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      09-23-2019, 07:52 PM   #1
tfarmer
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Bowers & Wilkins vs Range Rover Meridan

I’m coming from a 2016 Range Rover Sport that had the Meridian Surround System that had 825 Watts and 19 speakers. In my opinion this system was extremely powerful. I’ve tried pretty much every adjustment on this B&W system to match the overall “feeling” of the Meridian and it’s just not measuring up. With close to double the total wattage the B&W audio system just lacks the same punch as the Meridian. I’ve download lossless FLAC audio files encompassing all genres and am streaming them from an attached flash drive.

Is it possible the gain needs to be adjusted on the amp? Last summer I tweaked the gain on the amp on my boat and it made a huge impact.
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      09-23-2019, 10:56 PM   #2
claykin
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tfarmer View Post
I’m coming from a 2016 Range Rover Sport that had the Meridian Surround System that had 825 Watts and 19 speakers. In my opinion this system was extremely powerful. I’ve tried pretty much every adjustment on this B&W system to match the overall “feeling” of the Meridian and it’s just not measuring up. With close to double the total wattage the B&W audio system just lacks the same punch as the Meridian. I’ve download lossless FLAC audio files encompassing all genres and am streaming them from an attached flash drive.

Is it possible the gain needs to be adjusted on the amp? Last summer I tweaked the gain on the amp on my boat and it made a huge impact.
No gain control on the BMW amp/system.

I'm not sure to what level B&W was involved in the design, or supplying product, but my guess is it wasn't to a great extent. Then again my feeling of B&W is they lost the luster they held throughout the years their founder ran the business. Since John Bowers passed, B&W hasn't had many successes, except arguably the Nautilus speaker line. IMO, they sold their souls when they decided to get into the consumer gear business during the mid 2000s (lossy Bluetooth speaker, headphones, car audio, etc) . Since then it's all been downhill.

The B&O system in the previous gen was arguably better. Some say a lot better.
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      10-06-2019, 01:47 PM   #3
tfarmer
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I’ve recently discovered that the B&W system really doesn’t come alive until the volume is at least 50%. At this level you can feel the subs and the highs are ultra crisp. Source material also makes a huge difference. Playing lossless files over an attached USB drive is definitely the way to go. I don’t know this for a fact but the system is sounding better the more it gets broken in.
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