Between my birthday and tax refund time coming up I'm thinking about treating myself to a pair of B&W speakers to use as monitors as I'm slowly but surely setting up my little home studio in my house. Plenty of folks seem to like the older B&W 600 series (DM601 S3, DM602 S3, DM620, etc) as monitors, so I'm curious as to whether or not the current 600 series, the 685 and 686, are being used by anyone for this purpose. I'm weighing the pros and cons of buying new vs used regarding speakers, and if I could buy new and get the same quality as an older, used pair with the additional peace of mind of knowing they're protected by warranty, that would be great. My projected budget is, as you might've guessed, ~$500-$600.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

Oh yeah...amp is a Yamaha P-2200.

Hi,
I have just purchased a pair of 686s for my home hi-fi.(i had to downgrade from a pair of matrix 804!)
I spent an afternoon auditioning various speakers in this price range and thought that the 686s sounded fantastic for the price/size.I even preferred them to the larger 685s.
I monitor on a pair of DM602s in my studio and I think the 686s sound better (the top end is not as harsh).Hope this helps.

Thanks for your input!

I'm using 601s2's that are about 2 years old now. Great little monitors. Cost me about £200 and will keep me going until I can affor some Bearfoots!