[70sMac]

Originally Posted by George Prentice

I enjoy the B&W speakers for our home theater. They are great speakers... but not for my audio system, they are very different. I can’t say I have ever been attracted to the B&W for my audio system (although I had 2 B&W 800 series subwoofers until recently, we still have 2 in the home theater). I have never swapped them to listen to them in my audio system. But over the decades I have heard a lot of systems. Just at a high level, if I really liked rock music and that was my focus I would consider B&W. I mostly listen to jazz, world, blues, electronic, classical, and rock so the overall balance, and coherency goes hands down to Sonus, particularly the current generation.

My audio guy just got in a set of new 800’s. He wants me to come down and listen to them, for fun... he knows I will have no interest in buying them but they do something no other speaker does. He and I have similar tastes and he wants me to enjoy sampling what they do best... kick ass. The classic combo is McIntosh and B&W for rocking speakers with great mid range and kick. The other camp is Sonus / Audio Research for balance, detail, midrange bloom and musicality ( I am not saying the lack bass). I guess there is also the Wilson camp. Of course there are lots of other sounds.

George..... Please forgive my ignorance, but I've been living in a blue glow for decades. Is "ARC" the same as Audio Research?

I just looked over some photos of the Audio Research REF160S stereo amp, which is what I assume you use, and it looks very nice.

The last time I visited our regional Mac dealer, he had a pair of "smallish" Sonus Faber Sonetto I speakers near the front entrance. They were being driven by a Mac MA352 "hybrid" integrated amp...but they did sound pretty sweet. Perhaps I need to find an Audio Research dealer and ask him to mate an Audio Research amp with a pair of Sonus Fabers, aye?