Vintage HiFi Audio Forum
Audio Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: wkhanna on March 19, 2012, 09:05:43 PM
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My good friend, Dan is contemplating a speaker upgrade. He is a B&W guy and looking at the 802D and its recently introduced replacement, the 802 Diamond. He has auditioned both at V nice shop in the Cleveland area. We then found out about Butch’s AV in Natrona Heights. He carries B&W but specializes in McIntosh mainly. Two weeks ago we took a drive out after calling and making an appointment to hear them both.
When we arrive, he is with some other customer & his wife and says he will be sith us shortly, so we start wandering the shop. 40 minutes later, when he bids adieu to the previous customers, he comes up to us. When we ask were the Diamonds were he said, “Right here”, pointing to the 802D’s. We asked again, and again he pointed to the D’s. Dan said, “I want to hear the 802 Diamonds”. “Oh” says Butch, “you mean the new Diamonds? They’re in back, I didn’t get them out”.
“Oh well” we said, putting our best behavior up front. “We’ll just give the 802D’s a listen then if that’s OK?” So he hooks up the speaker cables, leaves the speakers stuck in against the corners of the room, shows us the CD player and tells us to have at it on his way out to the front of the shop.
Dan & I went to the audition armed with a test disc of bit-perfect rips we were both V familiar with. It became blatantly apparent less than two minutes into the first track. Something was terribly amiss with the music. No depth. No center information. The music was easily pinpointed to the speaker as the source. No separation or positioning of voice or instrument.
We took it upon ourselves to try repositioning the cabinets. As I examined the available slack in the speaker cable the banana pin connectors nearly fell out of the terminals all by themselves. I must admit to panicking for split second as I imagined shorting out the shop’s McIntosh amp. Knelt behind the 802D holding the banana plugs tightly to the terminals & feeling a bit like the Dutch Boy with his finger in the dyke, I asked for some help, Turns out the shop’s banana plugs were so beaten & worn they had no grip on the terminals what so ever. Tisk, tisk.
Multiple attempts at positioning availed no improvement in performance. Flat nondescript stage, booming muddy mid-bass persisted. Keep in mind these are $12K speakers!
It was at this point as Dan & I continued to diagnose the issue that we began to question the electronics. Taking a closer look at the shop equipment being used was all it took to trigger the forehead slapping, Homer Simpson D’OH epiphany. Turns out what we had reasonably assumed to be an integrated amp was in fact the two channel MC452 being supplied signal directly from the MCD301 SACD/CD. No pre-amp? When we questioned Butch his response was, “Oh, yeah. I sold the pre-amp last week and didn’t put another one out yet”. Tisk tisk. Again.
These are just some of the issues encountered during our visit. I’ll just say that as we discussed our experience on the way home, the more we were disappointed by the overall service, knowledge, care, professionalism and interest shown us by this retailer.
Regarding the equipment, I have no first-hand experience with passive pre-preamps or direct to power-amp from CDp. I know many whose opinion I respect who say it can be quite revealing. Based on this single experience with this specific equipment I can feel fairly confident in saying that while it truly was a 'revealing' encounter, across the board improvement is not always the result.
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I've been to Butch's place twice. Took forever to get waited on both times......in fact the 2nd time I seem to recall we just finally left without ever being waited on.
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I live 3 blocks from Butch's. Let me ask you, what were you wearing? One thing I know for sure about Butch, If you are wearing average street clothing, he will ignore you...
Pull up in a new hi end automobile, with a hi end 3 piece suit, and he will kiss your ass!!!!
Sometimes he is a really nice guy, sometimes he is an arrogant asshole. Makes me wonder how he has stayed in business so long.
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I've gone in a half dozen times and never seen anyone but his wife.
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I live 3 blocks from Butch's. Let me ask you, what were you wearing? One thing I know for sure about Butch, If you are wearing average street clothing, he will ignore you...
Pull up in a new hi end automobile, with a hi end 3 piece suit, and he will kiss your ass!!!!
Sometimes he is a really nice guy, sometimes he is an arrogant asshole. Makes me wonder how he has stayed in business so long.
Well that says a lot right there. Been there done that, would never support that with my money.
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I'm curious were the boosts being used on the cd player? Or power amp?
What's wrong with not running a preamp? lack of coloration? To me it seems the only issue there is poor speaker placement.
I've never been in Butches, so I dont know what kind of guy he is, but a lack of preamp should help, not hinder the sonic qualities of a speaker.
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If you are controlling volume by attenuating the power amp, you smother the sound. The only way that setup is optimum is if you are cranking it.
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While Butch's has a few good things, they've never demonstrated them properly.
Its his car audio business that keeps him open.
He wouldn't hire me when I asked....
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The first words spoken to me at VHF: "Don't worry about breaking anything. Play whatever you want as loud as you want. The beer is in the blue cooler. The food will be done in 20 minutes."
We're damn lucky. Just sayin'. I just wish I had more cash and time at present. :(
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The first words spoken to me at VHF: "Don't worry about breaking anything. Play whatever you want as loud as you want. The beer is in the blue cooler. The food will be done in 20 minutes."
We're damn lucky. Just sayin'. I just wish I had more cash and time at present. :(
Amen.
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X3!
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As a big MAC fan, I have been to see Butch more than once, but never buy much. Butch is a Premier MAC dealer, meaning he has (and may be required to have) the best MAC gear, with system prices ranging to $100k or more. It's a shame the equipment is not presented to it's best potential. I have heard it in other cities and been more than impressed, but don't want to risk the jail time associated with robbing banks to get the cash to buy it. Butch will dicker on price.
Regarding the CD straight to amp hook up, I have done this at home (my CD player has a volume control and variable line level outputs) and can attest to the sometimes big improvement in sound quality when the pre-amp is taken out of the circuit. The better the pre-amp the less it matters, but I have found no pre-amp that sounds as good as not using a pre-amp. Then there is vinyl and that's why I have a pre-amp.
The fun part is this kind of experimentation costs me nothing.
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I do own a set of B&W 802D's. 5th pair of B&W's that I have owned.
With the right placement, I have a wall of sound well past the boundaries of the speakers
with well defined bass not boomy, and clear but not bright highs.
I do use a tubed preamp and a tubed power amp, I wonder if this helps.
2 months ago, I went into my local Mac dealer, (nice blue lights) I was there for 1/2 hr.
My impression of the sound was that I could have done better with with a $500.00 home theatre in a box. His set up stank.
Brian
Ottawa, Canada.
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(my CD player has a volume control and variable line level outputs)
In this scenario your CDP essentially is your pre amp. You are running the power amp at full open. I may be wrong, but I didn't get the impression that was what the OP was presented with.
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A preamp with a good line stage will buffer the CD player and sometimes improve the sound.
My Rappaport preamp's line stage makes everything that passes through it sound better.
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I'm curious were the boosts being used on the cd player? Or power amp?
What's wrong with not running a preamp? lack of coloration? To me it seems the only issue there is poor speaker placement.
I've never been in Butches, so I dont know what kind of guy he is, but a lack of preamp should help, not hinder the sonic qualities of a speaker.
There was volume pot on the CDp presumably attenuating the output signal that was run directly to the amp.
Dan has heard these speakers using the same SeeDee. Granted, it was in a different room, but also with different equipment. He felt they didn’t even sound like the same speaker. We both found the soundstage to be flat, one dimensional, lifeless & everything was focused at the speakers. No separation. Very little center information. Granted, the excess bottom end boom could have been mostly from the room, but there was detail and tonal quality missing at the bottom end, too.
We re-played the test SeeDee at my place as soon as we got back. There is a track with multiple voices that are positioned individually across the stage from left to right. Played on my home system the origin of each individual voice can distinctly pinpointed to an exact location across the soundstage. At the 802D demo, all the voices were lumped together as a group, indistinguishable from each other and focused just a bit to the center of the right speaker. Something like this is more than just speaker placement, IMHO. This is what prompted us to look closer at the electronics.
Please don’t get me wrong, I am in no way bashing Mac gear. It’s nice stuff. I’m just relating what I thought was an interesting experience I had recently.
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We re-played the test SeeDee at my place as soon as we got back. There is a track with multiple voices that are positioned individually across the stage from left to right. Played on my home system the origin of each individual voice can distinctly pinpointed to an exact location across the soundstage. At the 802D demo, all the voices were lumped together as a group, indistinguishable from each other and focused just a bit to the center of the right speaker. Something like this is more than just speaker placement, IMHO. This is what prompted us to look closer at the electronics.
Could the speakers have been wired out of phase?
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Not at the speakers. We checked.
We did not, however, check the wiring at the amp.
Interesting thought, markshan. ;)
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Not at the speakers. We checked.
We did not, however, check the wiring at the amp.
Interesting thought, markshan. ;)
That was my first thought; that or a MONO switch was thrown....
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Hey, Rabbit!
No, it was not a mono signal.
There was distinct info on each channel L/R.
If the speaker wires were hooked up out of phase, then everything being demoed on this system would be FOBAR.
Yikes! :o
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I think this was just a question of not knowing how to truly set up one's system to demo things properly for people...
I can for a fact, say that the 802Ds are one of my favorite and most jaw dropping speakers I've heard for the price. Set up correctly in a half decent room and they just fade away and let the music play.
Needless to say I'm happy I didn't buy anything off of Butch.... lol