686 vs 685

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Can anyone who's heard them both tell me what differences they found?

The 685s have higher sensitivity so should be better at low volumes surely? And how does the bass differ are the 686s slightly over-extended?

 

[Anonymous]

I can't tell you much about the 685 as I only heard them briefly but i have had an extensive demo of the 686 using an Arcam CD73, a roksan kandy amp and then my own cambridge audio amp.I used a chord chorus interconnect and xtube 400 speaker cable.

The 686's were poor at low to moderate volume with a veiled, boxy dull sound.They were hugely disappointing compared to the likes of mon audio RS1 which sounded great at all volume levels. I suspect this could be down to the low sensitivity of the 686's. At high volumes ( and i mean 11 o clock on my amp as a minimum) the 686's changed character completely.They sounded open and detailed with serious low end punch and good bass depth ( on a par with RS1's). Overall though the RS1's were slightly better at high vol and way better at low/mid vol. I can't help thinking that B&W have messed up here with the sensitivity.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks. Yeah someone mentioned elsewhere the sensitivity on the 686s was quite low. Did you not notice with the 685s whether this was apparent at all? Has anyone else heard both? Would RS1s rule out a Kandy do you think because they are rated 80W to the Kandy's 120W which seems quite a big difference?

 

[Anonymous]

it will not matter at all. See this link, posted on another topic by igglebert, and read the last paragraph. www.axiomaudio.com/power.html .

 

[Anonymous]

When I was using a Rotel RA-04 with a Rotel RCD-06 CD player there was no difference between the 686s and the 685s. No sensativity difference and no bass difference. At around 12 o'clock they were both the same - no bass difference at all. I would save your money and go for the 686s, but on a different amp it may make some difference.

 

[Anonymous]

Hmm I sense conflicting advice...

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Hughes123"]When I was using a Rotel RA-04 with a Rotel RCD-06 CD player there was no difference between the 686s and the 685s. No sensativity difference and no bass difference. At around 12 o'clock they were both the same - no bass difference at all. I would save your money and go for the 686s, but on a different amp it may make some difference.[/quote]

How did you find them at lower volumes? say about half 9 to 10 on the amp? Thats the sort of volume i normally listen at so i made a point of demoing them at that level.When i first heard the 686's i thought they were superb, but i only listened with the amp at 12 o'clock, not realising how different they sound at lower volume. Just curious, did you try any other speakers at the same time? Ubercow, i think you will probably just have to have a listen yourself and see but try not to crank the amp right up initially, unless that's going to be the volume level that you will listen at.

 

[Anonymous]

This sounds like a classic case of needing to ignore the tech specs and listen. If it works for you then great, but if it's not quite on the button, then reconsider. Keeping the amp at set volumes for each test, as well as the usual listening tests you'd do, pay attention to the quality and level of bass for each speaker model. See if it's more controlled on one over the other...