Well that would certainly help 
Quick question though: I’ve been really impressed with the way the Serafino handles bass; there’s not a lot of it, but it’s delivered really well with no boom. How are you finding that extra bass with your Amatis: it is gracefully delivered or did you need to adjust the speakers at all to prevent booming?
I don’t think the boomy bass will have anything to with direct vs port output per se, rather, perhaps, the B&W having output that is suppressed by other speakers, that then “exciting” room nodes/resonances that the other speakers don’t. Or as has also previously suggested it could be the amp not adequately controlling the B&W. I think it may help understand what is causing, and thus deal with, the boomy bass if you were to get a copy of REW software (free) and a measuring microphone and find out what is happening in your room. E.g what frequency/range is the boom? From that is it related to a room dimension?
I think this is a good suggestion. My room is 20’ by 14’ by 8’ and the speakers are on the long wall and I have never experienced any boom whatsoever. My amp is the 300dr which many would say is modest for the 802d3. I understand that square rooms are more difficult and sometimes using the narrow wall for the speakers.
All good suggestions - thanks.
However, perhaps I was clear enough about the “boom”. Perhaps that’s the wrong word - this doesn’t sound like a room resonance; perhaps “flabby bass” would be a better description; it sounds like an ill-controlled resonance to me. And this doesn’t just happen at home; it also happened - in just the same way - in an acoustically-treated listening room.
This then leaves two possibilities:-
or
I think point 1 seems unlikely; Chord and B&W are frequently paired together and many of the Chord Electronics staff and consultants (including Rob Watts) own B&W speakers.
Point 2 is interesting because as I’ve already stated, the 801 d4 Signature - in the same listening environment - had much tauter bass. If it had been a room resonance, surely this speaker would have had even more “boom”?
I will try tweaking room placement once I’m back on the right side of The Pond, but I think we might be looking at the port resonance not being as delicately controlled as one might like.
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Well, this has been a long journey and I’ve learned an awful lot - many thanks to the contributors on this forum for their generosity and knowledge.
I had started this quest certain that I’d end up with Bowers & Wilkins speakers. On the way I had an extended romance with some Italian beauties: the gorgeous Sonus Faber Serafino G2 - but ended up with something very different indeed.
I had started with the 803d4, but found the midrange too recessed. Later I had an extended audition with the 802d4 which is better - but greatly preferred its big brother, the 801d4: somehow the midrange was better formed, more refined and of course, one has more of everything.
I very-nearly ended up with the 801d4 - I was offered an excellent price for an ex-demo pair - but their sheer size and slightly ungainly (is that unkind?) appearance scared me off. I greatly admired these - but unlike with the Sonus Fabers, I didn’t love them.
I had another audition with the Serafino G2 and was poised to order their big sister, the Amati G5, when my excellent dealer in Oxford suggested trying the Magico A3…
Chalk and cheese - so very different. The A3 didn’t have the full body of the Serafino (I’m going to have to tone down my analogies here, otherwise I’ll get in trouble…), but did have much greater clarity in the mid range and treble and a punchier (although less extended) bass. We then switched to the A5 (same price as the 801d4 BTW). I was deeply impressed by the sheer fluidity of the sound: utterly seamless and life like. The bass was also more extended than the A3 and, being a closed-box design, was natural without bloat.
These A5 speakers aren’t anything great to look at; probably one of the most-boring designs out there: a box of speakers… but the sound, that’s something different. The frequency response is ruler flat within my hearing range; the dynamics are superb and the coloration minimal. I did my own tests and whilst the Serafinos added a host of harmonics (as did the B&W, though to a lesser extent) the A5s were almost completely pure. Those graphene/carbon fibre & aluminium honeycomb drivers are working extremely well indeed - and this new design is being used in the considerably-more-expensive 2023 “S3” and 2024 “S5” models.
So I pulled the trigger… also replacing the NAC-A5 speaker cable with Chord EpicX (shielded), which seems to give a less muddled sound (for want of a better description).
The speakers apparently need about 500 hours on them for the bass to really come up (I verified this with a demo pair) so I’m still in the early stages - also waiting for the “A-Pods” isolation feet to arrive from California. I’ll fine-tune the speaker positioning once these arrive - the masking tape on the floor shows where my dealer initially set up the speakers.
Magico make far more expensive speakers, but these A5s really are excellent; they seem to combine the clarity of an electrostatic, but without its limitations. No, they don’t have quite the visceral punch of that set of 801d4s I almost bought - but Alon Wolf (Magico founder) is adamant that much of this is “a combination of noise, distortion, and phase inaccuracy”. Certainly different sounding - more precise, delicate even; definitely takes some adjustment, but I’m enjoying the sound.
Thank you again to everyone who contributed to my earlier queries - this has been a rewarding and enriching experience.
Great write up, thank you.
Now that you have such revealing speakers in situ, I wonder what differences you would hear if you inserted a Chord pre-amp in between your DAC and power amp.
Best regards, BF
Interesting one!
Chord Electronics would, I’m sure, like us to buy one of their preamps - and I know people who’ve done this and like the result. I also know that Rob Watts would not approve.
My take is that DAVE already has a very good - and lossless - volume control, so I fail to see why adding an extra step in the chain (and an expensive one at that) should improve the sound. I’m sure it changes the sound, but is it better? I’d be curious to see some measurements and try to understand the physics of it all.
I have listened to the pre-amp at my dealer, but haven’t done any detailed A/B comparisons. My recollection was that the sound seemed purer, less “mellow”, without the pre-amp - but I’d really need to spend a lot more time going back and forth to come up with a really definitive opinion 
Similar discussions were had on the subject of balanced vs unbalanced cables. Ask Chord Electronics and they’ll recommend balanced cables as Ultima is a balanced topology. Problem is, DAVE isn’t - and Rob has repeatedly stated that the extra bit of circuitry required to generate the inverse signal for the balanced output will degrade the sound to a small extent. This was borne out in my own tests - using otherwise identical Audioquest Black Beauty cables - where the unbalanced cables gave sharper, clearer transients, compared to the rather “rounded off” sound of the balanced cable. Again, which is best? Some might prefer the rounded-off sound, in the same way that some prefer the sound of a Naim DAC, or the smoothness of a dCS DAC.
During the course of my loudspeaker quest I gave some demonstrations to one of my neighbours and what surprised me was that the real star wasn’t so much the speakers, but the M Scaler itself - through its effect on the sound stage. So if I were to spend any more money, I might be more tempted by the forthcoming “Quartet” M Scaler - or even better, the possibility of a combined “Ultima” DAC…
All fair points. I recently attended a Chord Electronics demo at the Audiobarn, during which we started with M Scaler & DAVE running straight into the new Ultima integrated, then progressively stepped though adding an Ultima 3 pre, an Ultima 6 power amp and then switching to the bigger Ultima 5 power amp. All this into a large pair of ATC speakers, possibly the 100s if memory serves.
The differences were certainly clear for all to hear with each change.
Given that we already use a pre between our DAVE & the power amp, Chord are unlikely to sell us a second one either 
The M Scaler is a funny thing. We don’t particularly like the sound of DAVE as a bare dac but M Scaler makes all the difference for us. Music simply sounds more natural and “right” with the M Scaler in place to our ears. We appreciate that others prefer DAVE on its own and that’s fine but we don’t understand how they could. We respect their right to choose though. Perhaps it’s the same with DAVE direct to power rather than via a decent pre. It’s nice to be able to choose our own path.
Happy listening, BF
Interesting feedback about the Demo - but did you ever try DAVE directly into ULTIMA 5 ? That’s the critical test…
We tried it directly into an Ultima 6 and then via the Ultima 3 into the Ultima 6. There was a clear difference and those present (about 12 of us) preferred to have the pre-amp in the system.
DAVE has a capable pre-amp as you know but it seemed to those present on the day that the Ultima 3 was more capable and made music more engaging to listen to.
YMMV
We have the M Scaler, DAVE, Ultima 2 pre and 5 power.
Best regards, BF
Thanks for the clarification - but I don’t think DAVE has a pre-amp as such; it’s simply a lossless volume control, reducing the “line out” voltage. Not sure about Ultima 6 - I greatly preferred Ultima 5 in my back-to-back tests. I’m told that as well as having more power it is also able to spend more time in Class A mode.
Absolutely, we feel the same way. The 6 is superb, even when compared with a pair of recently serviced NAP135s, but there’s an effortless to the 5 that won us over within about five notes of the first track. The 5 does output more power in Class A than the 6, though I can’t remember how much more.
Happy listening! BF
Back to loudspeakers, here’s the full setup with Chord/Naim HiFi (*) and part of the Magico A5. Once I receive the “A-Pods” feet - and have finished “running in” the speakers - I shall refine the speaker positions.
These moderately-sized floorstanding speakers are heavy though: 88 kg each - that’s what 1-2 cm of Aluminium + massive neodymium magnets does (talking of which: my mechanical watch gets magnetised whenever I go near the speakers!).
(*) DAVE, M Scaler, Naim CD5 XS, Naim ND5 XS (used solely as a transport for the Synology NAS drive not pictured), Chord Ultima 5.
Depending on your space, have you considered the Maxima Amator? I spent a decent amount of time auditioning these last year and I would consider these an end-game speaker for smaller to medium sized spaces, or for anyone who doesn’t listen to a lot of extremely loud music, metal, or electronic. The speed, immediacy, fluidity, and overall ease of presentation were intoxicating, plus the cabinets are works of art.
I think there is something special about well executed two-way designs. Simpler crossovers with less impact on the signal and on phase, sound, to my ears, more natural and more dynamic compared to more complicated 3 or 4 way designs with necessarily more complex crossovers. The Maxima Amator seems to take advantage of this with relatively few components in the crossover, and very high quality components throughout.
The 800 series speakers I’ve heard have been a few years old, and while they were extremely impressive, they didn’t grab me in the way the Sonus Faber’s did. If B&W is engineering led, SF might be more led by emotional involvement or subjectively beautiful sound. I do think B&W is generally more accurate in their representation, and probably more agnostic with respect to genres, in true monitor fashion; however, we aren’t mastering albums at home, and, for me at least, the way the system makes me feel when I play music is more important than how accurate it might be.
Good suggestion! I think they’d be a bit small for my space, frankly - but they certainly look lovely, don’t they?
There’s no doubt that SF make very beautiful and seductive speakers. I loved the Serafino G2 and would probably have bought the Amati G5 but for a couple of observations:-
Firstly, I found both speakers a bit too “rounded off” at the top end; they lacked that incisive crispness that one notices in a live concert: the initial bite of a note; this also dulled the ethereal sound of some choral music.
Secondly, these speakers add substantial colouration to the music - by which I mean added harmonics. (You can readily test this by playing a pure tone and recording the result; the Serafino G2s I tested yielded a whole slew of harmonics - as did the B&W 803d4, for that matter, though not to such an extent). This makes some lesser recordings sound fabulous - and it certainly adds “body” to the music, making up for any limited bass (especially with the Serafinos). However, it’s not something that you can turn off, and there’s the rub.
Ultimately I felt that purity was my key requirement, and here the Magico shine - this, combined with a seamless fluidity in the mid range that makes the B&W 800 series sound a trifle rough.Basically we’re getting much of the sound of an electrostatic speaker, but without the limitations.
Having said all this, there are times when I’d like a bit more warmth - but only as an option. Most of us only have one listening room, so (sadly) we can’t switch between multiple sets of speakers to match different moods/recordings - perhaps there’s a DSP solution to this?
