Abbey Road studios use Classé amplification, as do many outside the USA.
In domestic situations if not Classé , another favourite is often the big McIntosh amplification. I’ve been to a couple of official B&W demos in Australia and McIntosh was used.
I believe that with the new Classé Delta series we will again see these products paired in demos.
That’s what I’ll be hoping to use in my demo of the 801 D4. I’ll take along the BHK Pre & BHK 300s for a comparison.
Outside of the USA, comparisons of USA manufacturers with B&W is different as the pricing of product are skewed compared with the USA pricing.
e.g Wilson Sasha Daw are $65K, Alexia 2 are 100K,
Rockport Avior 2 60K, Cygnus 95K etc.
So B&W 801 D4 at $53K - if they sound great are still a “relative” bargain.
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Never been a BW fan but some of that has to do with sticking to brands I know. I have Wilson mains but I don’t need the main system fired up every time I just want some nice relaxing background music etc. I ended up with 606 S2 Anniversary Edition bookshelves. Connected to a Naim amp they sound really good especially for the price. I have had much more expensive speakers in this role but after a few days break in, these keep up with anything I have had there so far. I’m streaming Spotify at the moment and they sound great. They seem to do a great job with TV and whatever else I throw at them…