Went into BB to test these all out when they went on sale a few months back. Thought I was going to get a set of 702 but you had to be in the sweet spot for them to sound okay. When I was over at the board, changing between speakers, they sounded fairly bad and I pretty much liked everything more than the 703 while the 702 only matched cheaper speakers if that. When you got right between the speakers, they did sound better, but really bad off axis. Worse off axis than competitors. I ended up getting a set of 705s (Bookshelf) instead. I have the room for towers, I can afford towers, but the 705 clearly sounded better to me. The mid base was clearer and they had all the low ended I want in the music I listen to. Turns out, separating the speakers makes a big difference in clarity. Where they really shined was off axis. Off axis, the 705 strait murders its bigger brothers the 702 and 703. Giant difference. With much of my listening being done outside the sweet spot of my speakers, it was clear what the best choice for me was. Been running my 705s for a couple months with a Schiit Freya N preamp and Vidar 2 power amp which has been fantastic. Some people feel the top end of the Bowers can be a bit bright, but I think the worst of that comes from the lower end tweeters. The Dimond line tweeters in these is excellent to my ears and has better detail and separation up top than most. The crash of symbols is actually clear and not smoothed over. You can hear then ring instead of just some uninteligible high note that is mixed in with everything that so often happens in more affordable speakers. To be clear, the 702 has the same great tweeters externally mounted from the box. Go try it in person at a BB to make sure you like them though. I have know I like nicer B&W speakers for a while, but I was expecting to buy the 702 before trying them. The B&W sounds suites my music and ears really well, but they are not for everyone.
I bought a pair of B&W 702 S3's for $3,300 (open box) from Listen Up just a few weeks ago. One of the tweeters was busted but they sent me a new one in 2 days. I would definitely recommend the S3s over the S2s.
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Yeah, like I was saying, Listen Up: NEW 702 S2s for $999.
https://listenup.com/collections/...0782431391