the subject of more bass, they assume your're an idiot who has no appreciation of natural flat music.

I will state a few steps to try out to get more out of your HT setup.

The Scenario to demonstrate techniques with:

Ill use a scenario that I found most challenging to get right, & thats when you use a floor stander that can go almost as low the bloody sub in the first place, though not the same amount of db in those low frequencies.

The process works with any speaker, its just harder with floor standers that have a deep bottom end.

Im not a fan of automatic stuff, its never perfect. But these days, its a good start.

Audyssey, MCACC, YPAO etc all get you started because they give you a 'real' frequency indication of what has been done from the perspective to get things flat. This is needed so that you can then only make the enhancements you need rather than have to fix too many issues at once.

The Factors

CrossOver frequency:

No factor has more impact on your overall bass than cross over frequency.

You want to set the crossover to a point where the main speakers & your sub have a slight overlay in certain frequency.

Conventionally, you would check the frequency response & match them such that the sub takes over what the front cant handle. But the problem can often be that the whole setup creates flat bass that can be measured by a machine as being audible across the entire spectrum, but not necessarily punchy bass that has a presence with an attack, rather than just vibration you can feel in your heart.

Eq setting in your receiver:

If your receiver has an auto calibration system, start with that. It will even out the fronts so at least they are set to a reasonably 'flat' starting point, so you know what parameters to increment.

Woofer Volume:

I would recommend setting the woofer volume to 30% before firing up your auto calibration system.

 

B&W HTM61 vs HTM62 vs LCR60 & CC B&Ws

B&W HTM61 Centre Channel Speaker

No centre speaker in the entry B&W linieup has a more commanding presence than the beautiful & powerful HTM 61.

But when you throw that kind of money & sacrifice so much WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor), you want to ensure it was all worth it.

If you are not sure what centre you need, or just cant afford a HTM61 or dont have enough space for the HTM 61, & want to consider the others B&W centres, then please read my previous article on HTM62 vs LCR60 vs CC6 vs LCR3 here.

This article compares the HTM61 to the HTM62, to analyse if people with the floor standers truly are better off with the bigger centre.

The primary objective for me upgrading to the 61 was NOT bass, it was the FST midrange.

The main reason I bought the 683 over the 684 was NOT the 2 woofers, it was the FST midrange!

So is the HTM61 significatly better than the HTM62, & worth the extra cost & space?

Short answer, YES!! The HTM61 is leaps & bounds better than any other 6 series centre speaker.

It is better in almost every way. The 3-way design has proven itself to be the king again.

Rarely would one suggest taking a stereo source & upscaling it to DD PL2x 5.1 as being worthy to test a centre speaker. But on this speaker, it actually makes a huge improvement.
Frank Sinatra never sounded this good out of the other speakers I have had.

I was simply playing out of a USB drive off my Marantz SR6004 with MDAX & Audyssey Flat turned on, & there is extensive improvement on the vocals.

If you have the B&W 683 & can afford the HTM61, & you have the approval of your lady to place a tank under your TV, then I have no doubt in recommending the HTM61.

Every other 6 series speaker is second class in comparison. The HTM 61 has met my expectations, & I despite it looking rather out of place under my TV, I dont mind it as the sound is brilliant.

I would also go so far as to recommend the HTM61 with 685 or 686. A lot of people ask me if a large centre will 'overpower' thier fronts. This is almost never a problem in my experience, because your centre channel levels can always be set down in your receiver. The timbre matching will not change with any new 685 / 686 + htm61 / htm62 lineup.
And contrary to opinion, you very much want a centre that is capable even for movies, because a lot of full range content is put through it.
The centre channel is NOT just dialogue, tough that is the main purpose in the original specification, it is no longer the norm. Sound engineers are putting a hell of a lot of content through it, & most tiddly centres are just dying when it comes to delivering all that.

So no matter what speakers you have from the new 6 series lineup, be it the 683, 684, 685, 686 or even the LM1, VM1, DD1! I would say go with the best centre you can get, it will do your systems justice & not cause any harm.

I had very high hopes from the HTM 61 & it is the one speaker that I really expect to blow my soundstage out of this world & one should not be able to decipher dialogue moving between the drivers.
 

This 'dialogue' also applies to multi channel DTS music DVDs which are my main use for my HT, so when I hear Don Henley's voice or his guitar in the Hell Freezes Over DVD from the centre channel, it should sound no different to the 683 fronts when the guitar is recorded for the front channels within the mastering of the same song. The sub crossover should be only a few Hz off from the Floor standers & I want to hear the 60-70Hz bass coming from the centre in a clean & rich prominent way.

The opening track on that DVD is a good starting test.

I am glad it has worked out.

Next, I will move to Starwars Ep 3 to check if Anakin sounds the same as his voice moves through all 5 speakers in the opening battle scene.

More coming tomorrow.

B&W ASW608 sub woofer

The B&W ASW-608 is every bit a sub you want, without the size!

Something so compact never sounded this good!

An elegant 8" woofer may seem a bit wimpy, but despite its small size, it makes a commanding pair even with my B&W 683's

This is a real gem of a speaker especially if you are hard pressed for cash,or space.
This little sub is very worthy of consideration for those who would buy the heavy weight ASW610 in the perfect world, but cant.

Its a sealed enclosure design.

I appreciate there are theories around how the right kind of baffle ports play a big role is bass, but in my experience, a good music oriented sub has almost always been a sealed unit.
The bass is crisp, clean & not hollow.

I dont like speakers that just vibrate under the pretext of deep bass.

Best for:

Hi-fi music is what this little baby was made for, & with the intention of pairing your 685 or 686 class bookshelf. It does that job better than you might imagine, please do audition it.
In my opinion, it suits the 684 & 683 just as well.

The sound between 50-80Hz is rich & deep.

I would highly recommend this sub even to those considering a velodyne sub or people who own a different brand of main speakers.

The B&W manual suggests placement on one side of the centre speaker, just before the front, for best music performance. But in my personal opinion, it sounds much better in the corner.
Given the fact that there is no bass port, it may be the reason the bass sounds better in the corner.

Some disadvantages, though minor:

As expected, the 8" cone is not designed to be delivering sub 30hz bass at its peek & will sometimes rumble a bit rather than being clean.

The mid bass is fast to a point that the enclosure creeks a bit. It gives the impression of being so tight that something is pulling it aggressively, sometimes this makes the bass sound like it ended abruptly.

This is a complaint I also have from the mid bass of my much loved B&W 683s.

The unit gets very hot rather fast even though I use it at only 30% volume. Not a safety issue as its within operating temperatures & wont burn you, but its something that could be improved.

2 of the readers have had their amps blown within unreasonable time, as per their comments below, which is not very good given the asw 608 though entry level is not a 'cheap & crappy' brand. One would expect it to last longer.

It is also not fair to warrant the electronics for lesser amount of time then the speaker driver.

B&W should look into this, & consumers should be aware of this before they buy an asw 608 sub woofer.

Do you own a ASW608? What are your thoughts on its performance, what do you pair it with?

B&W HTM62 vs B&W LCR60 S3 vs B&W CC6 S2 vs B&W LCR6 - The battle for the middle

In pursuit of the best overall B&W centre channel speaker

If you own a Bowers & Wilkins 6 series home theatre system, you might have struggled to find the perfect centre channel speaker, thats perhaps not as large & as pricy as the 3-way HTM61.
You might want a HTM61, but in the size dimensions of the HTM62 so that it doesnt look like you have a suitcase sitting under your TV.

Firstly, if you can afford it & have the space for it, the HTM61 is definitely the best of the lot.

Please have a read of my comparison between HTM61 the 3-way giant &, everybody else, here.

Its the only true 3-way centre channel speaker & in my experience, 3 way speakers have always impressed me over their 2 & 2.5 way counterparts.

If not HTM61, then read on...

I started with an LCR 60 S3, downgraded to a CC 6 S2, further downgraded to a LCR3, & then upgraded to a HTM62.

My current setup is:
Bowers and Wilkins 683 floor stander fronts
Bowers & Wilkins HTM 62 centre channel
B & W LM1 rear surrounds
B&W ASW608 8" sub woofer
Marantz SR-6004 7.1 ch Receiver (110W RMS per ch)

My recommendations (if you dont want to read the whole article):

Best overall value:
B&W CC6 S2

Most versatile performance:
B&W LCR60 S3

Best movie dialogues (you dont have to strain to hear every word):
B&W LCR3

Best for high quality music:
B&W HTM62

Ok, details on each speaker...

Again, if you have the money & the space, (& the wife approval to place a behemoth under your TV), then please save yourself the hassle & go buy a HTM61.
For the rest of us mortal folk, read on.

HTM62:

The Good:

Excellent overall performance, the new speaker truly is worth it.
The best timbre matching for the new 683 & related family speakers
Excellent detail in the mid bass & mid treble, very real sound
Best for hifi music audio

The Bad:

Not as open in the middle section of the vocals
The same muddy vocal issue that plagues other 2-way B&W centers affects this one.
Excessive LF response

 

LCR60 S3:

The Good:

Very good open vocals
Excellent separation between different instruments & speech
A true all range speaker, that really can be a L C R
No dullness, provides a clean full sound
Worth trying out as centre if you have a CM series bookshelf configuration, & are on a budget

The Bad:

A tad bright at the top.
Lacks mid bass.
The bass doesnt deliver good extension at the bottom.
Not the best timbre matching for 6 series floor standers.
Too big for what is not best use of that air volume.

CC6 S2:

The Good:

Very good timbre matching for 6 series floor standers.
Decent bass extension at the bottom.
Vocals have a rich depth, the LF extension gives a clean sound in surround music.
Overall a neutral sound, a true centre channel speaker.

The Bad:

Tad muddy on the mid-range vocals.
A bit too warm all over despite falling in the neutral category.
Bottom bass is not fast, everything booms for longer than you'd sometimes like.

LCR3:

The Good:

Very good sound for the small size & price.
Timbre match almost any 6 series speaker, even the big floor-standers, which for the price is an awesome result!
Vocals are very clear & sharp compared to other cheap speakers, easy to use for movies.

The Bad:

Almost no real low end bass, vocals in hifi music sound a tad gutless.
Not the most neutral sound, & a bit of dullness at the very top end.
Not a rich sounding speaker, but if you have 6 series bookshelfs, this is a great choice.

So there you have it, my little bit of experience with the B&W centres. Was it useful, please let me know your comments so we can make this article even better.

Which ones have you got/used? Im tempted to mix the mighty CM Centre 2 with the 683, anyone tried that yet? Sounds a tad silly, but I love crisp dialogue & I think the cmc2 will be an interesting upgrade... all in good time dear friends, all in good time! :)

Bowers & Wilkins 683 Speakers

The B&W 683 is a true 3-way speaker. & trust me, 3-WAY is 3 WAY! Period.
2.5 way designs will always be good when well made, but the vocal clarity of a 3-way speaker has yet to be beaten by a 2-way or so called '2.5 way' design.

As usual, these are merely my opinions & experiences, no one is paying me to write these out.

With its imposing look comprising 2 aluminium dome woofers, it may appear that the selling point is the low end. Youre right to some extent, but thats not the real kicker.

The real gem in the 683 is the FST midrange driver. This FST speaker is worth every extra dollar you pay for the 683 over any other speaker in the 6 series line-up.. ever!
The FST is what makes the 683 everything it is, without the FST, you would buy a 684.

The FST creates the most brilliant sound stage in the entry level B&W lineup. It has brilliant imaging. A note here, I find that despite the 683 manual suggesting placing speakers 1.5-2metres apart, I place mine 3 metres apart & feel the results are better, again this could be a personal thing.

Also, tilting these speakers slightly toward the listener centre point is absolutely crucial. You will not get the same sound stage if you keep them flat. The manual suggests rotation toward the listener if using for hifi audio & keeping them straight if home theatre movie use, but I just keep min tilted all the time because music is my main use.

The FST driver produces the most beautiful clean & crisp vocals without that annoying brightness that some other speakers have. The voice is warm, mellow yet beautifully detailed. Thats what makes the 683 special.

I heard the 683s side by side to the Paradigm's which are highly applauded for crisp clear flat treble & to me they sounded tatty as hell. It just felt like someone disconnected the squaker out of them!

Im driving my 683 using a Marantz SR6004 receiver & the sound is just brilliant. They say the 683 is very hungry for power, in my experience thats complete rubbish. I get smooth bass to pretty loud spl levels, & there is ample power available out of my 110W per channel Marantz receiver to take care of them even wit 7.1 channel surround sound content.

An observation though is that the frequency reponse in the 1-2Khz mark increases exponentially when spl levels are pushed very high, ie, the vocals suddenly seem to overpower the midbass in a different proportion to what you listen when playing at adequate spl at medium volumes. Now this is could be due to the rooms layout, floors, walls, fixtures etc, but its something I noted back in the dealers audition room as well which should be free of those concerns.

If there is 1 thing I dont like, its that the speakers are inherently a tad dull in the 2Khz mark when played at your average volume levels in a medium to small room. I think this is a design decision, & is purely personal, some people might love that.
I would like them to be a little more open in the 2Khz mark, & thats probably why some people who end up buying the twice as expensive CM9 will tell you the 683 sounded a tad muddy to them.

Another observation is that the sound actually does get better, again in that 2Khz mark if you take the grills off. I would love to take the grille off & show it off, but I know its going to get dirty or some kid is going to dent the speaker. So I leave on & just deal with it using EQ. I suspect its because of the amount of plastic re-inforcement they have on the floorstander grills. But again, its very mild & wont be a show stopper.

The woofers are very very fast. The bass is so clean that if I told you its servo controlled, you'll buy it. The downside to this clean bass is that in some cases, it gives a perception that the roll-off isnt as smooth. I have noticed this when you have sub 50Hz material playing at low spl while mid bass in the 120Hz mark is kicking, & the speaker almost forgets that the bass drum has still got to end.

Dont get me wrong, these speakers go down to 37Hz, so low that you can pretty much get away with not buying a sub. They will shake the floor in a medium sized room happily.

I dont believe much in the concept of a run-in period from a technical standpoint. Yes, by running in, if youre referring to the buyer's ears tuning to their new speakers, then yes thats very common, but a run-in period is often exaggerated by many other magazine reviews & audiophiles, no offence to them.

Saying that, I do feel that the low end in my speakers really came to life after about 50 hrs of use. Of course, we must note that for that time, my ears were getting tuned to my new speakers too!

I personally feel the 683 is best suited to Jazz, classical, some pop, & alternative or classic rock genres. I have not been too impressed listening to hard rock or metal or even techno/house on it. & that makes sense, because these british designs are mainly catered for those mainstreams genres & thats the type of sound most of those listeners will like.

Overall, a great speaker for the NZ $3000 mark. If youre not too sure & want a speaker that wont let you down & will really only grow in you, get the 683, it will not disappoint. If on a budget, buy used from TradeMe or Sella or eBay or whatever you use, these speakers last for donkeys of years. They hold their value really really well.