seeking B&W advice (1 Viewer)

[Noah]

Today was a very good day--I was able to unload my JBL Studio Series package (310 fronts, 38 rears, S-center) in order to buy the B&W 600 Series 3's that I have been coveting ever since my store got them 2 months ago. My question is this: which set should I buy? Conventional wisdom told me to get floorstanders in the front (603's), bookshelfs on stands in the rear (601's), and the larger center (LCR 600). I am sure this would be a great system, but I have recently been taken by the notion of using LCR's all the way around, or at least in the front soundstage with the 601's in the rear. Anyone with any B&W experience, please help me out. My listening is 60/40 movies to music. Does anyone have 3 LCR's as fronts? With a good sub (ASW 600), will this hurt my stereo listening? Any thoughts are welcome...

 

[Harold_C]

I can't think of anything to be gained by going with the floorstanding 603's in the front. You are going to want to run them high-passed as SMALL, anyway..

I would go with four 601's and the center channel, although your idea of five LCR600's is an intriguing one. Either of those combinations would be outstanding.

 

[Arron H]

I think that this really boils down to personal preference. Go to your B&W dealer and A/B the LCR600 setup with the ASW600 and the 603/601 setup with the ASW600 and see which one you prefer.
I have 603s & 601s with the LCR6 center (series 2). I prefer the very full front soundstage presented by the floorstanding 603s. Even with the sub and fronts set to small, the larger enclosure of the 603s seems to provide a larger, more expansive sounding front soundstage. I also have the flexibility to switch the fronts to large and go without a sub if I choose to. I tried 4 601s with ASW600 and this combo seemed a little bit thin for my tastes. I did not try an all LCR600 setup when auditioning and so, I cannot help you here other than restating that you should perform the A/B before deciding. Good luck with your decision

 

[Steve_Ma]

I also prefer the 603s for mains over the 601s (which I use for surrounds). I find that they give a much fuller sound when it comes to music. The idea that floor-standing mains will somehow be wasted if you use an external sub may be conveinient, but I do not believe this is really the case and rather unfortunate. Here's a thread that discusses this in part. Scroll to John and Brian's comments on the first page.
http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/003524.html

 

[Norman L]

Noah,

How did you like the JBL S Center?

I just bought the B & W LCR60 S3 and it does not fit in the center position in my unit.( speaker is 12" deep and I did not know) I have very old B & W DM2000 I was trying to match a center.

I was told to look at the S from JBL

 

[Harold_C]

I also prefer the 603s for mains over the 601s (which I use for surrounds). I find that they give a much fuller sound when it comes to music. The idea that floor-standing mains will somehow be wasted if you use an external sub may be conveinient, but I do not believe this is really the case and rather unfortunate.

Not wasted, just a series of tradeoffs.
The 603's may well be better speakers down to 80 Hz than the 601's as a result of different frequency response characteristics from 80 to 240 Hz. I suspect this is the case, simply because playing from 80 Hz to the tweeter crossover is going to be marginally borderline for a good 6.5 inch midbass driver. If so, then a system with four 603's would sound better than a system with 4 601s. On the other hand, with an 80 or 100 Hz crossover, the additional bass driver on the 603 is mostly going to be doing a whole lot of nothing!
The tradeoff in a combo 603/601 system is that you are giving up an absolutely identical match between your front and surround speakers. Which is more important? My suspicion is that perfect matching of speakers in a 5.1 digital surround system is very important. But, that's really a question that can only be answered when talking about specific speakers in a specific room.
BTW, this is why I'm intrigued by the idea of five LCS600s in a system. I doubt (just a guess) that the LCS600 on its own merits is as good a speaker as the 601 or 603, but having five absolutely identical speakers could provide extraordinary 5.1 channel performance. In my own cheapo system with B&W DM303s and LCS3, I know that the matching between the four DM303's and the center channel is not perfect. I would rather have five DM303's, but (alas) I need the shielding on the center channel.
The other tradeoff is price. Obviously, if cost is no object, then this is a non-issue. But, for an awful lot of consumers, it seems that the extra money spent on the larger front speakers leads to an offsetting reduction in budget somewhere else. I think that cutting corners on surround speakers, or amplifier power, or subwoofer quality will have far more negative impact on the overall performance of the system than the difference between a 2-way 7 inch speaker in a bookshelf enclosure and the same speaker in a tower enclosure when neither one will be called upon to reproduce bass below 80 Hz.
The thing that really hurts people is when they mistakenly set their floorstanding speakers to "LARGE", thinking that these settings have anything to do with the pyhsical size of the speaker.
To step back and take a "big picture" look: I think a system with any combination of five B&W 601's, 603's, and LCS600s, a good amplifier, and a capable subwoofer would automatically qualify as an outstanding surround sound system. Any differences between the various configurations would be "gilding the lily" for an already superb system. In other words, it would be very difficult to make a bad choice with any of those speaker combos.

 

[Arron H]

I find this quote by Brian Florian very interesting (see Steve Ma's attachment):

There are two gut or knee-jerk reactions to this: First, people with tower or floor standing speakers feel they are in some arbitrary way "wasting" their speaker if they set it to small. This is so unfortunate and so far from the truth. As noted by Mr. Blackburn, a speaker should have linear response below the nominal crossover point anyway for certain crossover designs, which in the case of an 80Hz point means being good to at least 40.

So it sounds like extra extension is a good thing even if you are setting the speaker to small.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Harold,
Some of us actualy run our mains as large.. Who Da Thunk It???

 

[Noah]

Thanks to everyone for your posts--my thinking is that the 603's would be better performers for two-channel stereo, of which I listen to quite frequently. So I guess I really am wondering how well LCR speakers perform in a stereo configuration (or, stated differently, how much better are the 603's?) I don't think I can afford 5 LCR 600's, so more likely I would purchase 5 of the smaller LCR 60's or 3 of the bigger LCR 600's for the front soundstage and 2 601's for the rear. These speakers all have the same driver size (6 1/2"), but I am debating the "larger speakers for stereo" vs. "identical speakers for multi-channel" question. Does anyone use LCR's in a stereo configuration? This is the most fun I have had since I bought my first DVD player.

PS to Norman: The JBL's were very good speakers, if a little on the bright side. I was driving them with a Denon 1801 (which I am replacing with a new Yamaha), and the combination was a bit harsh at my reference listening levels. Also, the S-center distorted on male vocals at those levels, which could very well be due to the fact that it fell off of my Sony Wega last year (damn Sony for the tops of their tv's!) I recommend it as the best center speaker I have heard under $300.

 

[James Bergeron]

I've heard a 5.1 setup with 5 602's and a sub with the 602's all set to large and let me tell you WOOHOO it sounded awesome!

 

[Harold_C]

Some of us actualy run our mains as large.. Who Da Thunk It???

I know.
I don't understand it, but I know many people do!

 

[David Judah]

On the other hand, with an 80 or 100 Hz crossover, the additional bass driver on the 603 is mostly going to be doing a whole lot of nothing!

It is there to support the midrange driver in the upper bass region down to the rolloff of the crossover. In my experience of using both 602's and 603's as FRONTS, the additional bass driver of the 603 allowed for a more open sound in the midrange over the 602(set to small with a 90 Hz crossover).

DJ

 

[Willem Vos]

I'm struggling with a similar issue, debating on whether to go with the 601S3's or 603S3's

I currently have Mission M71's as fronts, and came to the conclusion that I had to set the crossover to 100Hz to get the system to produce good bass in that region. Obviously the M71's rated to go down to 65Hz weren't cutting it at 80Hz - 100Hz.

What I would like to know, is in what region the aluminium driver of the 603 operates. If this is only from 100Hz down, it's definitely now going to get a workout even though I would be putting my crossover setting back to 80Hz.

If it kicks in at say 200Hz, it would probably be worth having... any insights?

Edit: Read on the website:

the 603 aluminium driver kicks in at 150Hz

the 604 aluminium drivers kick in at 450Hz

This means that the 604 alu drivers would be less wasted than the 603's, as the 603s have (150-80=)70Hz "reserved" for them and the 604s have 370Hz "reserved".

Am I correct in this assumption?

 

[Steve_Ma]

Just some random thoughts based on feedback here. FWIW, I don't run my 603s as large. After experimenting vith various connection methods, speaker settings, and x-overs, I get the smoothest response with the LFE connection and my mains set to small (using the 100hz x-over on my AVR). There was a part of me that wanted to see the flattest response with a 60hz x-over to "get the most" from my tower, but in the end, The fixed x-over in my AVR was the clear winner.
This sort of supports Harold's comments from before, but I think for HT apps, any benefits derived from having the 603s over the 601s is likley minor, if at all. At the very least, it gets to the point of deminishing marginal returns. It is on complicated musical reproductions that I appreciate the extra range the 603 offers. Most all my music listening is done in 2CH mode (actually 2.1).
I agree with David in that I may not be able to tell you exactly which freqs the mid/bass driver is handeling on my 603, but it's clearly doing doing something.
With a 100hz x-over, I am still getting some minor sound coming from the 603s when I play test tones around the mid 70hz range. It's minor, but it's there. Willem, I'm not sure if that helps you at all since I have the S2 (non-metal bass driver), but I can confirm tonight if it'll help you.
--Steve

 

[Willem Vos]

Steve, I assume by an AVR, you mean a denon receiver(?), but I'm not quite sure about the the fixed x-over. The fixed crossover according to the almighty thx standard is 80Hz (used by denon / onkyo / others), and I only know of Yamaha using a 90Hz crossover.

I'm guessing here, since I don't have any 603's -yet-, but wouldn't it be better to switch to an 80Hz crossover? i would think the 603's should give a good response down to 80Hz at least, and you would be using the bass driver more.

Just a thought.

 

[Philip Hamm]

Have you considered bookshelfs all around? IMO the 602 is a much better speaker than the LCR6. The MTM arrangement is not optimal, particularly for music. I run three identical DM602s as my fronts and two 601S2s as my rears. The front soundfield is extremely cohesive and sounds great. And stereo music is not compromised as it would be with the MTM LCR6.

If you can go with identical speakers all around that is the best way to go IMO.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I selected B&W towers (604S2) for my mains when I upgraded approximately 3 years ago. My reasons were (1) I wanted to listen to stereo music without a sub, (2) I wanted the ability to run my mains as LARGE due to the high LFE crossover of my Sony 50ES receiver that I then owned, and (3) I planned on owning these speakers for many years and did not want to compromise.

I ran the 604's as LARGE, with the lower frequencies also sent to the sub (this was an option with the Sony receiver). My sub is located in the back of the room, so bass would become directional at SMALL with Sony's 120Hz crossover.

I have since upgraded my receiver to a Pioneer Elite 47TX, and I have the crossover set at 80Hz. I have played with the crossover and LARGE/SMALL settings, and have settled on 80Hz with all speakers set to SMALL. The 604's sound wonderful with stereo music, DVD-Audio and multi-channel movie soundtracks.

 

[Steve_Ma]

Hi Willem,

I should have been more specific. By AVR, I meant (AV Receiver). My unit is a Marantz SR7000. With mains set to small and sub = yes, the internal x-over is fixed at 100hz. It is not adjustable on the Marantz.

I measured my 603S2s to have a good response down to about 47/48hz. That, however does not speak to the integration with the sub and the rooms response. Both of which I found to be more important than the response of the main speaker in and of itself.

There has been a great deal of debate about the benefits of 100/80/60 hz x-overs and etc. Because of that, I connected with the speaker level connections, to use the subs variable x-over and to defeat the one on the Marantz. After measuring x-overs of 60/70/80 and 90 hz, I went back to the LFE connection because it gave me the flattest measurable response. My opinion: The benefits of an 80 vs 100 hz x-over may be over-stated. Truth be told, I had difficulty audibly noticing the difference between a 60hz and 100hz x-over, much less 80 vs 100. It was only by using the SW and SPL meter that I was able to clearly measure an improvement with the LFE connection and 100hz x-over. Not that you needed all that, but that's my exp, FWIW.

--Steve

 

[Willem Vos]

My mistake Steve,

I didn't know Marantz had a fixed crossover of 100Hz.

Anyway, since your 603s internal crossover lies at 150Hz, the Bass driver should be handling the 100-150 range, and doing that quite well...

My problem remains whether that is enough to warrant the purchase of the 603s over the 601s

perhaps the 602.5s are a good tradeoff. The 602s don't seem to be proportioned right (estetically I mean) to me.

That's just my opinion though: a lot of people only care for sound, but I want my speaker to look good as well. That said, there are probably a lot of people that think the 602s look good.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

[Steve_Ma]

You're certainly on the right track with your research. I'd say let your ears and eyes decide. Just keep in mind, that the x-overs are not brick walls. They are slopes. Even with a 100hz x-over, there is bass driver activity well below that.

Happy Hunting!

--Steve