old.user4556
Has a sexy sister. I am also a Bodhi wannabee.
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2003
- Messages
- 16,163
I was in the market for a new pair of loudspeakers at the weekend, so I duly did my homework and looked up What Hifi? for some general ball-park speakers to try.
I set out with a budget of £500 for a pair of standmounts. Hot on my list was the Bower & Wilkins 685s:
B&W 685 stereo speaker review Hi-fi speaker review - from the experts at whathifi.com
With such a scorching review, under my budget and not a bad word said on their site, it seemed like I didn't even need to hear them. I took a drive to Glasgow to demo them just incase. Well, to save a load of waffle, they sounded shit. I took my father along (being a designer and builder of custom loudspeakers and has a huge experience of demo'ing speakers) for another opinion and he agreed that they sounded guff. Not only did they sound ropey, but the cabinet build was cheap and nasty.
The bloke wheeled out a pair of B&W CM1s at £499:
Real wood veneer cabinet, much better build quality and a cone/crossover inherited from the 800 range. The difference was night and day over the 685s, the CM1 were the ones for me - great sound for their size, great soundstage and well worth £500. No mention of these on the What Hifi? site as a viable alternative given the fact they only cost another £120 and sound significantly better.
However, they also stocked a pair of Kef XQ10s at £799:
They were even better than the CM1s, vocals and cymbal crashes had more detail in them and the bass was tighter and more composed. I really enjoyed them plus the sound was awesome and the cabinet finish / build quality was just gorgeous, so I opted for the KEFs even if they were over my budget.
I got home that night and read up on the rest of the KEF range (my dad is a KEF fanboy I must admit) and pretty much drooled at the Reference range of speakers, so I checked some reviews which basically said "flawless".
Since I was pissed off with WH magazine, I thought i'd check out their opinion on the reference series which didn't exactly strike me as a detailed review or that positive.
So, to my point, they raved about a pair of speakers that sounded pretty shit to me (maybe a bad copy...) and gave a not-so-great review to a pair of speakers that have blown ever other reviewer off the planet.
Don't trust them, demo anything you plan to buy.
I set out with a budget of £500 for a pair of standmounts. Hot on my list was the Bower & Wilkins 685s:
B&W 685 stereo speaker review Hi-fi speaker review - from the experts at whathifi.com
With such a scorching review, under my budget and not a bad word said on their site, it seemed like I didn't even need to hear them. I took a drive to Glasgow to demo them just incase. Well, to save a load of waffle, they sounded shit. I took my father along (being a designer and builder of custom loudspeakers and has a huge experience of demo'ing speakers) for another opinion and he agreed that they sounded guff. Not only did they sound ropey, but the cabinet build was cheap and nasty.
The bloke wheeled out a pair of B&W CM1s at £499:
Real wood veneer cabinet, much better build quality and a cone/crossover inherited from the 800 range. The difference was night and day over the 685s, the CM1 were the ones for me - great sound for their size, great soundstage and well worth £500. No mention of these on the What Hifi? site as a viable alternative given the fact they only cost another £120 and sound significantly better.
However, they also stocked a pair of Kef XQ10s at £799:
They were even better than the CM1s, vocals and cymbal crashes had more detail in them and the bass was tighter and more composed. I really enjoyed them plus the sound was awesome and the cabinet finish / build quality was just gorgeous, so I opted for the KEFs even if they were over my budget.
I got home that night and read up on the rest of the KEF range (my dad is a KEF fanboy I must admit) and pretty much drooled at the Reference range of speakers, so I checked some reviews which basically said "flawless".
Since I was pissed off with WH magazine, I thought i'd check out their opinion on the reference series which didn't exactly strike me as a detailed review or that positive.
So, to my point, they raved about a pair of speakers that sounded pretty shit to me (maybe a bad copy...) and gave a not-so-great review to a pair of speakers that have blown ever other reviewer off the planet.
Don't trust them, demo anything you plan to buy.
