B&W 802D3 Owners Club

[rghanbari]

Originally Posted by Edgeyboy

I am very close to pushing the button on a pair of 802 D3's to replace my 802 D2's.

I have a fairly average UK living room of approx 4m wide by 6m long with a 2.4m ceiling height. Speakers firing down the length of the room. Listening chair 3.7m from 802's.

The bass on my 802 D2's (with my D-Premier) is excellent. Just full enough without being bloaty and reasonably controlled.

How do owners who previously had the 802 D2's find the bass on the D3 in comparison? I have read through the reviews and owners's post as much as possible, but direct input would be really appreciated.

I don't want oodles more bass, as I think it will be overpowering but good bass is always very welcome as long as it is controlled.

Note: I did listen to a pair of 803 D3's at a dealer recently, and although the midrange and hf were to die for, I found the bass slightly lacking.They did sound wonderful however, just not quite full enough.

Many Thanks.

Bass response is so room and placement dependent, that it is hard to do a direct comparison unless you have both units in the same space. I know in my living room, extremely small changes in position have a huge impact on the quantity and quality of the bass.

I was able to audition the 802d2's vs the 803d3's in the same space/same room placement a couple years ago when the d3's first came out. (http://thingssoimpossible.blogspot.c...ker-quest.html )

Those particular 802d2's were horrible, to the point that I'm certain there was something wrong with the mids or tweeters. I did key strongly on the low end though, since I was considering the 804d3's (which I worried would be base thin) and the 803d3's (ditto, but less worried), but didn't want to give up the bass or have to get a sub.

IIRC, I found the 803d3's bass response to be roughly equivalent to the 802d2's, but much tighter/faster/more musical. It was less "boomy" to my ear, but I was absolutely delighted with the 803d3's across the board. I wish there were a proper set of 802d2's to audition, since I would have loved to save the $$ and gotten the end of life demo units, but I fell madly in love with the 803d3/802d3 and have had absolutely zero regrets since then (I ended up with the 802d3's for reasons cited in my review link above)

Based on my (compromised) experience and what I've read, I don't think you would be giving anything up on the low end (if anything, perhaps a bit tighter), but the lift in the mids and highs are glorious.

Can you persuade your dealer to bring the 802d3's to your home for a proper apples to apples audition?