Accuphase DG58 Necessity or Novelty

[TommyC]

I have a DG-58 ordered. It was recommended by Mr. Suzuki over the DP-720 and PS-1220. So I hope I get more than "some improvement."

[Masterlu]

Tommy... Congrats, you will love it!

[Mattia]

TommyC,
as I already said to you, be prepared for a really audible improvement. Probably more marked than changing your player with a DP-720 or adding a PS-1220: fully agree with Suzuki San

It is already nice with a simple voicing in most situations, but to get the most out of DG-58, be also prepared to spend some time tweaking the EQ portion. In my case, with some speakers (less with others) a carefully and over time adjusted EQ gave another big step up in the performance of the system.

[meltemi]

Originally Posted by Mattia

Oh yes, I always keep that in mind and I must say that the fact they still sound good is a testament of an high quality and well engineered product.
The big drawback many see in these speakers is in the looks, but then it is also why I could pick up locally a mint pair for 1'800 CHF

B&W speakers rarely looked as one would imagine 'speaker boxes'. But their design has always been guided by a form follows function approach.

Originally Posted by Mattia

Regarding evolution between 801 Matrix and Nautilus, I find this B&W paper really interesting:
http://www.hifiportal.co.uk/articles...ilus%20801.pdf

The thing that strikes me is this passage at page 15 ("Bass" section):

One remarkable fact was consistently noticed during the development of the new 380mm bass unit for the NautilusTM801, and that was that a single large and stiff bass cone always sounded better than a number of smaller cones, even though they may well have had the same aggregated properties.

But then, after one generation of 801 Diamond, they stopped producing the 801 model. Somebody said to me that it was above all because it didn't sell well at all, not too much because the big bass driver doesn't have his merits regarding sound. But I don't know.

On this site, you can find all three (Nautilus 801, Signature 800, 801D1) white papers about the development of the B&W 800 Series (though in
the 'Development of the Signature 800' download a few things seem to be missing, but I have a printed version):

Untitled Document
(scroll down to loudspeakers)

I was also curious, how B&W would get out of this bass single vs. multiple drives. Single bass driver for high replay levels in studios with well controlled acoustic. Two bass drivers for use in less than ideal domestic situations.
I also heard rumors, that the Japanese market was asking for a smaller speaker than the Nautilus 801 with similar capabilities.

Originally Posted by Mattia

Anyway, to return to the 801 S3 and keep connected to the thread topic, I see a peculiar behaviour of the mid cone with active EQ.

It is somewhat allergic to active DSP, meaning that it has little margin before starting to distort, but that is true much more withe the DG-58 than with Dirac, were one has quite a bigger margin to "work" with.
I tried every possible EQ setting, and the result is that to not have the mid distort with DG-58, I have to "null" with EQ quite a lot of the Voicing done by the 58 in the mid frequency range (With miniDSP 22 I can have a flatter response in that range without problems).
But it is really not a big deal, because I happen to like the 801 presentation without active EQ, save for the too strong bass in my room, that I keep corrected in the EQ curve.

Absolutely (room differences apart), but in that sentence I referred to the Northcreek crossovers for the 801 S3, that are practically impossible to listen to before buying one pair

I never encountered any peculiar behaviour with the midrange. I hope it has not been overloaded in the past and is not defective.

BTW, you can find the B&W service manuals here:
B&W Group North America Service & Support - Service Manuals

Martin

[meltemi]

Originally Posted by TommyC

I have a DG-58 ordered. It was recommended by Mr. Suzuki over the DP-720 and PS-1220. So I hope I get more than "some improvement."

Congrats Tommy.
There is a lot of listening coming towards you.

Martin

[meltemi]

Originally Posted by jororupp

I was close to order the DG-58 when I've got an interesting offer for a C-3800 pre amp. To take it was the better decision for me for the moment.

Congrats for your new C-3800.
I'd have decided the same way.
But postponed is not abandoned.

Martin

[Mattia]

Hi Martin,

Single bass driver for high replay levels in studios with well controlled acoustic. Two bass drivers for use in less than ideal domestic situations.

So two bass drivers speakers typically are more forgiving in placement and interact less with the ambient?
I would naïvely have thought the opposite

I too have read about some marketing motivations on abandoning the 801 after the first Diamond iteration.
Maybe there is some truth behind that, and it is also totally understandable: if you stop producing a speaker that has a name and an image as "B&W 801", you really didn't have to have sold too much in latest incarnations...

Thank you for the links, if the are as deep as the Nautilus 801 white paper, they should be a very interesting read!

I never encountered any peculiar behaviour with the midrange. I hope it has not been overloaded in the past and is not defective.

No I think the drivers are fine, I know the previous owner and is a *very* meticulous person about his system.

Plus, with Dirac Live (and also without active EQ) the mid is perfectly fine and lovely.

Is only with the DG-58 that it is raised a bit too much in every correction mode (way too much in "flat" and "mid", a bit less in "smooth", but still too much), with a bit of a "confused" sound result. If I work with EQ and slightly lower the correction in upper bass & low mid region of the voicing of the DG-58, it is perfectly good. The problematic frequency range is right were the crossover is placed between the bass and the mid driver, so maybe there is some strange behaviour there that the DG-58 tries (and fail) to correct. I have some new Northcreek crossovers for the 801 S3 inbound, I'll see if they make a difference.

They are the only speakers I tried in my room where the DG-58 seems to not perfectly "understand" the situation by itself, but with a little aid in the form of a manual EQ adjustment, it sounds perfect.

Or to put in typical Accuphase words: "The sound becomes High Quality"

[jororupp]

Hi Martin,

Thx. As said I'll postpone the acquisition of the DG-58 to 2016.

My C-3800 was advertised as an almost new demonstrator when I've ordered it. But I've found out that it was used for tests and demos for some years. It shows some scratches and more traces of usage as expected. Now I'll pay some additional money and swap it to a brand new C-3850.

[meltemi]

Originally Posted by Mattia

So two bass drivers speakers typically are more forgiving in placement and interact less with the ambient?
I would naïvely have thought the opposite

They are more forgiving in placement, but each chassis, because of its placement, interacts differently with the ambient.

Martin

[meltemi]

Originally Posted by jororupp

Hi Martin,

Thx. As said I'll postpone the acquisition of the DG-58 to 2016.

My C-3800 was advertised as an almost new demonstrator when I've ordered it. But I've found out that it was used for tests and demos for some years. It shows some scratches and more traces of usage as expected. Now I'll pay some additional money and swap it to a brand new C-3850.

I'm sorry for you, that the C-3800 was not in the pristine condition you had expected. On the other hand, IMHO the C-3850 is a significant step forward over the C-3800. So welcome to the small club of C-3850 owners. Hope you'll get yours soon.

Martin