Amazing Clarity compared to speakers at this price. Perfect for classical listening.

Could use a bit more mid/bass

After many night of fiddling and 3 returns later, i finally ended up with a pair of B&W 602 S2's with a B&W ASW500 subwoofer. i had previously taken home and set up a Boston Accoustics setup and an Energy Take5.1 setup. The B&W speakers blow away my 2 previous setups. Movies sound great, but where this setup really shines is classical listening. I actually heard instruments i've never heard before with previous systems. I recommend this system 100% to anyone who wants a great music or movie system, but doesn't have a fortune to spend(i'm a grad student in physics... no a big budget at all).

System so far:
Denon 1602 AV Reciever
2 B&W 602 S2's
B&W ASW500 Sub

Similar Products Used:

Boston Accoustics CR65, Energy Take5.1

With a quality sub these babies come second to nothing!

Affording the quality sub.

I use the 3801 from Denon, Hsu 1220 sub, B&W LCR6 center and B&W 601 s2's for surrounds. Sony SACD is awesome, bass management is a must with ANY SACD or DVD-audio. This setup is the best for movies but with SACD multichannel music is a dream!!

Similar Products Used:

B&W 601 s2

Hope !

medium-high frequencies, service for the problem

Problem of vibration of one tweeter when i listen music with a lot of electric guitar.

Size, Value, Sound.

None - unless you're looking to recreate a rock concert in your living room using a cheap Circuit City/Best Buy A/V receiver for power, as most of those giving poor reviews seem to be attempting.

This is simply a fantastic speaker for the money. In order to make significant improvements in sound you need to spend for than 2 to 3 times what you spend to bring these home. Not even the higher models in the 600 series really eclipse its performance.

It appears that the bargain price of this speaker often results in folks trying to match it up with a Sony/Onkyo/Kenwood, etc. surround receiver & cheap DVD player from the mass market stores. If you try this that's fine, just don't expect any better sound than you'd get from an Infinity, Polk (best they've got), or Bose. Do yourself a favor, go to a dedicated audio store & listen to these guys with quality source components & amplification. Your amp & source have a HUGE impact on the speaker's "performance".

Tips I've learned for those buying or already owning:

1.) Obviously, you need a solid METAL stand w/ spikes. Sand inside helps. Also, a little trick that is fantastic is to use 4 #2 Vibrapods (Vibra what?) per speaker to couple the speaker to the stand as opposed to other methods (Vibrapod.com - you can buy them online at audioadvisor.com) I'm not into "voodoo" tweaks - but the improvement is phenomenal. They're 6 bucks a piece & 10% goes to charity. I like it.

2.) Lots of break-in required as other reviewers mention. Here's a little trick to speed up the process that helps if you want to play them loud non-stop w/o waking up the neighbors. Put the speakers face to face (5/6 inches apart) and reverse the connections on ONE speaker (+ into -/- into +). They are now out of phase, and most of the audible sound (especially bass) is cancelled out. Do this, throw some heavy duty music in, & let em cook for awhile. Works like a charm.

My set-up:

B&W 602 S2's
Bryston B-60 (replaced jumpers w/ silver)
Rotel RCD 971
Silver Audio Silver Bullet's 4.0 (Excellent)

Similar Products Used:

800 Nautilus series, Revels, Paradigm Studios 100/40. Magnepan 1.6Q - my favorites.

Sound quality at all levels, for all types of music
Great cherry finish

Kevlar cone takes time to break in

It took me a year to decide to pick these speakers. For the price range, they're hands-down the best. I was struggling to decide between these and the KEF Q35s or Q55s. But B and W quality is much higher. I'm currently only using these as stereo front speakers. I'll build up an entire home theater system when I have the money.

I have worked these speakers with everything that I listen to (movies, classical, electronic, rock) and they're awesome. Some other reviews have noticed that the bass can be a little too boomy. The kevlar cone does take some break-in time (just pop in Crystal Method for a while). But I think other people probably didn't read the manual (but who ever does?) where it says to keep the back of the speakers AT LEAST ONE FOOT away from the wall, even though the ports are in the front. Trust me, this helps. And, as always, biwiring is a must.

You know speakers are great if, when you listen to recordings with which you are familiar, you hear something that you didn't hear before. A new bass riff (especially Dave Matthew's Band's "Crash"), a different drum beat, a new instrumental solo, a singer taking a breath. Then you can't stop listening to all of your CD's to see what you've been missing. That's what happened to me with these speakers. The cherry finish is great too (if it matches your decor). It's softer on the eyes than having two big black obelisks in your room.

And just to get something off my chest, anyone who expects any one speaker to give you all frequency ranges well is living in a dream world. These are bookshelfs. But they're the best bookshelfs for the price. Sure, the bass may not satisfy everyone, but that's the point. GET A SUBWOOFER LATER. OR shell out the extra cash and get three-way speakers. These speakers handle the specified frequency ranges superbly. The price kicks ass also.

Components:
NAD T751
Audioquest speaker wire (biwire)
Audioquest digital coax interconnect
Pioneer DV-525 dvd/cd player

Similar Products Used:

KEF Model 101 bookshelfs

mid range, highs, buid quality, binding posts

bass!

When I first played them out of the box I was
totally disappointed as they neither had good
highs or lows. It takes a LONG LONG LONG time to
break it. I just use it for a couple of hours a day
and weekend movies. so it took like 6 months to
break in. Now I have added SUNFIRE JUNIOR subwoofer
and it is great. Without the sub I wont use it coz
with just one woofer you cant get both bass and midtange.
So I select main speakers as small on my yamaha RXV-795a
and set the bass to SW and it rocks. With the
5.1 receiver and the sub I have a lot better
control on the bass.

if I set the MAIN to small it sounds too boomy.
I guess any book shelf speaker with a sub woofer
will sound great coz it is the BASS which these
small speakers can handle. so given a choice
I wont spend 600 bucks just for a tweeter and
wppfer. I would put that money on a goos sub like
SUNFIRE and just go for a cheaper MAIN. I suggest
the DM 601 as they are cheaper or even a cheaper
main like the Athena. BOSTON acoustics is also
a good choice. those tiny speakers have good
highs and mid range.

so in short B & W 602 S2 is too expensive as it is
not a full range speaker. It is rated as some 50+Hz
at the low end but I dont think they can play
anything less then 90Hz without the boomy
sound, especially when placed near the wall though
it has front ports.

Similar Products Used:

infinity SM85, Polk Audio, Klipsh RB-3

Warm sounding; detailed treble; deep bass for standmount.

None at this price

Have just finished building up my 1st system, so I am a bit of a novice.

I did not have the time to do serious auditioning of all the pieces of equipment at home, so I read all the reviews I could find on amps, speakers etc. in my price range and before I bought made sure that I had at least 2 good magazine reviews per piece to go on and some idea about their character (eg. bright, warm, thin, dark, etc). I did not really know what I was doing initially, and probably made a mistake with a Sony amp (1st component bought on a special), which I have now replaced.)

My listening is mainly classical, bit of vocal, some jazz.

Hence my choice of B&W 602 S2.

Very satisfied, although as you note I have no comparisons for you.

I do have 4 things to say about these speakers:

1. My speakers took 200+ hours to break in. The B&W site recommends at least 100 hours for the Kevlar drivers, so maybe mine come off the production line stiffer tha average. Give them time before serious listening!!!
2. Match these speakers carefully to amp & source. I can imagine the tweeter asserting itself too prominently with some equipment. This was the case with my Sony amp, now replaced with a NAD.
3. They WILL show up bad recordings. Judge them on a top notch recording
4. I have decided to try out AH! LS Noise killers on the tweeters which have been reported as solving the "grit" in the treble at high volumes (see earlier review here at audioreview). I will do a follow-up review once I have tried them out.

(Speaker stands are made of brick & filled with concrete weighing 120 kg (264 lb) each, mounted on stainless steel rings - so they're not going anywhere!! For anyone with small children and concerned with stands being tipped over - they are very safe. I had made a wrought iron platform with a sleeve (internally padded with high density foam cut to size) to fit over the top of each stand. They look stunning!! and the total cost was $US 80.)

My system:

Sony CDP-CA80ES CD player
Pioneer F-403 tuner
NAD 533 turntable with PP-1 phono stage
Pioneer CT-W606DR tape deck - removes any FM hiss very well
NAD C370 amp
B&W 602 S2 speakers (biwired & Blue tacked firmly to stands)
Kimber PBJ interconnect
Kimber 4PR speaker cable.

At $US 445 - 5 stars for value
Overall rating - 4 stars. There are, no doubt, better speakers out there, but at this price, I doubt that there are much better.

Similar Products Used:

None

Very smooth and natural sound. Excellent on strings and piano and vocals. Terrific imaging.

Wish they would accept banana plugs

Just got these and not even broken in, but right out of the box, the nasties in the highs are gone. I thought it was my CD player so I went looking for a new one. We used the 602.2's for comparing CD players and I fell in love with them. B&W calls for no more than 0.1 Ohm cable resistance, so they need 16 gauge for longer runs. That also implies a minimum damping factor of 80 on the amp. I'm using an Onkyo Integra TX-870 receiver and an Onkyo DX-220 CD player. Tara Labs interconnects on the CD and 12 gauge, fine strand, high purity, rope lay cables on the speakers, but nothing more exotic.

How is the sound? Very smooooth, clean, natural. Bass is tight and for a 7" goes pretty low. Doesn't make it on a symphonic bass drum or organ pedal notes, but everything else is good and tight besides. Several reviews in this website talk about boomy and too prominent bass. Probably due to long runs and/or too small a wire gauge or just cheap wire. Amplifier damping factor can do this, too. So tubes are OUT. Imaging is excellent and clearly showed the Onkyo CD player to be superior to my other one (Sony) in that respect. There is a very obvious lack of distortion products or peaks in the tweeter response so it doesn't sound harsh or edgy, but there are plenty of highs just the same. High strings in particular are bright and high pitched, but detailed and not edgy.

Similar Products Used:

Paradigm Reference Studio 20, Bose 301 Series IV, JBL L-110

clean

can be bright....now anyway. :(

Ok I have a problem, I just added new gear to my B&W 602s2 and different cable and now they are very thin and bright.
BUT I dont know what component is the problem??
So I need advise on my hifi system. Im on a pension so cannot afford very costly HiFI componets.
I get by with average gear.

I have a NAD c320 intergrated Amp with a NAD C540 cd player,B&W 602s2 speakers, Qed "Qunect 2" interconnects,
Qed 79 strand cable.

The problem is that on most cd's now the sound is too bright, way to much treble.

My brother says for me to buy a subwoofer to add bass and foundation to the music. The HiFi shop told me that it is the qed 79 strand speaker wire that is bright. Another shop told me to by a musical fidelity X10-d to go between the cd and Amp to smooth the sound?

So now Im confused who is right and who is wrong? Any help would be great... is the qed 79 strand cable bright sounding?? thanks in advance.
From Mark.

The pure and powerful sound.

none what so ever.

These loudspeakers are delicius!