Bowers & Wilkins 607 S2 Anniversary Edition Review

[rynberg]

The so-called circle of confusion (pace Toole) is a hi-fi listener's invention. It's not really a thing in the recording world. Very few engineers work only in one place. They carry in their heads a kind of consensus database - they know Studio A in London sounds a bit lean, Studio B in New York a bit warm, Studio C is Los Angeles a bit bright, and so on. (I used to carry a reel of 1/4" tape, later a CD, to run a kind of mental calibration check before I settled in.) They adjust on the fly. The idea that mixing on B&Ws means instant worldwide disaster just isn't true. Give those folks some credit. They have a thousand times more worthwhile experience than any domestic consumer.

Are you talking about mixing studios or mastering, because they are clearly not the same thing. And the wide availability of horrible sounding recordings across many years and all genres proves your theory to be false. How much credit should I give to an industry that is now on a 20-year tear of creating recordings with less than 8 dB of dynamic range?

There are differences in mixing/mastering rooms sure, not to mention individual tastes of the mastering engineer, which makes it all the more important to use properly engineered speakers.

This is silly too, and unfair to the BBC. First, BBC speaker development was a long time ago, in an entirely mono world, for entirely private and specific professional purposes - mostly live location mixing of classical music and talk, in outside broadcast vans. Those purposes had nothing at all to do with audiophiles' preferences more than 50 years later.

Outside broadcast vans in the 1960s and 70s were nothing like the huge luxurious semi-trailers you see now. They were very small and very narrow box vans. You sat with your forehead almost touching the grille cloth. The "dip" was requested by the users, partly to quieten an evident Bextrene "quack", but mostly to push the sound backward to a comfortable perspective. As such, the (lone, mono) speaker did its job very well.

It isn't silly, you proved my point with your story. We are being saddled with an intentional dip to mimic poor conditions from 60 years ago. As I said, insane.

 

[Pdxwayne]

Both the Harman headphone and Harman loudspeaker targets are actually preference curves, not neutrality curves. They are the curves that were "most preferred" under blind test conditions by most listeners.

The reason the loudspeaker target is neutral(flat) is because that just so happened to be the most preferred curve. If some other curve had been preferred, you can bet that would be the curve that Revel would target.

The reason the headphone curve looks like that is two-fold(from what I understand). Ignoring the bass above 200Hz, that weird shape actually is a "flat curve" after compensating for the gain of your ear. Above 200Hz, that curve is what sounds most like a flat loudspeaker in a room. The reason the bass is boosted is because for some reason people seem to prefer bass that's boosted above flat. Why do people prefer boosted bass for headphones, but not for loudspeakers? I think the most common theory is that it's a compensation for the fact that there is no tactile body bass sensation with headphones.

I suppose the flat freq is a sloping down flat line? Interesting that most people prefer that....I do wonder about that preference research.... it is based on how big of samples...etc

 

[richard12511]

I suppose the flat freq is a sloping down flat line? Interesting that most people prefer that....I do wonder about that preference research.... it is based on how big of samples...etc

View attachment 119963

Yes. A speaker with a flat anechoic frequency response will generally show a downwards sloping line in room.

 

[Inner Space]

How much credit should I give to an industry that is now on a 20-year tear of creating recordings with less than 8 dB of dynamic range?

You should applaud them for supplying product that works better in the vast majority of real-world use cases, while simultaneously regretting you belong to a vanishingly tiny specialist clique who would prefer it to be different.

We are being saddled with an intentional dip to mimic poor conditions from 60 years ago.

No, we're not. Any contemporary dips are contemporary choices - or mistakes or crossover aberrations - which have nothing to do with internal choices made by the BBC decades ago. They're coincidences, is all.

 

[rynberg]

You should applaud them for supplying product that works better in the vast majority of real-world use cases, while simultaneously regretting you belong to a vanishingly tiny specialist clique who would prefer it to be different.

I was going to edit my reply to be little more generous, as there are, in fact, many beautiful recordings out there. But this obnoxious condescending post certainly doesn't deserve any generosity. It would be easy to add compression in the playback device for casual background listening while working out, or commuting, or what have you, without making the recording painful to listen to in more focused playback.

No, we're not. Any contemporary dips are contemporary choices - or mistakes or crossover aberrations - which have nothing to do with internal choices made by the BBC decades ago. They're coincidences, is all.

So you are either claiming that a) a modern dip is a new choice not tied to decades of "tradition" in the UK; or b) that manufacturers producing current speakers haven't learned how to avoid poor off-axis behavior, something that has been understood for decades? I don't find either of those to be credible.

 

[Inner Space]

... there are, in fact, many beautiful recordings out there.

Then what are you complaining about?

It would be easy to add compression in the playback device for casual background listening while working out, or commuting, or what have you, without making the recording painful to listen to in more focused playback.

No, it really wouldn't. Are you kidding? It would require immense international effort to establish and enforce a new standard for adaptable playback devices. And what is "more focused playback"? To us, it's very important. To the music business it's a tiny, economically irrelevant, invisible irritant.

So you are either claiming that a) a modern dip is a new choice not tied to decades of "tradition" in the UK; or b) that manufacturers producing current speakers haven't learned how to avoid poor off-axis behavior, something that has been understood for decades? I don't find either of those to be credible.

B&W in particular was a latecomer in the UK and has no tradition of observing BBC practice. And if you find it not credible that "manufacturers producing current speakers haven't learned how to avoid poor off-axis behavior", then you should pay more attention to what @amirm is showing you. I mean, come on! You think the off-axis weirdness displayed by speakers from all around the world is because they're all clutching tattered copies of BBC design papers from nearly 70 years ago? Really?

 

[st379]

Hi @MZKM ,
Are you going to update your google site? I see a couple of speakers are missing from the list.

 

[MZKM]

Hi @MZKM ,
Are you going to update your google site? I see a couple of speakers are missing from the list.

Yeah, I keep putting it off. Eventually will. If I recall, the NHT C3 and newer are missing.

Main issue is I do most stuff on the phone, and Google really handicaps their mobile Sheets app (and going desktop mode for Sheets on a phone isn’t nice, and usually crashes). So I gotta set aside time to get my laptop out.

 

[preload]

I suppose the flat freq is a sloping down flat line? Interesting that most people prefer that....I do wonder about that preference research.... it is based on how big of samples...etc

The preference research shows that the degree to which loudspeakers match the ideal characteristics of slope and flatness only explains about 74% of the variation in listener preferences in a sample of 70 models played in a specific test room under controlled conditions using a pre-selected set of recordings. But taking a closer look at the regression plot, if you look at the grouping of loudspeakers rated highest by blinded listeners, their PREDICTED preference, based on analysis of slope and flatness isn't that great.

Important: the published Harman research does not allow you to say definitively that the presence of a BBC dip or the characteristic response of B&W speakers is less preferred - it may be the case, but the published studies do not test this specifically.

And it may very well be that in your living room with a music library that was mastered/mixed on B&W equipment in the studio, a higher model B&W might have a preferred sound.

 

[preload]

I understand the theory perfectly, but not only are you completely missing the solution but seem determined to contribute to the problem! In your world, you buy B&W speakers to hear recordings from one mastering house played back correctly? What happens when you listen to recordings mastered by speakers with a completely different and non-neutral response? This is the circle of confusion -- the way to solve it is for neutral speakers to be used at EVERY step in the chain. Not to try to use the same poorly performing speakers as an individual mastering house! Does your solution include multiple listening rooms with different inaccurate speakers? With every recording labeled with which inaccurate system it is supposed to be played on?

Woah there, why is it MY responsibility to fix the problem? I will purchase equipment that makes the music I listen to sound enjoyable. In reality, the problem is that you apparently do not like the fact that different recording engineers use different speakers to perform monitoring and make adjustments. I accept that reality and choose loudspeakers that factor this in.

Why is a purposeful dip in the frequency response ever a desirable function? The only reason that a BBC dip exists is lack of engineering performance of older speakers. That is simple fact.

No, that is not fact. I find it horribly arrogant to assume that modern day audio engineers would purposely design loudspeakers to sound worse in order to respect a decades-old design. Such an assumption seems to imply that a lack of understanding of how engineers function inside of a company and what constraints were placed on them. How do you know that the sales/marketing dept didn't say: you need to design a monitor with a 6.5" woofer, a 1" tweeter, NO waveguide, and a cheapo 1st order crossover, and the volume needs to be kept within a certain size limit? Oh, and the BOM needs to be kept under $100. Oh, and the speaker needs to sound good playing Britney Spears. How do you know that purposefully engineering a BBC dip wouldn't be necessary to make that speaker sound presentable?

You claim to understand the theory, yet all of your statements do nothing but continue to support the circle of confusion. Makes no sense to me.

Something to consider: it's possible that not everyone other than yourself is an idiot - be it me, the recording engineers at Abbey Road, the audio engineers who developed the BBC dip as a solution to a problem, people who purchase B&W speakers, etc.

 

[Mnyb]

Yes. A speaker with a flat anechoic frequency response will generally show a downwards sloping line in room.

How room size dependent is the slope ? is it not so that treble attenuates faster in air with distance .

B&W may have a house curve for FR response that’s weird but ok .
I suppose in control rooms they EQ their speakers and have lot of acoustic treatments.

But the directivity error ? That’s makes the speaker not EQ friendly and as someone says most HT system apply eq .
So why are many in this tread thinking that EQ can work wonders you can’t EQ direct sound and indirect sound separately our brains weigh the direct sound and the indirect sound if you room EQ a speaker with cross directivity problems it will sound weird on axis to human listeners even if your ht reciever shows you a nice curve.

If one was a real HT nut with dedicated cinema room one would also use speakers with a more narrow controlled directivity and a more treated room as your massive array of 7-16 channels give control over spaciousness and soundstage with the speakers and a deader room are prefered.

I think the future is speakers without huge directivity problems, such speaker works better in more different rooms ie thier tonality is less depending on room acoustics reflections would not make mess of things and if needed they are EQ friendly.

Sorry for my long winded post .

Short version:

Some may prefer the FR curve to a neutral one on some recordings.

No one can prefer the directivity problems it’s just wrong.

 

[welsh]

Oh, I have auditioned many models of KEF in dealers room. I own L50 too.

Sorry to tell you that L50 and R3 simply sound just OK for my requirements....So I guess this is all about individual tastes...

I do like the Reference series and almost bought the Reference 1.

I like my LS 50s. I have them on super-damped (cat litter for metal cats) custom stands. They are driven by a Yamaha NS AS-801 amplifier. Not sure if Amir has ever tested this amp, but I’m impressed with its honest power delivery (it works well with my Magnepan LRS). And many thanks to ASR for recommending the Topping D90!

 

[Pdxwayne]

I like my LS 50s. I have them on super-damped (cat litter for metal cats) custom stands. They are driven by a Yamaha NS AS-801 amplifier. Not sure if Amir has ever tested this amp, but I’m impressed with its honest power delivery (it works well with my Magnepan LRS). And many thanks to ASR for recommending the Topping D90!

I have driven it with Parasound A21, Parasound A23, and a couple of AVR. The issue is that it can't "cleanly" cast a big sound stage in my large listening room. There was always some blurring when playing electronica music. In a small room it is decent.

Pretty sad that It is now doing the surround speakers role in my 5.1 setup....

 

[welsh]

Both the Harman headphone and Harman loudspeaker targets are actually preference curves, not neutrality curves. They are the curves that were "most preferred" under blind test conditions by most listeners.

The reason the loudspeaker target is neutral(flat) is because that just so happened to be the most preferred curve. If some other curve had been preferred, you can bet that would be the curve that Revel would target.

The reason the headphone curve looks like that is two-fold(from what I understand). Ignoring the bass above 200Hz, that weird shape actually is a "flat curve" after compensating for the gain of your ear. Above 200Hz, that curve is what sounds most like a flat loudspeaker in a room. The reason the bass is boosted is because for some reason people seem to prefer bass that's boosted above flat. Why do people prefer boosted bass for headphones, but not for loudspeakers? I think the most common theory is that it's a compensation for the fact that there is no tactile body bass sensation with headphones.

I know I don’t have very expensive bits and pieces, but my ‘reference’ is a pair of Audeze LCD Classics, driven by Topping D90/A90. My absolute favourite Audeze ‘phones. They do not have the strange tonality of the more expensive options in the range.

 

[dtaylo1066]

I do believe that treble levels, like bass levels, is somewhat a personal preference. What I find right my friend finds bright. I'm one of those live music tragics who spent too much time at the nighclubs and pubs and live shows because I was a musicican by early training and spent most of my time in my 20s with muso friends.
So I really like how some passive speakers have switches on the back that allows one to adjust the treble level.

Here's a quick and easy rough hearing test one can conduct online. All you need are some reasonable good speakers or headphones:

Extended High Frequency Online Hearing Test | 8-22 kHz (audiocheck.net)

Thanks for posting the hearing test. On my cheap Gateway two-way desk top speakers (imagine how old those babies are!) i could hear nothing until 12K which came in loud and clear. Pretty consistent with my last hearing test. On my homw audio speakers with high quality SEAS tweeters, maybe I would get the 13 or 14K. I am OK with that for age 64. When I attend live rock music events they seem to be overamplified with lots of distortion, which I hate. Thankfully that was not the case at a great Neil Young concert I saw at Red Rocks a few years back.

 

[respice finem]

I am not sure if I would agree to this. I have auditioned several speakers (both active and passives) during the last 5 years including my Yamaha speakers NS777 which was used in my living room for more than 7 years. The speakers that I have listened ranged from MBL, Manger, B&W, Focal, Canton, Nubert, Triangle, Sonus Faber, Lyravox, PAP, Gradient, Amphion, Kii, Genelec, Neuman, ADAM, Yamaha, JBL and the list goes on. I played same set of music every time I auditioned and I have also done AB comparison side by side. For me, the speaker was musical or the speaker of choice as long as I could hear all (at least as much) the details or reproduction of instruments and voices in different rooms / environments without any room correction. At the end, it came down to only 3-4 companies which I loved them...Genelec, Neumann, Adam from actives...Cantons driven by Yamaha AS-3200 amps. These 3-4 companies had their own sound characters or had their own right sound. At the end I would have been happy any of them because they were able to produce all frequencies in neutral sounding way.

With this wide variety, your brain might not have adjusted to one specifically. In my case, it was 20 years (really) with the same speakers, before I began to think about a change/upgrade.

 

[Sprint]

With this wide variety, your brain might not have adjusted to one specifically. In my case, it was 20 years (really) with the same speakers, before I began to think about a change/upgrade.

oh ok, I understand now. Which actives did you finally change to (somewhere I read you brought actives) and what were your old ones that you were using? I went for Genelecs. The best about them is that they do not tire me even after hearing for the whole day. The old Yamaha's had at the end a tiring sound.

 

[respice finem]

The new ones are Neumann KH 310A https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...310a-review-powered-monitor.17723/post-721407
the old ones (which I'm keeping as main for 5.1.2 home cinema use) are B&W CDM7, now 24 years old, just with new tweeters (Sig7, allegedly their ferrofluid doesn't dry out any more).

 

[Sprint]

The new ones are Neumann KH 310A https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...310a-review-powered-monitor.17723/post-721407
the old ones (which I'm keeping as main for 5.1.2 home cinema use) are B&W CDM7, now 24 years old, just with new tweeters (Sig7, allegedly their ferrofluid doesn't dry out any more).

Nice. I loved KH310 and was close in my short list. Unfortunately, unlike KH120 they are not available in white and hence low WAF in my living room.

 

[respice finem]

Yes, they look better (to me) with the grilles on, at least they're black then. I've been contemplating Genelecs too, and frankly, pragmatism won - I live in Germany, so in case of an amp failure etc. service is readily available. Sonically both are studio tools, so sonically usually less apart in their price class than home hifi speakers, though some of those too can be good. Tonality-wise, after taming my CDM7 with Audyssey, they are not very far off - but the Neumann have much more precision and detail, understandably (waveguides, different crossover, tri-amping).