Calling all 800D3 Owners!
 

Who currently owns 800D3's?

What is your room size and seating distance?

Anyone? No one owns these?

Adam... They must be the shy type. :p

I guess I will be the first to reply! I own a pair of the 800D3s after previously owning 802D3s and 802D2s. I have a dedicated listening room that is 16'8" long, 13'8" wide and 9'0" high. My listening position is 10' from the front baffles.
The room has been acoustically treated per the design of Chris Huston (formerly Rives Audio).

As an aside, I am very pleased with the 800D3s and have not experienced the bass issues that some others have noted. To my ear, the upgrade in performance across the entire sonic spectrum is quite noticeable over the 802s.

Great info! How far apart are your speakers, how much toe in? How far from back wall?

The speakers are 7'7" apart, measured from the driver centers. Baffle to rear wall is 3'2" and driver center to side wall is 3'1/2". Toe-in angle, as I measure it, is 20 degrees (that is, the front plane of the speaker is angled in 20 degrees from a line drawn parallel to the sidewall). I should have mentioned earlier that the room is a rectangle so that it was easy to make the speaker placement symmetrical. Also, after experimenting with various positions, the placement of the 800D3s ending up being very similar to the positioning I had for the 802s.

A bit of the backstory - I approached to purchase of the 800D3s with some hesitation after reading about the experiences of others with these speakers. My room is modestly sized and I too was concerned with them being "too much" speaker for the room. I auditioned them several times at my dealer in a room that has approximately the same dimensions as mine (but without the degree of acoustic treatment) and using the same electronics, cabling etc. In that setting, I found some of the characteristics in the bass response that others have noted. Nonetheless, I took the plunge and ordered a pair. Upon the very first listen in my room, it was immediately apparent that those issues were gone and that they were going to sound terrific. As the break-in progressed, they just improved. My conclusion is that the acoustic treatment that Chris designed for me has created a room that interacts very well with 800D3s. I couldn't be happier.

Can you describe the acoustic treatments?

if you could post some pictures, it would be fantastic.

I was thinking the same thing - pictures would be better than me trying to describe them. Trouble is, I am a very new member and can't seem to find a description of how I go about attaching a photo to my reply! If someone can help me with that, I'd be happy to post a few photos. Thanks.

Very interesting.

Despite bass traps, it was insufficient for me. Maybe other things come to play here. I need to see pictures of your treatments. I also need to know if you are on the 2nd floor, if the walls flex or are sheetrock.

Interesting how you ended up without bass issues at near the same spot as the 802D3, I did not have such luck.

Did the 800d3 sound good in my space? Yes.

But it did not sound as good as I knew it could so I returned them.

My listening room is located on the lower floor of our home so the floor is concrete slab on grade covered by rubber underlay and wool carpet. The walls are Sheetrock on insulation filled wood studs. Nothing fancy.
I have a couple of photos that I would like to post but I still can't see how to do that. Can anyone tell me how to attach a photo from my iPhoto library to the Reply box? It's a mystery to me!

Instructions here....

https://www.audioaficionado.org/faq....b3_attachments

If the option is not available it could be that you need to accumulate x number of posts.

You may need to be a subscriber too.

Thanks for the responses regarding posting photos. It doesn't appear that I will be able to do so at this time as I don't seem to have the right permissions.
So here is my shot at describing the room treatments. The process started by me sending Chris Huston photos of the room as well as many detailed measurements. He developed a plan that he felt would address any sonic issues as well as blend with the existing architectural features of the room. After my approval, he sent me working drawings for all the treatments he recommended as well as detailed elevations showing exactly where they should be installed.
I have access to a small millwork shop and I am a reasonably skilled amateur carpenter so I was able to construct almost all of the treatments and install them myself.
There are two main areas Chris focussed on - the sidewalks and the ceiling. The room doubles as a home theatre so a large flat panel TV occupies a fair bit of the front wall making placing treatments there difficult. The rear wall has a floor to ceiling built in cabinet with many open shelves for media storage as well as being the location of the entry door to the room.
The main feature of the sidewalls are large panels which I will call slat diffusers (this may not be the correct technical name). Each one measures 6' 3" long by 6' 4" high and consists of a repeating pattern of vertical "slats" all 1 1/2" wide but varying in depth from 1 1/2" to 5 1/2". They are spaced 1" apart. There is an absorbing section on top of the slat panel that extends to the ceiling.
There are also 3 24"x48" absorbing panels (Corning 703/705) on each side wall; one toward the front of the room and two toward the back of the room.
The ceiling treatment is twofold. There are 8 24"x24" Auralex Wavelens diffusion panels located in about the middle of the ceiling as measured front to back. They are installed in a staggered pattern. The rear portion of the ceiling contains 5 24" x 24" absorbing panels made using Corning 705 and again in a staggered pattern.
All this is a bit difficult to describe but I hope this gives you the idea. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the outcome, to my ears, has been excellent.

From what you describe, the treatments seem to be sensible and without excessive absorption. If you stand in the middle of the room and click your fingers you shouldn't hear any room chatters but you should hear a small amount of decay.

Fwiw, I plugged the room dimensions into REW room sim and the result wasn't too bad. You will probably hear the primary 34Hz room mode on program with low bass, but there's also a slight suckout in the upper bass which which might make some recordings sound a bit lean. (I'm assuming that you're listening distance is roughly 10 feet) Your room treatments mostly work at mid and high frequencies to the benefit of soundstage and overall tonal accuracy. Reducing the 34Hz mode would be difficult to do with bass traps because it's such a low frequency, but if you're not hearing it on most program it's not a problem. Actually, some room gain in that region is preferred by most listeners anyway.

If you email me the pictures I can post them.

For $25/year you can become a member and pictures right away.

Well since he is doing us a favor by showing us his pics I offered to do him a favor and post the pictures. No need to pressure anyone.

I didn’t intend to pressure, only trying to inform.

Ok, new member of the 800D3 Owner’s club, replacing my 802D3. I had demoed the 800D3 in my old listening room but the room was too small to handle the bass. With my new, larger listening room, I was very impressed by the added midrange purity due to lower distortion and the bass extension. Very happy.

Congrats ariess! When I heard these I was really impressed...

How big is your listening room and what distance are you seated from the speakers?

Calling all 800D3 Owners!
 

16.5x19.5 ft with high, high, A-frame ceiling, so volume is high. Also back wall is glass to the outside so little room modes. Speakers are 2 feet off the short wall and I am 9-10 feet from speakers
Attachment 53330

Beautifully done!

Enjoy.

Oh yes, I believe we have had this conversation.

Finally, a story where the 800d3 doesn’t overwhelm the space.

Adam,
Congratulations on the new B&W 800D3s! They look fantastic in your room. Outstanding speakers. Happy listening. :thumbsup:


https://www.audioaficionado.org/atta...0&d=1514831198

Those are an incredibly beautiful pair of transducers! Sound quality must be off the charts, WOW!

Congrats Adam!
You finally did it. :yes:
Enjoy them!

Hi ariess, congrats on the new speakers. Great choice! Are they placed on the carpet with spikes piercing through the carpet?

The spikes are sitting on Stillpoint Ultra 5's. Here are a couple more pictures

Great [emoji106], thank you for the naked pictures, it looks much, much better.

Wow it looks great! I was asking because I had bad experience with B&W placed on a carpet, but the stillpoints must be decoupling the speakers completely from the floor. Enjoy the music :)

I am very intrigued by this thread. I am trying to decide between 802D3 and the 800D3. I have a good size room on a second floor that opens up to a great room down below with 24' ceilings. I currently have a pair of MC501 amps and am worried that if I get the 800D3 I will need to move to MC601 or bigger (more cost concern obviously).

I would very much appreciate input from those that have had the 802D3 and for those that have the 800D3.

Thank you,

If you have 20 feet of front to back room length, get the 800d3.

I heard a 800 D3 in a 6m x 11m room. Bloody awesome.

Thank you!

Any Colour You Like
 

Hi all, long time lurker, finally joined and lurked some more... may as well get the first post out of the way!

I have been a B&W fan for some time now. My cherry N802s that have been my companion through several amps, 2.0, 5.1, 5.2. 7.2 setups, a few rooms and a few homes. I’ve played around with second hand N804s, SCM-1s, SCMS, NHTM1, NHTM2, HTM2D and the original HTM1D, WHAT a center!!!

Even a few ASW-825s and 855 have all come and gone, but the N802s have always stayed.

My commitment to B&W carried over to my recently upgraded office system. Last year I purchased beautiful white 805 D3s. Enjoying these for the last 6 months left me with upgradeitis.. The white 805s stayed in my office while I decided to upgrade my trusty N802s. GASP!

A new struggle was born.. Do I get the new 803 D3s? They are said to be an improvement over all previous 802s. Do I stick with the always wonderful 802s? How about those huge 801s? Nope.. They got the axe with the original HTM1D... I’ve always lusted for 800s.. Man the original signatures in Tigers Eye were my dream.. I was convinced I’d get 800s some day.. Now that cherry is gone, that leaves that beautiful deep gloss black, classy rosenut or modern white. As good as the gloss black looks I didn’t want the maintence of dust nor the reflections. I sure love the rosenut but I always told myself if I came across a pair of white DM70s I’d snatch them up! So what to do?!

Exciting times are not without some sadness... My N802s are currently in the corner facing the wall like an adolescent in time out.. While I figure out what to do with my first born N802s commitment was made..

Now I will be researching new amplification for the beautiful white 800 D3s that arrived last week! I will also be needing some power for the ordered but slightly behind matching white HTM1 D3. This should be a fun (expensive) year!

(Psttt hey Bowers... A 200+ pound center with dual 10”s and a Turbine head would be sweet.. so would some flattened 805 D3s wall mount brackets.. just saying..:scratch2:)

RaceCarDriver - nice first post and welcome to AA

Maybe you could snap up some well priced McIntosh 1.2kw's or 601's now that the new models have come out!

Thanks! I have been eying up the 611 and 1.25 actually. I’ve never had Mac. My N802s were powered by a pair of Bryston 7Bs for some time and I loved the power! I need to see what my bank account says here in the next few weeks. I’m waiting on my Marantz AV8805 and new Screen Innovations screen.

In the mean time I’m sitting down watching paint dry.

https://tinyurl.com/yav62k99

RaceCarDriver... Welcome to AA! :wave: