Why does it sound so bad: B&w 800D and Mark Levinson 335
indieke -- Mon, 01/25/2010 - 14:55
Yes I don't understand. I bought these speakers some while ago. I have a accuphase cd 67, a ML 380 S pre-amp and the 335 ML power amp.
As it never sound to my liking, I tried different cables, for the speakers but also XLR. i always get this maybe musical, but dull, sound. The voices sound too, much expanded over the sound stage, which is shallow. That would leave a non adequate listening room...
Not. I have in my living room, that is maybe not perfect also a projector and surround. The denon 3808 decodes the surround sound, the front channels pass through the ML pre-amp, to the ML 335. But now I tried to put the front speakers on the Denon; This should sound horrible!. But....
No! Finally the sound is in balance, high get clearer. Instruments get more distanced from each other and the voices are more isolated from the music. Back ground singers stand further apart from the main singer and not mixed into his voice. Strangely also, is that this less then 2000 € amp has enough power to drive the High end speakers! And it is not Dull!
So perfect? . Of course not! It has also his limitations that are normal. Distortion is a bit too high and although tone balance is fine, it lacks a bit of musicality. But that is the strength of the 800 D. To hear this limitations of a good amp in his category.
That an Amp does not sound 100% perfect is something I can live with, but not the result I get from the ML. This is considered a top of the not amp. Sometimes an amp can sound a bit better or is a better match with some equipment. But that it is so disappointing and that you even prefer to put on a home-amp, I don't understand!
Be aware, I don't like analytic sound. I like it to be musical and a bit warm. But also transparent and lively, which is certainly not the case! So I am willing to consider another High end amp, but which one. There are second hand very good one's available on the market. But where to turn too. I hear a lot of good of pass lab. the Dual amp x 600 is often proposed at a decent price. But is it a good match or much less then the 600.5, What to do in my case? I am not very rich, but with such speakers (second hand, like all the rest), you just want to sound it good and not boring...
Sorry for my english, it is not myn native language...
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I love the sound of my Bel Canto Ref 1000mkII mono amps and McIntosh C2300 preamp with B&W 800D speakers. The amps are relatively inexpensive and, if the McIntosh C2300 is too much money, buy one of the cheaper models. They're all good.
The sound you are describing is exactly what I thought is very wrong with the B&W 800D. The whole presentation is just 'weird'.
If you really want to solve the proble, stop messing around with amps, cabling etc. Go to the source and change speakers.
Uhh, how are the speakers considered the source? They're the last link in the chain.
Amen!
Not sure if I agree. I have NEVER heard Mark Levinson sound musical. The sound has always been dull and analytical.
I seriously question the taste of anyone who raves or recommends Mark Levinson equipment.
Try using a Classe amp with the 800Ds. This is from the same parent company they are tested with and also what they are paired with in Abbey Road studios. Monblocks are best if you can afford them but if not try bridging a 6-channel Classe - I have had very musical results with a bridged CAV and B&W 805s all around.
Try using a Classe amp with the 800Ds. This is from the same parent company they are tested with and also what they are paired with in Abbey Road studios. Monblocks are best if you can afford them but if not try bridging a 6-channel Classe - I have had very musical results with a bridged CAV and B&W 805s all around.
Unless they are broken, there's nothing wrong with your equipment. Get your room fixed to give your system a chance. And if it still sounds bad, get better recorded music. Everything else is a total waste of money at this point.
I can't help but wonder where this person purchased this equipment.
I can't imagine that the Denon driving the speakers is going to sound better than the ML amp and preamp. Something is not right.
I would take your currrent best cables (power, audio, etc.) and make sure they are all on the ML equipment, and on your best source whatever that may be (cd player, turntable, etc.). Then physically disconnect everything else from the system and run just this basic setup to test. Everyone has their "test" music they use to hear changes in their system, so use your test music to compare how it sounds now.
The other issue is speaker placement. I don't see from your email where your speakers are located in the room, or the size of the room. Try testing the speakers so that there is 3 feet of free space to the back and sides of the speakers. You can easily make a $20,000 set of speakers sound like a $1,000 pair of speakers if they are not in the right spot for the room acoustics.
You need to also get the toe-in on the speakers right to get the best possible image. The amount of toe-in (or not) depends on the speakers, and the room. Sounds like you need some toe-in, since you say the vocals in the image are too wide. With that equipment, you should be experiencing a very tight center vocal image. I would start with the trusted triangle, so that at the sweet spot you don't see the insides of the speaker cabinet sides, and if this produces too narrow of an image then move them a bit at a time and experiment until you get the right image.
You also need to look at what is on your floors and in the room for acoustic treatment. If you have bare floors and no furniture you should get a brighter sound, but you say your setup sounds dull. Maybe you have too much room dampening, so try moving some heavy furniture and such out of the way, or if there are large rugs on the floor or heavy drapes on the walls, remove those temporarily to see if that helps.
I know that AV Guide has some good articles on their site for room setup and speaker placment and such. You should review those closely and see what else can be done before you decide to spend any money. A lot can be done for free to fix the issues you have.
Paul
I suspect the problem is one of synergy, but I'm not sure why this is the case.
B&W's development team in Steyning, UK, use a range of amplifiers to voice the company's loudspeakers, including a pair of Mark Levinson No 33. The source component and preamp are very different to the norm, however.
I haven't spent much time in front of ML amps in years (this may change soon), but from memory Levinson amps often have a 'dark' presentation; 'rich and full' to those who like them, 'moody and brooding' to those that don't. The B&W speakers use Kevlar midranges and Rohacell bass cones, and that provokes similar polarization in listeners; while many think them fundamentally neutral, others report hearing 'something' where the Kevlar stops and the Rohacell starts.
It's possible that these two characteristics are ill-combined in your system, or even in your perception of your system. As others have mentioned, B&W often partners its speakers with Classé amplification (perhaps no surprise, given they are part of the same group), but before the B&W-Classé link-up, a lot of B&W demonstrations were performed with Krell (or similar sounding) electronics. Given that you are hearing a sort of improvement from the Denon, it's possible this confirms this mismatch.
Before sacking either the B&W or ML components, though, I would follow some of the other suggestions listed above. Ensure the speakers are at least three feet from the rear and side walls, and that the speakers and listening position are in correct alignment (the speakers are best suited to a large listening space, and too small a room would make bass hard to manage and the Denon AV receiver might be artificially thinning out the bass and making the system sound better). Make sure the equipment is sitting on appropriate supports and that cables are 'dressed' correctly (sometimes just sorting out a rat's nest of cables at the back of the equipment table can help, and I've seen unconnected cellphone chargers hanging on the end of the audio system's power block that can ruin the performance of an otherwise good system). Have someone measure your room and work up a series of acoustic treatments to correct is a good idea too. Remember that acousticians can get carried away (especially if most of their work is in studio design), meaning you can end up making a room that is extremely 'flat', but perfectly 'dead', Bass traps in the corners, absorption behind the speakers and diffusion behind the listener are often all you need, and the 'Reflection Free Zone' to eliminate first reflections from the walls and ceilings can bring too much of the studio into the listening room, closing down the image in the process.
It may be that the solution lies within these adjustments, or that the start of the solution can be found within one of these adjustments (if you find things get a little better when dressing the cables and sorting out the equipment support, it might be your solution lies in fine-tuning the system still further, to improve these aspects). If not, you are going to need to consider a lot of listening tests, to determine what's going wrong and how best to fix it.
Finally, you should also try to work out whether this problem is common to all recordings, or simply a handful of tracks. I've often encountered people who go off on an expensive windmill chase to correct problems that were intrinsic to their discs.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
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