I love my BP8B's. They are sounding better and better as they break in!

I owned a pair of BP8s for 4 years. Overall, they delivered good performance with a wide variety of music. Their strengths included good bass extension and a spacious and deep soundstage. They were lacking, however, in overall resolution. This latter point was really driven home when I upgraded to a pair of Dynaudio Audience 70s. Although the Dynaudios are still not broken-in, they deliver significantly superior performance than the Definitives. But the Dynaudios are twice as expensive. Given their reasonable cost and their ability to complement a wide variety of music, I think the BP 8s represent a good value for the money. Therefore, I'll give them 3 stars overall, but 4 stars if you factor in price.

I have owned a pair of BP-8's for over 3 years now and have never truly enjoyed them for music. The wide open soundstage is great, but at the cost of definition and focus. My two biggest problems are the lack of midrange and and the shrill, piercing high's. I have tried everything to obtain a warmer, fuller sound(placement, new components, tweeter mods, etc) but I could not for the life of me tame the highs or improve the midrange. I have given up on listening to female vocalists with good range. Other speakers that I have auditioned in my room(Energy C-8, NHT 2.5) have proven to me that is a BP8 issue and not primarily due to the room accoustics.
Home theater, on the other hand, is pretty good with these speakers. That is probably the only reason I've kept them this long. My subwoofer died a year or so ago, but the bass extension on the BP8's was good enough to keep me from buying another one.

I have decided to upgrade, so the BP8's will soon be relegated to rear channel duties.

3 stars

These speakers ROCK. I can play a variety of music and movies and they sound great in both modes. The highs are awsome, and the bass is very punchy. A really good thing about these speakers is that bass doesn't cut out like other towers. Beware, though, placement is critical. Keep them about 8 inches from the wall to ensure the bass carries, and be sure not to angle them together, or else the highs will meet right in the middle and it will sound like a center channel, which i don't like. BUY THESE SPEAKERS!!!!!!!!!!

I just purchase a pair of these after auditioning them at a local DOW. I didn't expect them to blow me away because I had heard them at another DOW location and was not impressed. However after reading some of the glowing review on this site I decided to give them another try. I asked the sales rep to set these away fromt he rest of the other speakers to give them a bit of room, and WOW the bass was unreal for a pair of 5.5 driver. There were clean sounds everywhere in the room, virtually no dead spot. My mind was completely changed and I knew I had to have them, beside the dealer was cutting me an incredible price for them. Definite five stars.

I am in love with this speaker! Absolutely the best bang for the buck performance you can have on a pair of speakers. Make sure you give the speakers a decent amount of time to break in first. Highly recommended.

Wide soundstage, strong bass

Honky midrange, harsh highs

Not so fast my friend!

I was a little taken back by all the gushing over these speakers. I have had mine for almost four years. When doin A/B comparisons in the showroom there soundstage was so impressive I said "ring 'em up". Well now I feel like I'm stuck with a not-so-cheap set of mains that you can just toss anywhere because of the bi-polar design.

First the good. The soundstage these guys portray is very impressive. Live recordings sound especially good with my system. The bass is very prominent. These speakers really have there moments. Acoustic strings are incredible.

Now the bad. First these guys seem to have a huge hump around 180 hz that I can't get tame of without putting the speakers so far from the wall they look silly. Second, the midrange is very honky, like that of a cheap horn tweeter. There is so little definition in the midrange that vocals are often lost in the mix. The highs have a nice sizzle but start to get very harsh after about 8khz. You can't eq it out.

Basically I think these speakers are more glam than substance. I've grown tired of listening to them.

got these speakers 5 months ago, loved that you could hear lots of detail. then i bought a amc 3050 intergrated amp to replace a cheap sony product, even more details!! and teamed with cardass interconnects and cables very little harshness.
replaceing the cheap sony cd player should remove the last bit of irritation,
with decent eqiupment, though not the marantz 67 amp that one dealer was using on them, way way wy to harsh and no bass, i'm liking them more and more.
great for home theater though using them for music only with old sony getting psb 300 for movies for now.

I have a pair of monitor audio ma301's. I am looking to upgrade and have narrowed my search to the paradigm reference studio 20's or the definitive technology bp8b's. After extensive listening, I find the bp8b's a touch overly bright and notice that positioning is absolutely critical for proper imaging- this includes the necessity of removing as much physical obstructions from between the speakers (which impedes the "bipolarness"). Furthermore, the bp8b's seem to be more pronounced in the upper midrange area. Vocals seem more intelligable and open, though the brightness mentioned before borders on harshness. In spite of the brightness, I am sold on the bp8's. With proper positioning, careful choice of cables, and by NOT using a bright amplifier or preamp I am convinced these are some of the best bargains available. The rich, tight bass and open sound are absolutely addictive. If you are in the market for a full-range speaker in the $800 range, give the def-techs a listen. BUT, make sure the saleseman is knowledgable about placement and I do not recommend using the bp8's with bright amps or cables.

These speakers are amazing. I recently purchased them and I would not give them up for anything. The imaging is excellent and the sound is phenomonal. To give a small example, my parents were in to visit me and I played a movie for my dad and he started to look around for rear speakers that do not exist. I would definitely recommend these to anyone looking for an excellent musical and home theatre speaker.