Owned a pair for almost 2 years now and still haven't heard better sounding speakers in it's price range. Using them with B/W HTM and SCM8 in my home theatre,Acurus amps and Audioquest crystal cables. May sound a tad bright,so pairing them with mellow amps are recommended. Superb clarity,midrange and very very neutral but a little lean in the bass dept so use them with a subwoofer. Only reason I give these speakers 4 out of 5 stars is I haven't yet heard the 801's. Also one of the better looking speakers. Waaaaaaaay recommended!!!!

Bought a pair of 804's and HTM last week at Houston. Couldn't have been happier with the buy. The sound of instruments is crystal clear and breathtaking. Human voice is authentic and mid-range wonderful.
Decided against 805 after considering the cost of good stands needed for 805's and the danger of our baby girl pushing the speakers down.

Highly recommended.

Continuing my review of $2,000 floor standing speakers which I have been giving home auditions, I give the B&W 804 excellent marks. It is an extremely well balanced and controlled speaker that really doesn't suffer any significant faults. It does a wonderfull job of reproducing music although I have heard some speakers do some things better. For instance, the ML Aerius does a better of presenting volcals and reproducing a soundstage. Then again, the B&W doesn't have the ML's glaring faults.
Although the bass wasn't as deep as some of the other speakers in this price range, what bass there was was very controlled and accurate. I attribute this measure of control to the extra bracing from the Matrix cabinet, and I preffered this solution to some other speakers that tend to overemphasize a lumpy and poorly controlled bass. The speaker was also easily driven by a variety of components ranging from a Rotel integrated to a Pass amp.

The speaker itself was well constructed although the cabinet materials weren't the best in the world. The visual design and finishing material is rather bland.

The only problem with this speaker was the price. At $2,200US list, it is priced 10 to 15 percent higher than other floorstanders I have auditioned. Overall, it is a good compromise speaker that does everything well but nothing outstanding. Consequently, I give it a four star rating.

I have owned the B&W 804's for about two years now. I have finally grown to really love them. The two year span has not always been so satisfying. As I have upgraded my ancillary equipment, the sound has gotten better and better. Part of my problem has been the transition from owning Acarian Alon I's to the 804's.The Alon's are sweet,sweet,sweet on top and have a thunderous low end ,these are the qualities that the 804;s lacked at first. Problem with the Allon's is the midrange suckout! The 804's have always had a smooth midrange. As I said earlier, the B&W's need to be lashed up with quality gear to be fully appreciated.My journey has taken me from Rotel amplification(dry top end)and Pioneer Elite PD-65 to Krell 300i integrated amp and Theta Miles C.D.player.The Theta/Krell combo is killer audiophile stuff...you know airy highs,velvety midrange, great dynamics (macro-micro) huge soundstage,and of course transparency. With this combo the 804's really sing. Sweet highs even with hard sounding C.D.s like Metallica and HUGE soundstage with any Shawn Murphy recordings such as the soundtracks to Titanic and Braveheart. Now I am a happy man.Will not be switching gear for a while-too busy listening to music. P.S. pay attention to cables! Monster Mseries 2.4 biwire seems to work wonders with the Krell B&W mix. I just started using Discovery Cable Signatures, and I think the bass has even more texture now.

My friend has Luxman R117 reciever(160w per channel) with my 10 uears old yamamha cd player he bought BW/804 for his system for week trial period to replace & update .his speaker quarts 91xxx series but they were a little muddy on bottom end and distort on top end then we tried bw804 much better as time goes on after 30+ hours get more transparent they were nite $ day on the whole soundstage then we use monster cable as a experiement but we noticed right away that it distorted top end alot and the openness was gone.Then we changed to musicwave model transparent cables between amplifier to speakers that turn the whole soundstage around on BW 804's I would want to buy these model 804's but BW disconitued this line for nautilious line( NO way...priced doubled). I looked at the THIEL model 3.6 were fabulous on classe' ca-200 amp.They had huged soundstage very sweet hear every detail and distance quiet notes this combo THEIL's and CA-200 just blew me away .I would ponder the combo of THIEL3.6/BW804 a great partners on a classe' ca-200 but I did not like ca-300 lacking soundstage quality.I came to realize that every little change will result in big soundstage quality in your stereo gear ...interconnect cable,speaker.cables,preamp.,amplifier,cd player and speakers.I have not looked at stereo for 12 years since I was very happy with my system but...but my happiness has been broken apart when I listened to classe' ca-200 ampl. & Thiel 3.6 ,BW804's.I spend on my system alone $9K+ in 1980 and my system is so old I can't get anything for it,,.ps audio IV preamp,nakimichi dragon ,2-amber ampl.,x-10r reel,rogers ls3-5a.,dcm-time windows model 1a,3'setc.

I bought a pair of 804s back in 93. I had just upgraded from a pair of B&W 640s which were excellent rock&roll speakers with a very clean midrange, and good bass, but somewhat loosely controlled.
The 804s exhibited very good midrange as well as solid bass to ~40hz. The highs always sounded extended without harshness. My experience with the 804s is that they need a high current amp that isn't rolled off, and flat, open sounding cables. These speakers will get muddy on the bottom, or become prominent in the midrange if you don't match them properly.

I didn't feel that they were good on all types of music. They sounded superb on classical, but alittle off pace on R&B, rock, etc. One reviewer mentioned that the 804s had been revised, perhaps this trimmed a slightly tubby low end and balanced the sound a little better.

I sold my 804s and bought a pair of Audio Concepts Sapphire IIIs/Sub 1 combination. After a short while I sorely missed the 804s. They didn't have the bass impact, but they had the refinement and top to bottom coherence the latter lacked. Just keep in mid the 804 will continue to improve as your equipment improves.

I have the BW 804 mated with Marantz 550 pre-amp, Marantz 500 monoblocks, Pioneer DVD/CD Player and Audioquest cables. A wide variety of music is very clear on a three dimensional level, possibly as good as some recording studios. I have tried the 804s with Krell amps and other components. Some frequencies are enhanced while others fade out. It becomes difficult to perceive real differences in sound reproduction when we hear something new in a specific movement while remembering what was already there. At this level of music reproduction, moving the furniture and cushions around seems to make as much difference as changing out very expensive components. Special sound effects in movies are equally good. The avalanche scene in Seven Years in Tibet will really give a rush. Contact is even more revealing.

The 804's produce a truly remarkable, wide and deep soundstage, placing instruments and voices with great precision across the soundfield; with a well defined sense of space between them. Excellent sense of dynamic ease (even at low volume levels), and well detailed. Very neutral, they will tend to reveal poor recordings(and poor electronics as well), but when fed with good material, they will sing. Lack some bass, but JPS bass allingment filters will cure that, without affecting the mids and highs. No wonder, since the Matrix range was designed to work best with such filters after all.
Given good electronics, they will provide a very rich musical presentation. It is truth that some aspects can be improved, but as a whole their well balanced nature will open up a window to the very soul of music. Definitely five stars.

I have sold a/v for six years now and i have sold almost all of the major brands of speakers and i can say that you cant find a better overall speaker than the b&w 804s.There build quality is exellent the highs are very crisp and the midrange is the best that i have herd in any speaker under 4000 dollars.Yes the lows are not as good as some speakers in the price range but there are so many great subs out now that this should not be a major factor in a buying a great pair of main speakers.besides my being my hobby this is what i do for a living so if there is any one wants to talk tec or simply needs advice e-mail me at bipbuda@aol.com

After months of looking and listening for just the "right" speakers, I settled on a used set of Matrix 804's. I looked long and hard at others in the same price range, such as NHT, Paradigm and B&W 604's and CDM 7 SE's, but just couldn't pass up the quality and sound of the 804's. In doing my research, it was readily apparent there just isn't a magic formula for picking the "best" speakers, if there is such a thing. It all boils down to personal preferance and how a set of speakers sound to you. Other components have significant impact on the final product, of course, but the speakers are really the heart of any audio system. I couldn't be more pleased with my decision. I also picked up a B&W HTM center speaker and a set of DS-6's for my surrounds and filled in the bottom with a Paradigm PS-1000 sub (I tried to find a B&W sub, but the price was prohibitive. It all runs off a Denon 3200 receiver, Denon CD player and, for movies, a Denon DVD player. I'm not an audiophile (can't talk the talk, ya know) but I am totally satisfied with my system and can't think of anything I would do differently, particularly in terms of speakers. These are the first B&W's I've owned and wouldn't hesitate to buy them again, and again, and again. Since they are no longer available in the US, they are hard to find, but now and then they appear on the web. I would recommend at least a listen to anyone looking for front mains in the $1500-$2200 +/- range. They sound much like the new B&W Nautilus line and not too different from the CDM7SE's if you can't find any Matrix 804's to listen to.