2 B&W vintage 802, series 80 speakers, 2 Pro AC vintage speakers, 2 Legacy bookshelf speakers and one Onkyo receiver. Pickup only, cash price, first come first served. The 802 was the answer; whereas the 801 was simply too big for many British listening rooms, so the 802 had to be more compact and domestic living room-friendly. For this reason, the company came up with something that these days seems utterly unremarkable and run of the mill, but by the standards of nineteen seventies speakers was seriously radical. It produced a tall floorstander – measuring 1040x300x370mm – with a footprint less than half that of the 801. By the standards of the day, the 802 was unusually slender – unlike the big, wide baffle boxes that were the norm back then. This set the trend for the so-called ‘tower’ floorstanders in use toda The first 802 Series 80 showed oodles of clever, forward-thinking design touches – from special materials technology to the use of computer modelling for various aspects of the loudspeaker cabinets and crossovers. Its drive unit line-up consisted of a single 26mm B&W TS26S tweeter sitting inside its own special pod, atop the MK100/802 midrange driver which was in its own separate compartment too. Two 220/802 polymer bass drivers worked in parallel, rubber mounted and isolated from the main cabinet box. The latter was made of high density particleboard, heavily braced inside and veneered both in and out. It was laminated with 6mm anti-resonance bituminous pads. At the bottom of the 802 sat the crossover, a complex affair with APOC (audio powered overload circuit) electronic protection – complete with an LED indicator to show if it had been tripped. B&W made much of it at the time, pointing out that that it was the first manufacturer in the world to offer such a thing. APOC worked by sensing the voltage applied to each individual drive unit, protecting against DC, thermal and transient overload signals. If anything arrived at the driver that risked blowing it, the crossover would temporarily attenuate it. Power output was quoted at 600W, with 90dB efficiency. At the time of its launch, the 802 was a taste of things to come. The hi-fi world was emerging from the nineteen seventies, where most of the loudspeakers had been highly coloured in one way or another – thanks to poor cabinet construction and/or old fashioned drive unit materials that were heavy and overdamped. The new 802 got the balance just right, with a far tighter and tauter sound than many of its rivals, and a clean, spry midband with loads of detail, plus a crisp, extended treble. This 32kg behemoth required careful placement, but its sealed cabinet meant it could go closer to boundary walls than reflex-loaded rivals. Also – aping the classic DM70 – its upper drive units could be angled towards to the listener slightly, so the whole cabinet enclosure didn’t need to be. Gone was the 801’s large diameter bass driver, so the 802 couldn’t quite match its bigger brother’s bass extension; it rolled off 10Hz higher yet for most types of music this wasn’t an issue. The 802 Series 80 imaged exceptionally well by the standards of moving coil box loudspeakers of the day, and also tracked dynamics very effectively showing very little compression at high levels. Overall, the early 802 was a powerful, punchy and engaging performer that showed real grace under pressure, alongside a decently smooth tonal balance and lots of fine detail.