Can you help me reccommendations an amplifier for B&W 683S2

[voodooless]

Fyi, Bowers & Wilkins 683 S2 loudspeaker review

Yikes

 

[kacos]

View attachment 314924
View attachment 314925

Yikes

very helpful to the Op's question ..

 

[Timcognito]

Big fan of this one does everything including room correction at 120 w/ch. Skip the Eversolo and just add $100 NAS

SoundStage! Hi-Fi | SoundStageHiFi.com - miniDSP SHD Power Integrated Amplifier-DAC

www.soundstagehifi.com

 

[voodooless]

very helpful to the Op's question ..

Sometimes you get answers to questions you didn’t ask. And you posted the link to the review… as for an amp: He already has an amp, it should do just fine.

Better would be to look for something with room correction. A more modern AVR would work (if used for movies), but there are plenty of other options, some even integrated with streamers. NAD has a few for instance. It will bring orders of magnitude more sound quality improvements than just changing an amp.

But probably that’s not “old skool” enough? But the OP also wants a streamer, so not all hope is lost

 

[VintageFlanker]

And if you 'tend' to dislike a brand because some models don't measure good, well, .. that's not very scientific

"Some" models? No speaker in the actual B&W line measures good. None. What's not scientific about it?
Also, if you ask my subjective opinion:
600: sounds bright.
700: sounds very bright.
800: More listenable, yet absolutely unremarkable for the price, biggest caveat being the lack of bass extension and punch. My Buchardt A500 SEs run circles around any recent Diamonds that I heard: 803D4, 802D4 and 801D4...

 

[fpitas]

very helpful to the Op's question ..

As I recall, you threw down that gauntlet.

 

[kacos]

As I recall, you threw down that gauntlet.

My sincere apologies
Won't do that again

800: More listenable, yet absolutely unremarkable for the price

If you read the review link, these are almost like the N804s but at a fraction of the price.
And I have the N804s. I didn't know nor cared how the measured when I auditioned them 20 years ago - I listened to them in a studio. Still have them
So let's take a baseball bat & smash them? Is that your suggestion?

._

 

[fpitas]

So let's take a baseball bat & smash them? Is that your suggestion?

My suggestion is that someone besides me will get far more joy out of them. So they can have them.

 

[VintageFlanker]

Still have them
So let's take a baseball bat & smash them? Is that your suggestion?

What the... ?

 

[nocturne]

And I have the N804s. I didn't know nor cared how the measured when I auditioned them 20 years ago - I listened to them in a studio. Still have them
So let's take a baseball bat & smash them? Is that your suggestion?

You will benefit reading this website more and learning about how ASR actually evaluates loudspeakers. Brand loyalty and subjective impressions will not get you very far - objective data is king.

But on a positive note, you're in the right place, and we're glad you're here

 

[voodooless]

If oldskool is important, this may just be the thing:

Should just about fit the budget, and gives room correction and streaming options.

 

[JeremyFife]

Fyi, Bowers & Wilkins 683 S2 loudspeaker review

I'm no expert on speaker measurements ... but those don't look bad (ignore the subjective review) ... 'a bit polite' ... I could live with that for a while. FR is not good... but the commentary from JA discusses that. I may have missed the point though.

 

[Salt]

If oldskool is a important, this may just be the thing:

View attachment 314943
Should just about fit the budget, and gives room correction and streaming options.

Looks like a Must Have (without needs)...

 

[Vladimir Filevski]

Fyi, Bowers & Wilkins 683 S2 loudspeaker review

You skipped one very important quote from the same review by John Atkinson:
"I am always puzzled by the fact that B&W speakers don't measure as well as they could."

You should learn how to correctly interpret reviews from Stereophile. The devil is in the details.

 

[voodooless]

You should learn how to correctly interpret reviews from Stereophile. The devil is in the details.

Or you just skip the subjective nonsense and go directly to the measurements section

 

[Vladimir Filevski]

Even in the subjective section of the Stereophile review, it is possible to extract the truth by this simple rule of thumb: multiply by 10 all negative remarks and divide by 10 all positive remarks. There are exceptions, of course - some subjective reviewers can be trusted without additional math (Kal Rubinson, ...)

 

[voodooless]

Even in the subjective section of the Stereophile review, it is possible to extract the truth by this simple rule of thumb: multiply by 10 all negative remarks and divide by 10 all positive remarks. There are exceptions, of course - some reviewers can be trusted without additional math (Kal Rubinson, ...)

That’s a lot of work vs just looking at some graphs

 

[Vladimir Filevski]

Some measurements are lacking (distortion in loudspeakers, ...), so reading the subjective reviews (corrected by the additional math, of course!) may fill the empty space.

 

[JeremyFife]

Or you just skip the subjective nonsense and go directly to the measurements section

What's your assessment of the measurements from Stereophile, if you don't mind me asking? I think I'm not understanding them.

 

[voodooless]

What's your assessment of the measurements from Stereophile, if you don't mind me asking? I think I'm not understanding them.

My “assessment” is here

In more words: very uneven response and substantial directivity issues. This means you can’t even properly EQ this away. It’s quite remarkable to have this in a 3-way… the primary reason is simple: the large midrange plays way too high at up to 4 kHz. There are clear resonances up there, and because of its size, it’s beaming a lot, resulting in the directivity mismatch with the tweeter.