ATTN Moderator :

It seems something went wrong with the 'Strengths' field during my last post. The content seems to appear 3 times.

'a transparent, neutral, detailed and "fast" speaker'

should be the correct description of this field in our review.

My excuses.

a transparent, neutral, detailed and "fast" speaker. It is
a transparent, neutral, detailed and "fast" speaker. It is
transparant, neutral, detailed and fast

good subwoofer is required for home theater use

At hifi-plaza

http://hifi-plaza.com/content/reviews/cdm1nt.html

we concluded :

The B&W CDM 1NT is a transparent, neutral, detailed and "fast" speaker. It is a very good alternative for the B&W Nautilus 805 which costs about $1000 more (including stands). Since it is able to handle loud passages without any sign of strain or compression, it can also be used in the home theater environment where a high dynamic range is a must. The CDM 1NT is a speaker for the audiophile who likes his speakers to sound as close to the reality as possible. As a bonus, the finish of the speakers and the speaker stands is first rate.

Similar Products Used:

Nautilus 805

Many!!!, imaging, smooth response, fast but not harsh,open and spacious,nice bass for a small box.

Requires a really good stand to get all the performance the speaker is capable of, that's another $400=$600 .

First things first, to the "audiophile" who questioned their bass response, READ SOME BOOKS, Hoffmans Iron Rule predicates exactly how much low bass performance you can expect from any given cabinet volume, woofercompliance, mass and system efficiency, these do a remarkable job for their size. Plus not having a big honking woofer mounted in the box screwing up the midrange is a plus! Smaller boxes suffer from fewer diffraction effects, the boxes are less prone to talking because the cabinet structure is more rigid, if you doubt this, rap your knuckles on this cabinet and then some of the bigger speakers in the showrooms.Their midrange is world class, as good as a lot of the big boys, listen to some really well recorded accoustical material, especially vocals and you'll agree. The top end is bettered only by a few esoteric driver types that I've heard, yet this system is better integrated. Yes, you need a sub to fill a large room at high volume, but it had better be a good one , and don't think for a minute you can just plop it down anywhere in the room and get good results. It can take days to find the "honey hole."One more thing about these speakers, they deserve the best electronics you can provide. Take a little time to set them up right and you'll be rewarded with what may very well be the finest under $2000 sound around.

Similar Products Used:

Too numerous to mention

frame work, technology, design, look

harsh highend

I bought a pair of CDM7SE's a year and half ago and love it so much. Not like some other speakers after a while you get tire of it. CDM is so balanced. A week ago I bought the new CDM1NT to replace my DM602's and the disappointment began.

As some review says, it sounds harsh on highs, it does hurt my ears. While listening to classical or Jazz you might be able to get away but there is no way to use CDM1NT for vocal. The sound stage is broader than the old series but for some reason the image disappears on me. I can't percisely pinpoint where the singer is anymore. After two days back and forth tests, I decided to borrow (with deposit of cause) a pair of old CDM1 to compare. It sounds just like CDM7SE with weaker mid/bass but mush better than the 1NT. I decided to keep the old CDM1 and return the CDM1NT. My dealer also agreed it sounds weird after I returned it. I suspect B&W might have a bad batch cause CDM7NT sounds just like the old ones. Most of CDM1NT users don't have such complain. Or it just me.

Similar Products Used:

CDM1, DM602, CDM7SE

Detail, speed, separation, wide and layered sound field

None I have discovered. Even the bass is great IMHO.

For reference, I'm using Rotel RCD991, and bi-amping with Myryad T40 & T60.

I can't say enough good things about these speakers. I visited the shop to try a load of sub-£1000(pound) speakers to see what improvement I could make on the £200 601s. I expected only a little but most were significantly better. These CMD1 NTs, though, blew the others away, even the Ruark Solus (nearly double the price) and the new Cyrus 70s which have had rave reviews in the UK mags. I have no loyalty to B&W, but as when I was spending £200, they won again!

What's good about them then?

For me it's the way the sound is totally controlled and cohesive whilst at the same time all the instruments/vocals are detailed and separately layered. It's hard to describe this.

The speed of these speakers, especially with bass and bass-drum stuff is phenominal. Completely tight.

The soundfield is excellent and I haven't even played around with the positioning yet. (I currently have them exactly where the 601s were - 5 degrees toed in and equidistant from listening position and each other). The particularly remarkable things are that the soundfield seems wider than possible and the elements of the music appear to be clearly layered in front of and behind each other.

A bit more about bass. I'll be honest - I'm not a fan of excessive bass and maybe that's why I'm not making the same comments as others have. Or perhaps it's because I am bi-amping the speakers which is purported to improve bass in these speakers? I think you should go and have a listen and decide for yourself.

They rock - big time!

PS: They look fantastic too!

Similar Products Used:

B&W 601S2

Soundstage, Imaging, Detail.

None

Great sounding speakers! The soundstage with these speakers is incrediable. Set these speakers up correctly and they will disappear! Lots of detail and great imaging for less then $1000.00. Hard to beat.

Astounding uncolored clarity

Harsh upper mids need taming.

Think I demoed every speaker in town and the B & W's, although not perfect, were at the top of the list. I didn't like the way they looked at first but they are growing on me and you can't fault them for not having their own personality.

The Nautilaus tweeter is simply astounding and provides uncolored clarity I have only heard in recording studios. As mentioned in previous posts, these speakers can be harsh with some music, particularily with upper mid range instruments. At first I thought it was the tweeter so I tried a number of ways to soften it including finally bypassing it altogether. Even with the tweeter bypassed these speakers generate some harshness.

Next I pulled out a parametric EQ and found the range at about 2000hz was causing the problem, at least in my room. It makes sense that eliminating the tweeter didn't help as the crossover is at 4khz. I reduced this frequency a few decibles and WOW!! All the richness and detail was still there but now I could crank em up without any harshness. Now instead of just being extremely articulate they are plain seductive. You can stand a foot away and there is still no harshness. Granted you shouldn't have to go through such pains with speakers at this price level but if you tweak them a bit the rewards are worth the trouble.

With movies I didn't experience the same harshness, probably due to having re-eq enabled and the parametric eq isn't needed.

These speakers are incredible with films. There is so much detail that Ill have to go through my entire DVD collection again to hear everything I missed the first time.

Because of the extra tweaking these speakers need to make them sound their best they probably merit about a 4.75 although I'm going to give them a 5 to help offset the reviewer with no ears who gave them a one.

Similar Products Used:

NHT, JBL Studio, Velodyne, Boston Acoustics