I recently purchased a B&W series 800 surround sound system.
I have followed the HT shows for the last eight years and have always been impressed with the Outlaw demonstrations.
Finally after literally two years of looking at pre/pro systems I deceided to buy the Outlaw 990/7700 combo.

AWESOME...HAPPY HAPPY

My system up until the last week consisted of Definitive speakers
A good system. consisting of
2004's mains
2002 center
BP2X surrounds
BP2X rear surround
PF1500 subwoofer

While I was happy with this system I was not fully content with the overall sound. Especially with the bass respone in both the 2004's and the PF1500. I saved my school lunch money plus my wife made a contribution to OUR Home Theater and was on the market to looking for a more responsive, accurate speaker.

I listened to the Paradigm Signature S6, Genelec and Dynaudio. All excellent systems.
The Genelec and the Dynaudio speakers were either overpriced or just plain out of my league. The systems that I was listening to both came in at $14,000 to $16,000 OR better, price range.

I never thought that I would listen to or buy B&W speakers.
I had listen to B&W's about three years ago and was not impressed.
I went to a store out of state but only a 30 minute ride from my home to an audio video store in the state of Delaware.
Overtures is a first class audio, video, Home Theater company. I had been in there many times before. The saleman at Overtures that I had dealt with on many occassions just to answer some questions in regards to HT was very helpful. He did so without any rush or lack of enthusiasm even realizeing that I was only there to ask questions and not there to purchase.
The salesman's name was BO and he did not handle me by overwhelming me with all of the tech jargon. He knew the bottom line with me was strictly a good sounding Home theater system in the price range that we had dicussed.
I appreciated that. Let's face it, how many people really understand ALL of the tech talk. Besides when it comes down to it we only want a good sounding system that will knock your socks off , with a good visual display.

(I have a Infocus 7205 projector.)

Bo introduced me to the B&W 800 series speakers. The 804's
I was really impressed with the quality of sound as well as the imaging.
Bass....Well I dfinitely did not think that I would buy a B&W subwoofer. No way!!

Well I did.
Bo recommended two subwoofers. The Martin Logan Depth i and the B&W PV1.
I choose the B&W because the sound was very tight and not over bearing....and not BOOMY. The size is equivalent to two bowling balls. For me that is perfect.
The Martin Logan Depth i subwoofer was rated the stronger of the two. However the room that I was listening to these speakers in was twice the ceiling height of my room and four feet wider than my room.

I went with the DS7 surrounds as opposed to the DS8s because of the size. 24 inchs in length in an already established Home Theater room would not work out as well as it will with the DS7's.

Listening to the DS7's I feel that I made a good choice.

In the end I chose the B&W 804's mains
B&W HTM3S center
B&W DS7's surrounds
B&W DS7 rear surround
B&W PV1 subwoofer

I am pleased with my selection and also the professional way that I was assisted. Nothing pushy. Just straightforward salemans-ship.

I made two good decisions, the B&W speakers and Overtures.

Frank Fanucci
(rubbersoul662001@yahoo.com)

Congrats on your B&W's - big fan here. Just unloaded my 5 B&W speakers due to room compatibility, but I still have my ASW650 sub.

Another Pa boy. Good to hear from you. It is nice hearing from someone in the area.

What kind of B&W's did you have? Are you happy with the Toshiba HD?

Nice display!

Another huge B&W fan here. A bit pricy in the store, however, slightly used and well cared for B&W's can be found everywhere for exceptional values if you're patient.

Guido You are right B&W's are a little pricey but then again so on a lot of electronics. You get what you pay for in a lot of cases.
In my case I saved for an expensive high quality speaker and did not mind spending the money.

PS the good wife helped me out also!

Frank

I was originally running all B&W in a 5.1 setup -

4 CDM SNTs as monitors and a CDM CNT as the center channel. I recently sold them off on Audiogon to three different people - 2 SNTs to a fellow Outlaw member!

I'm pretty happy with the HD-A2. It's pretty slow on startup and I think I need to update its firmware. Other than that, blown away by its performance. I'm quite happy.

Frank,

Did you listen to the Outlaw Booksheves?

I listened to them at the home theater show and was very impressed.
Clean, clear, and the speaker had good imaging.

For me I wanted towers because I watch a lot of movies. At least more movies than music. However when I auditoned the B&W's I did listen to both music and movies. Jazz, blues rock and even some opera.
I liked the B&W's a lot.

I think that the speakers from outlaw audio are well worth a listen and give you a good bang for your buck.

I wish that outlaw would have come out with a moderate size tower along with a good bipole-dipole surround speaker. While I was impressed with the speaker that was auditioned at the HT show I was disappointed in the marketing technique.

I've got a co-worker who has also remarked on interest in Outlaw towers. I reminded him that the original announcement of the Bookshelf mentioned a possible four speakers in the Outlaw family eventually. The best guess that I've seen for those other three slots are a center (now confirmed with the LCR, which should be seeing the light of day before too much longer), a surround, and a tower. I still hold to the principle of buy when you are ready, not when the "next big thing" is due to appear some time "soon," so I'd say that going ahead and getting good speakers that you like now was the smart thing for you to do, but I think that at some point (maybe by late 2008?) the two speakers that you mention are likely to exist.

About 4 years ago, when I was putting together an audio system to replace my much too old equipment, I listened to a lot of speakers, Canton Dynaudio, Mirage, and more. I wasn't going really high end, but I wanted good sound. I was about to buy a pair of Dynaudio towers when my internet trawling led me to Soundex outside Philadelphia, which had a good price on the speakers I was interested in. But it also had B&W, and I was able to compare the Dynaudios to B&W CDM7s in the same room. We left with the B&Ws. Since then I have acquired a CDM CNT and a pair of the SNTs mentioned above for the HT system I'm gradually putting together.

When a neighbor decided a few months ago that she had too much speaker in her living room I acquired a pair of 703s for my 2-channel audio system (replacing the CDM7s).

Are there better speakers out there? probably. But B&Ws sound very good and, as noted above, there are good buys in used speakers that have been treated kindly.

Bob

Bob congratulations on your B&W's. B&W's are speakers that some people strongly dislike. I think the first reason is the cost. The second is there exact musical soundstage. Many of us myself included are so programed to listening to music in the car and Fm radio and therefore feel comforable with the same tonal quality.
I have been listening to my new system for a few days now and there are a lot of cd's that I am hearing in a new and orginal way.
Different? Yes! But nothing that I can say that I was dissappointed that I bought B&W's.

I also listen to Dynaudio contour 3.4's and loved them.
From there I listened to Genelec speakers. I loved them also.
Then I listen to a speaker that I thought that I would never buy since three years prior I auditioned them and was dissapointed thinking the store selling them was crazy with a price tag of $3000.00 just for the mains.
What were they? Oh yea...B&W's
Giving them hours of listening time I bought the 804's...for more than $3000.00 a pair plus the surrounds and center and sub.

Hope you enjoy them... Frank