Whether or not someone thinks that a speaker company of B&Ws history and stature is important and how they conduct their business, it is interesting to note that not too many months ago, in a "Audioholics" review of one of their most recently introduced product lines, that other than the "top-of-the-line" Diamond 800 series, B&W is now manufacturing ALL their other models in China. Despite that, I haven't seen the price drop too much on their speakers.

Endorsing Worfzara's comment, I also found the B&W's (in the blind listening test) to be a little bright, a little leaner sounding. The M3's were fuller and more balanced, IMO.

Hi Dr. House,

Yes, I've heard the Revel Ultima in a demo at the Consumer Electronics Show, but never in the same room as the M80. When I heard the Revel, it was very neutral, wide-range and natural, much like the Axiom M80, and I'd wager that in a double-blind comparison, the two would receive almost identical scores and the "similarly good" ranking.

The Revel loudspeakers are generally very fine, and given Kevin Voecks's years spent in Canada (designing for Mirage)and his familiarity with the NRC program and the "family of curves" anechoic measurements, that's no surprise. The speakers he designed for Snell were among the best-sounding US speakers at the time.

As to the B&W at Abbey Road, that's expected, as B&W is a British speaker company and perhaps the most prestigious, highly marketed and expensive. I knew the late John Bowers (the "B" of B&W) and certainly the top-of-the line 801 and its various iterations were very good speakers and did fairly well in double-blind comparisons when I was a magazine editor, but not as well as several Canadian brands including Axiom, Energy Veritas, Paradigm and PSB.

I don't know what to make of the speaker configuration you describe seeing in the video.

Cheers,
Alan

Thanks for your thoughts Alan. I'd have to look at the Blu-ray disk again more closely but it looks very similar to this configuration. From reading the description on the website, I take it they are used as the surround monitors?

http://www.abbeyroad.com/studios/studio1/control-room/

Click on the control room.

Looks like they're center channel speakers used for surrounds. Probably aesthetic reasons.

Yes, I agree, and it almost seeems like they may flip up or go into the ceiling out of the way when they're not used.

Alan

The funny thing about that special feature on the disk is we find out Tom Morello from the band Rage Against The Machine/Audioslave has problems with the 7/8th time signature and odd time signatures in general. He had a tough time recording one guitar part in particular. I was kind of surprised about that.

Almost like finding out Einstein couldn't tie his own shoes.

If it was someone like Vai instead than it would hurt.