I will contact them when the time's right for me. I've been seeing these panels pop up here and there in audiogon systems and was always wondering where to purchase them.
I don't remember off the top of my head. I think the price was around $300 with the custom paint. I ordered them over 7 months ago, so I'm not 100% sure on that. $300 seems right, because it was somewehere in the $3300+ price range for all of them. If you need an exact price, they can quote you a price on the phone, that is what I did before buying anything from them (my Absorbers are from them as well - in custom chosen acoustically transparent Guilford of Main fabric). The sales rep was very friendly. ;)
Those panels are RPG Skylines (High Profile versions - not the Low Profile versions, or LPs for short). They are made by RPG Diffusion Systems Inc., and they custom paint them to any color you want. I had mine painted the same exact color as my walls and ceiling. Here is a link to the Skylines.
You have a very nice room and very nice equipment. I can understand why you didn't prefer the BW802D. The WP8 are stunning to the point of envy, for me personally..... so if there was a particularly "real world" speaker to remove me from my ML Summits, it would be the WP8, among only a few others.
Also, where did you get those audio panels on your ceiling?
BTW, in terms of the 802D again, I have heard the raspiness I was hearing referred to before in reviews as "nasally." I also forgot one of the other things that bothered me, often music would sound cupped, like it was being muffled. These things only became readily apparent in a very well treated room and with contrast to speakers well outside the 802Ds price range. Otherwise, it probably wouldn't be as detectable to me as it is now.
I also asked my wife's advice on what color to make the treatments (RPG skylines and absorbers). She said, the same color, or as close as possible to the wall and ceiling color. I tried to convince her that something gaudy might be more interesting (like two tones, even if close to each other in color - like the ceiling and walls being two different hues), but she convinced me it would look tacky. She's the designer in the family... So she wins. To me it also made sense that more than one tone might be distracting even with the lights off during very bright movie scenes that create a lot of ambient light. The last thing you want is a room superficiality distracting a viewer's eyes from the show.
Don't get me wrong. The 802Ds are excellent speakers. They just didn't have the combination of sound elements I was looking for ultimately. Some people love the British sound, it eventually bothered me, especially as the room design allowed more of the speaker's character to reveal itself. It is not a bad speaker by any means, especially for the price. Though, if I were going to spend that much again, I would buy those $7000 Dynaudio Confidence C1 speakers paired with two parametric EQ subs (like the Revel B-15a). Those Dynaudio speakers with the Simaudio gear was mind blowing at HE 2007. If you get a chance to hear those, take it. ;)
I chose that color scheme because I wanted a dark color for showing movies, but I also wanted it to work with the Laz-E-Boy leather sectional. It is a family HT room (at least I tell my wife that, it was optimized for two channel listening, mwhahaha - I joke though, she knows everything about it, and just doesn't care), that is why I went with the couch (I have three young children - 2, 3, and 8). I wanted a brighter red, like a crimson, but my wife and I looked through a rather large color book and decided it would be too reflective. We settled on the New London Burgundy because it was red and would work with the couch color. Doing the trim, resonator, bookshelves and wall framing with red oak in Mohagony stain also helped to match the room to the couch.
I would have preferred doing a brighter room, but watching movies in the room was a more important consideration, and the color scheme isn't that important when listening to music or watching movies, since the lights are usually off, or dimmed. I deferred to my wife for the final decision on what color was best, since she has a degree in Graphic Design from Parsons.
I have yet to hear these WP8s, but I have heard the BW802D several times and once with top flight Boulder electronics. I have much respect for the 802D but I do not have as much experience with them as you do so I will reserve judgement of their overall character and qualities.
I like your room a lot.... very nicely put together. Any reason why you chose that particular color scheme?
Thank you, it took a lot longer than I expected (the thread and the room!). I appreciate you taking the time to look at it, I had fun making it (both the room and the thread). Sadly, it will never be finished (the room and the thread), as I will likely be changing more components and upgrading others as time goes by, especially the projector and speakers (W/P9s someday? Perhaps Maxx3s down the road?? Only time and demos will tell).
I'll definitely post a better comparison between the speakers, if there is anything that I haven't already noticed and listed in my previous post (again, sorry for any imprecisions in my audio jargon).
There were a few things I didn't like about the 802D. The first was the laid back vocals, they receded to far behind most of the other sounds (my friend calls that the laid-back British sound). They didn't localize instruments or voices very well, so the imagining was always ambiguous and fuzzy instead of precise because of it. Male vocals would often get swallowed in other sounds, though female vocals would be fine if they sang at normal female frequencies. For instrumental music they were fantastic, for male vocal rock band music, not so great. They often sounded raspy when certain frequencies were hit (I'm not sure if this is because of the Rohacel or Kevlar) instead of defined.
I'm sure there were some other things if I thought about it longer, but those were the major ones. In particular the laid back vocals and indistinct localization issues bothered me the most.
The W/P8s are at the least more defined/clear sounding (no rasp or fuzziness) in terms of localization and materials used. The mid-range male voices don't get swallowed in the sounds made by the material they use (I assume it is the material and not the other frequencies, since my FR is pretty good). They sound like real people and real instruments actually playing in different locations in the front of any room I've heard them in (the 802Ds never managed to achieve that, at most they sounded like a studio recording playback). I'll have to wait and see how they meld with the room after the Wilson dealer voicing and how the final room tuning works out with Rives to give a better synopsis, though you will have to pardon my lack of precision with audio terminology.
Thank you for the room compliment! :)
I used to post on HTGuide, then one of the administrators took advantage of his position of power to start an argument with me that he couldn't win. He started erasing my posts that proved him incorrect, then he banned me for a month after threatening me in an e-mail, suggestively of course (sore loser I guess...). I decided I didn't want to be part of a community that encourages that kind of behavior from its volunteers and never posted again. They were supposed to erase my account (I e-mailed the database admin to erase me from their system so I wouldn't show up as one of their statistical member numbers that they could use to find advertisers), but I guess they never did (go figure). :D
So you've finally finished it! I have been keeping an eye on this thread for quite some time. I also just finished reading your lengthy thread on AVSForums. Well done, it looks great. And I would also like to hear your impressions on the WP8 vs. the 802D's. Congrats.
I love them thank you! Sorry it took so long to respond, I don't check here very often. Once I update the pictures and get my new speakers (replacing the B&W 802Ds - which I have already sold), I'll be around more.
The upgrade depends on whether you need the extra power. If you haven't run across any problems with your V-5xe with your current speakers, I don't see why you would need to upgrade yet, as that amp is fairly current as it is.
&pageHere is an easier to click link to my HT construction thread. I am less than a week away from room completion. The electrical work might take a little longer and then I will need some time to set the room up as well. Altogether I'm probably around two weeks away from completion.
