Saga conclusion: 800D3 vs 802D3

[joey_v]

Originally Posted by Art Vandelay

Thanks for the detailed reply Joey, that's interesting. In theory at least, the two speakers should be essentially equal in terms of imaging and with the same FST / tweeter head and drivers, and same crossover configuration, the wave-front coherency should be achieved at roughly the same distance. Although only slightly different it's possible that the different heights of the individual drivers produces a less desirable in-room response due to floor and ceiling interactions / multipath effects, but maybe there's also a subtle difference in the bass-mid transition due to the different bass drivers that necessitates a greater listening distance. I look forward to reading feedback from other 800d3 owners in future; Hopefully they can shed some light.

Re the 800d3's, I'm still with the D2's until I move house and build a custom room, which might not be until next year now, but I'm actually very happy with the existing setup, even having heard the 800D3's in various showrooms with good acoustics, so I can tolerate the wait, just.

I think there's something to be said about the distance between the 2 10" woofers and the midrange/tweeter modules. Theoretically, the upper bass coming out of the lower woofer should reflect off the floor sooner than the higher-positioned 8" woofers on the 802D3. A floor reflection of such will not be absorbed by carpet/pad given that it will be sub-400hz. This reflection will hit the listener and will pull the image "down-wards".

To me, a down-wards pull of the image is preferable as I hate looking up.

The problem for me was that while this was preferable, I found that the greater distance from the lowest 10" and the tweeter was probably causing some lack of imaging coherence (probably not the best word) at my usual listening distance with the 802D3.

Maybe coherence isn't the best word, maybe it's that the imaging was not what I was used to and not what I preferred.

It sounded less..... dense.