B&W 802's on top of PCS8 subs

The pic wasn't that great on my cell phone at the sellers house.
The 802's are those with the separate mid and tweeter cab, and they are on a PCS8 sub woofer, that is being powered by a adcom 5802 per side.
The center, you can hardly see is a B&W FCM8 and too bad, I only have 1 of those, the set of fcm8's would have been really fantastic to have got, they match the pcs8 well.
Anyway some of it I sold, but the B&W speakers I will keep for a long time. beautiful looks and sound.
I will put more pics up in a bit.
Cool.
Srinath.
 
These are a Very old version of the 802s...

Sitting on a Sub is probably not a good idea, acoustically.

Could it be that the Sub is actually set up to Cancel / reduce the already rich mid bass of the 802s ? The room does not seem particularly large to need a sub to augment bass.

Do post more info ..

Enjoy !
 
Hello !
Not that I know much - nor have I visited that room.
However, what ever I can tell by 'looking' at that picture.
a]
The Subs should remain where they are.
Maybe pushed back a bit.
b]
The 802 Matrix should be pulled into the room by 6 feet - minimum.

Toe in should be done as required - if any.

Currently every thing is wrong.
The Tweeter is too high.
The Subs vibrations will carry through to the speaker.

Please do get the speaker off the sub asap.

:p
 
Matrix 802. Oh! those are one of the most beautiful sounding loudspeakers I ever heard. Those demand a bit more respect than that. Please do as "bhagwan" suggested. Nothing more to add to that.

Cheers!
 
That is not my setup. That was the setup at the sellers house.
Its 6" off the floor in my setup, but I have had to replace the long bolts that hold the mid cabinets to the bottom cabs. I mean, I have to fabricate them using the 1 good one as a template. So its just kept on top. Not bolted down.

I have heard to tip it back a little too, except, I think it will fall over backwards if I did that.

Cool.
Srinath.
 
I had heard the Matrix 802s driven by an Accuphase A60 a number of years back.

Unfortunately, the small room, coupled with the speakers being placed close to the front wall, probably contributed to making them sound rather bass heavy and overpowering for my tastes.

Toe in......from what I remember, the mid range driver and tweeter swivel on their axes, so you can have the woofers firing straight into the room and the mid/tweeter turned inwards towards the listener to give more flexibility in placement.

Cheers
 
TBH, the setup I got em in now - driven by a denon 2807, they do sound rather lifeless.
I ran them with a adcom 5802, then a nakamichi PA7. They were better, but still not the greatest.
They sounded the best so far with a marantz sr5002 (totally against my expectations).
In my living room though, the 802's are going to be killed by my EV sp12's, or a few other horn based speakers.
I also am hoping I get another FCM8 and I can complete the PCS8+FCM8 set and get it working, and sell the 802's. The PCS8 is a 801 S3 woofer basically, in a trapezium shaped cabinet. The FCM8's are a 3 hard dome tweeter array with 2 6.5"s that rival the mids of the 802. IMHO, its an 802 beater in a cheaper cabinet.
That setup also needs an active XO and a biamp setup.
Anyway the 802's are needing some fabrication work, which I am doing now, so I'll know in a bit about putting it in different positions etc etc.
Cool.
Srinath.
 
Driving a M802 is not kids play. Amp need lot of juice to drive them and make them sing in full glory. Try a Quad 606 MkII or a Jeff Rowland (like model 5) etc. They are special, they are special. I have witnessed them. :)
 
A nak PA 7 drives my friends 801 damn well.
So does a dsp a 1 yamaha.
I have both of those. He ran the nak out of the pre outs of the dsp a 1.
I am quite happy with the sr5002, I am on the hunt for a 8002 or a 9002.

I also had a dac that needed some work, and I will work on getting them all sorted out in a bit.

The FCM8 just seems to be the easy option ... just need to find its long lost brother.

Cool.
Srinath.
 
Srinath,
I agree with you.

These speakers are Completely dated.

I had them about 10 years ago.

By today's standards, they simply lack resolution, accross the spectrum.

I had bought them for Rs 35K used and sold them for Rs 25K a couple of years later.
 
I wouldn't say that.
They are just difficult to drive. The simple way to think about it is, they require current, but some amps that seem to be well below par may surprise you.
They also dont force the amp to "drive" them, like carver amazings or infinity kappa 9's do by dropping in impedance and pulling the power form the amp. All the amp has to do, is to stand being loaded at 1 ohm or 1/2 ohm in those cases.

Thanks.
Srinath.
 
By today's standards, they simply lack resolution, accross the spectrum.

I wouldn't say that.
They are just difficult to drive. The simple way to think about it is, they require current, but some amps that seem to be well below par may surprise you.
They also dont force the amp to "drive" them, like carver amazings or infinity kappa 9's do by dropping in impedance and pulling the power form the amp. All the amp has to do, is to stand being loaded at 1 ohm or 1/2 ohm in those cases.

I would not agree with IndianEars and I fully agree with you Srinath. I had owned B&W 801 Matrix S3, one of the best speakers I owned. All it needs is clean raw power and they deliver and it has been bought by our Forum member Clearcut, he is now driving them with Accuphase E303X.

I have personally experienced Infinity RSII sucking couple of my amps by dropping in impedance all of a sudden and the amps conked.

Thanks
 
Infinity speakers killing amps is nothing new.
801 s3's my friend owns. They are a bit different form the 802's. I cant explain, the 802 mainly has a lower freq extension in the lows, but it has higher spl and sounds more precise, the highs are close, but here too the 801 (or his room) is accentuating it better.
Mids are nearly identical. However I should say, its near impossible to get anything without a huge honking horn sounding decent in my living room. Lots of furniture smear and crazy echo and simply lack of air and 1000 other problems.

My EV's easily sounded better in my room, however in his room, they really did not.

Cool.
Srinath.
 
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