The D4’s aren’t going to sound the same as your D1’s, so you’ll be rolling the dice again.
Have you heard the D4? Can you get a home audition ? The D4 will certainly sound different than your D1. Not simply “improved” but also different
Another consideration that I don’t believe has been brought up yet. Is there are good line conditioner at play in the system because it can make a huge difference, especially on speakers that are very revealing in the treble region.
I’m using a Puritan 156, and even with that in the system, some recordings have a slight edge on them when listening during peak power use. Those same recordings lose their slight edge when listening late at night.
With no power conditioning some recordings are unlistenable during peak power use.
Yes, I’ve been following this thread and wondered if what you’ve brought up could be a factor. I know when I finally found power conditioning that was optimal for my situation, tendencies for unpleasant brightness were greatly reduced and there was much greater listening ease. With very revealing speakers everything downstream matters and the positive effects of addressing vibration and power issues are cumulative at every step.
Yep, a speaker can get blamed for being bright because it’s very revealing of everything that’s downstream of it. So it may not be the speakers that are at fault, but any number of things that come before it, like the lack of clean power.
If you buy any high performance product, say like a Ferrari, you better be feeding it high octane gas, and equipping it with low profile high performance tires or you might blow the engine or roll the vehicle speeding around a corner.
I just found a thread from August 2021 in which the OP is not pleased with how his system sounds and that was with the B&W 802D speakers. No disrespect intended but was there ever a point when you were truly happy or at least satified with your system?
Unhappiness creeps in at times, even with the best of systems. Finding a solution, a single silver bullet in the form of the “perfect” loudspeaker, may be foolhardy. So many variables to consider along the way to that end point, as many have pointed out.
Much mental capital has been expended to assist OHP in his journey. I hope all this advice can turn into positive action, rather than a rinse-and-repeat therapy session.
the real question, why they sold so much and all music store are stock with a over 50K pair! that they could not get rid of?
I enjoyed my system for at least 15 years, then something started to get harsh and bright sounding about it. I replaced all electronics, leaving just the 15 year old 802’s remaining. Logically, I thought maybe they were starting to degrade subtlely.
I’ve heard the 805 D4 at an audio store, and were, well, small sounding, yet very clear.
I’ve heard the 802 D4 at Best Buy on a Marantz home theater amplifier (go figure), despite the amplifier, they sounded like B&W’s, a very familiar sound
Maybe adding a simple tube buffer would smooth things out.
First product discussed is a Schitt tube buffer.
Another option worth considering is giving LessLoss’s Firewalls a trial run. I recently bought a pair of the FireWall Stellars to try and have been quite amazed at their ability to reduce “digititisi” and excessive sibilance without negatively impacting other areas of reproduction. The reviews are spot on as to their benefits. Both my Tidal Piano Ceras and KEF R7 Metas show equal degrees of improvements. Dealer Atelier-13 in Nashville has a trial program to see if they are right for you.
https://6moons.com/audioreview_articles/lessloss-stellar-firewall-for-loudspeakers/
https://www.atelier13-usa.com/lessloss-firewall-for-loudspeakers