Kef Blade Vs B&W 802 Vs WA Sophia without altering electric components

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Dear all,
I'm surprised & happy to see this section which might throw some light for the subject mentioned scenario. All these years my ears are tuned with B&W starting from their early 601, 602 S1, 602 S2, 602 S3, CM 7, SCM1, 805N until the last CM8 S2, which I'm possessing for last 6 months.
At present, I'm highly inclined to swap the CM8 S2 due to their highs, whereas I'm a person who want to LISTEN without any colors. So thought of purchasing a 802N pair with my friend, however I also got an offer for KEF blade from another friend.

I'm a frequent traveller who spends few hours with my stereo setup & I have my living room (16' x 13') mod. & treated partially for the acoustics. I'm not in a hurry. If I could wait for the next 6 months & save more, there's also a chance to grab a pair of WA Sophia from my another US immigrating friend. I completely understand all of this requires money & time. However on a hypothetical situation having all these 3 pairs, I would like to understand the pros & cons before choosing them from any experienced audiophiles.
 
So thought of purchasing a 802N pair with my friend, .
The Nautilus tweeter in B&W 802N is at-least 3 generations old. There is significant difference between the old N tweeter and the current generation diamond tweeter of the 8 series to my ears. The current generation sounds significantly better, more resolution, air, smoothness. The old tweeter would be veiled in comparison (In-fact there is no comparison IMO). To my ears even the current 7 series sounds better, I think the 702s2 is a superb speaker and excellent value for money.
Coming to Wilson Audio Sophia, again it is a very old speaker, introduced some 17 years ago. I think there was a mark 2, mark 3 after the original Sophia and then there was the Sasha. IMO I would prefer the newer Sabrina, which sounded more musical to my ears.
I heard the KEF blades only under show condition and I did not particularly like them.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Sid
 
I heard the KEF blades only under show condition and I did not particularly like them.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Sid
Thanks Sid, Diamond speakers were on my cards, however I personally had seen many cases of those been burnt just on small variations & all my friends ended up in spending a fortune to replace those tweeters. Henceforth, I compromised on the N-tweeters being 3 generations old, but the change over cost will be inexpensive as that of D-series.

WA are damn expensive & my immigrating friend almost spent around $8k for the Sophia MK2. Now, he's expecting atleast the buyback from WA dealer while upgrading. Yes, I did like the sabrina but that's too stretched from my budget.

The only reason for slight inclination towards KEF blades was that it fits in my budget (sub 1 Million INR) & also the newer version. But at the same time, I don't wanna commit a mistake of choosing an unwanted speaker & later regret.
 
Dear vijaykarthik123,
Can we know what the 'electronics' are ?
So, we would be in a position to try and extrapolate what speaker will perform in what manner when paired with the 3 options...
All 3 speaker options mentioned are very different in their sound philosophy & the way they play music.
Thanks,
Bhagwan
 
Hello Vijaykarthick123
You may also look at Gauder Akustik Vescova Mk 2 and Cassiano speakers if you have an opportunity to audition them.
best of luck

Dear, Thanks for the same. However I did had auditioned Berlina RC9 at the states, however it was almost on a 30 Sq.m listening space.
The staging was phenomenal & they used Hegel gears to power'em up.
As I have a limited space of ~208 Sq. ft space, I restricted myself. Also, I doubt if I would ever get into that state of Hegel electronics ever, to drive these.
 
Dear vijaykarthik123,
Can we know what the 'electronics' are ?

Dear Mr. Bhagwan, yes all these 3 choices completely with different signature, but my hunt was to move towards a pair which can reproduce the raw sound as it was recorded, without any coloration. Out of these 3 pairs, the prime choice for KEF Blade was just the availability, price point, recent launch in the market. But for 802-N it is an all-round performer for any genres but ofcourse with slight coloration. Later was the WA Sophia-2 which is primarily for the obvious reason of having no coloration at all.

I'd got Cary Audio input feeding Monarchy Audio DIP & then the MA 22A DAC which gets to Jeff Rowland Coherence-1 preamp which later gets powered by Acoustic Reality (Class-D) mono blocks delivering 250W @ 8 ohm.
 
personally, for me - since you use a class D amplifier - choose a speaker that has the softest sounding tweeter - that is all I suggest....else it may become a very uncomfortable experience...
What is your current speaker ? what is to be replaced ??
Sorry, you already stated - B & W CM8 S2
I would go back to the B N W 805 N if possible ....
 
I'd got Cary Audio input feeding Monarchy Audio DIP & then the MA 22A DAC which gets to Jeff Rowland Coherence-1 preamp which later gets powered by Acoustic Reality (Class-D) mono blocks delivering 250W @ 8 ohm.

HI Vijaykarthik123 , I dont know much about the Transport/Dac you are using but in your experience is that in line with your amp/speaker in terms of Sound quality ?

Especially on the Monarchy DIP, at least in my setup i found it to have a negative impact on the resolution, of course that was the original DIP
 
It would be important to find out which speaker company uses digital amps in their own setups, helpful from a certain view. Piega, Joseph Audio, Elac, Vivid, Marten could be options for your room size.
 
Dear Members, Apologize on reverting back to this thread after a very long time. Thanks for your PMs as well.
I was little tied up since I expatriated out of India recently.
Still I thought it's better to summarize my findings & conclusion on the speaker purchase.
I was lucky to audition all these speakers before, in different places but with different gears in the respective users own setup.
So, I started eliminating from my narrowed down options pairing my Class-D mono blocks running my favorite samplers.

1) 802-N was a deadly match with the users setup & my amps. It was exactly like, how I intend to listen all my samplers with a controlled bass, sharp highs & perfect mids.
2) KEF Blade were real beauty & massive to be shipped. Also my ears were terrified with highs while I played Weber - #2 [LSO]; The gril who broke my heart [The Gloaming]
3) Sophia were really meaty & couldn't be driven with my tiny boxes, I know it's an injustice but still tried to prove that I was dumb & have to drop-off
4) 804-D2 were again sweeter than 802N, but the bass seemed lean (There's a potential to improve on my speaker line :-D later to 802D2 / D3). ust because they're the latest generation from 802N, I closed down on this.

Finally 804-D2 were picked up, shipped out to my new place & they happily live in my living room. These were also integrated as the Front LR in my 5.1 HTS.
 

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