could you please name at least few of those tracks that did not sound right to you?
Sorry for the delayed response. So, again, the rooms were in somewhat of a disarray. The F226Be were in the room that the Salon2s had just been removed from. They were using a ML SACD player and a ML amp - sorry I cannot tell you which models. There are several variables at play here that make this very messy... importantly the SACD player refused to play the SACD layer but would only play the 44.1KHz CD layer. After the sales person tried to get it fixed for an extended period of time (and complaining about the ML app/software) he finally decided to stream content (I believe from Tidal, but I’m not completely certain) that I asked for. So, to be clear, this was not coming from my actual SACDs for the F226Be demo; but my actual SACDs were used for the other speaker demos (in other rooms.)
<subjective rambling “on”>
Female vocals sounded very flat; as if it was a different person singing than I’ve heard on any other set of speakers or amp setup. The stand out here was, Nora Jones - Come Away With me. I’ve listened to this SACD over and over again, through headphones, various speakers, demo’d with B&W 802-D3, and several other speakers. The difference was pronounced, not subtle, similar to smelling the cork from a corked bottle of wine. No, I have not heard her live so “it is possible” that all other speakers falsely represent her voice and the F226Be is a better representation of it. Seems unlikely, and if that is indeed the case, I’d need a second set of unrealistic speakers just so I can continue listening to the farce.
Instrumental music sounded very good. As above, I’ve listened to these particular SACDs (and songs) over and over again on several setups.
* Anne-Sophie Mutter - Carmen-Fantasia, track 6 (Fantasy: Intro) and track 7 (Fantasy: I. Moderato)
* Stevie Ray Vaughan - The Sky is Crying, track 4 (Little Wing) and track 8 (Chitlins Con Carne)
<subjective rambling “off”>
So, in fairness here, it might not have anything to do with the speakers at all but the chain feeding the speakers. Similarly I think I said in an earlier post the other room with the B&W 802-D3 demo’d poorly, but in different ways, much worse than I’ve heard them sound in BB Magnolia rooms. While I wasn’t going to get to do A/B testing (or blind testing) - I thought it would be helpful to listen to them (Salon2 & 802-D3) within a few minutes of each other. So, at this point (and in particular given everyone’s reviews online) I suspect that the source/amp was problematic for these demos and I really just need to find a different store to listen again.
What have your observations been?