smooth, clear and detail

bass too lean and sound thin to some system

I have auditioned this speaker for a week. I found that this speaker sound transparent and have very good detail compare to others product like celestion. A1 sound much bigger, warmer and better mid bass. But when it come to definition B&W sound more precise, better depht, and more open. B&W need careful matching system, should avoid bright system otherwise, sound thin and overly analysis sound.
The only complainly for this speaker are lean bass and the body which I would prefer a liitle more body.

Similar Products Used:

celestion A1

Clear sound, good stage, bass/volume,..., great look

too much bass wasn' t my taste anyway, so...

It was love at first sight, when I heard the in a hotel room in a show. From then I' ve heard them to more times in very different invariorments and with expensive equipement. They always where the cheaper member of the systems. That was no problem becouse they always shined as still do with my Electrocompaniet ECI-3, Marantz CD 63mkII KIS, Atacama bases ( BW's are as expensive as beautiful), Van Den Hull cables. My room is 25m2 and i can live with the bass of small speaker. It's fast, clear, likes small groups and female voices, but can take care of anything you throw at it, except thrast metal blasts.

Similar Products Used:

celestion c3, rogers ls 3/5a

The Nautilus 805's need to be broken in for at least 50 hours. They need to be purchased with their matching stands. Moreover they need to be biwired. The stands need to be filled with lead shot. The speakers should be placed 3-4 ft from the rear wall and at least 4 feet from the outside walls. They need open air all the way around them. I have had these speakers for 6 months now. They replaced Thiel cs 2.2.
When set up in this manner, the 805's have a huge soundstage. They are tonally accurate. They are not bright. They have adequate bass for their size. Poorly recorded CD's are not fun to listen to on these speakers. They excell only with excellent recordings. Listen to your average CD's in your car. The Nautilus 805's are among the best I have heard at reproducing male and female vocals, Jazz, and Blues. If you listen primarily to Rock look elseware.

After reading about the Nautilus 805's "Class A" review in Stereophile, I decided to run down to my local Myer-Emco shop to check them out. A friend of mind had the Matrix 805s and I was always very impressed with their presentation (less so with the bass, understandably, in his Rotel/Micromega setup).
So, I had high expectations for the Nautilus 805s. I heard them with $3000 worth of Adcom gear (pre, amp, CD) with Transparent interconnects to the 805s.

I have to completely agree with the reviewer below: I don't know what those Stereophile folks were listening to, but the speakers didn't sound good to me. What was missing? The presentation was clinical, cold. It lacked a lush, open, integrated sound...the kind you hear from a pair of Dynaudio 1.3s. And certainly, there wasn't any bass either. So, I hooked up a nearby pair of 803s and listened to my Depeche Mode Violator CD (a great analogy sounding CD, btw). What did I get with the 803s? More bass, but the same strange sound. No, it wasn't bad, but it didn't sound right either.

Before you buy these, I'd certainly do some careful speaker comparisons...and get a return policy. 3 stars sound, but only 2 if you count the cost. By comparison, the Soliloquy 5.3s at $1,900 blow these away. I'm not a B&W biggot. I liked my friend's Matrix 805s and I thought my old friend's old 801 IIs were some of the best speakers I've ever heard.

I would like to contribute something useful to the ongoing evaluation of the new B&W Nautilus 805's. I own Matrix 805's and am very fond of them. Within their limits (small to moderate size rooms), I consider them the best of the Matrix line. I find the rest of the line a little too short on clarity and the ability to get the music out into the room. That said, the Matrix line has had a great many fans who clearly have found equipment matches and rooms to minimize these "deficiencies" I hear.
I have now heard Nautilus 802's, 803's, and 805's -- the last in my living room last night, tucked safely into my system. (Naim CDX/XPS, Blue Circle BC3, Plinius 100 III (on loan), with SPM interconnects and Straightwire Virtuoso bi-wired speaker cable.) I have found all three of these speakers notable for (1) clarity, (2) firmness, and (3) lifelessness. There is a clinical quality to all three of these speakers and overall reluctance to make anything, good or bad, of the information they are transducing. I have heard this quality praised by several B&W dealers I know, so I think I'm getting it right. As my fellow listener said about the N805's last night (which he owns) as they played a Mozart quartet, "Well I like her, but I wouldn't want to sleep with her."

B&W seems to have taken a step toward The World According to Thiel, less
Thiel's relative brightness. Nautilus B&W's aren't bright to my ears, and I've heard them driven by Krell electronics as well as my slightly warmer stuff. But there is an overall coolness, dryness, hardness, and 'objectivity' to them that is worlds from the Matrix series. In A-Bing the N805's and M805's last night, we had the sense that the N's got more information through -- especially on the bottom which was commendibly clear and solid -- but didn't do anything with it. It did not cohere into any kind of musical statement. It hadn't the stamp of any place, any ensemble. The M805's were slightly warmer, smoother, far better integrated, and caused us to feel some emotion toward the music. Especially me, since I hadn't bought the the N's!

To be fair -- I'm trying -- the N805's may well be better monitors. But
they sure ain't better speakers. Matrix 805's are available used and as left-over demos for around $800. If you have a smallish room (12 x 16 say) and like what minis do, snap up a pair, and get some very solid stands and at least 100 watts to go with 'em.

After hedging on the N805's for financial reasons and deciding not to buy a pair of marked-down loaners with some small scratches, I took the plunge. I knew I needed these for the L/R surrounds (I have N802's up front and an htm2 center). Never would have considered using these as main stereo speakers but after close listening I am pleasantly surprised and can recommend these as main speakers in any system--but probably best for small listening evironments. Mine are not fully broken in yet. Maybe 25 hours playing time at most but I can still make some valid observations.
Soundstage: this is where all the Nautilus speakers excel and where the critics never seem to have taken the time to set up the speakers properly. With just a half hour of tweaking, getting the placement right and eliminating any vibration/resonance on the stand you can have a soundstage that is deep, wide and tall--and provides more muscle in the bass than any other bookshelf speaker I've heard (including Monitor, Soliloquy 5.3s, PSBs, Tannoy and Atlantic Tech.)

Tonal balance: this is the only area where i have some compaint--and only because i have an excellent reference speaker I can compare it to. the N805's are a tad top heavy and bright. i will go out on a limb and say the bass extends deeper and stronger than any other bookshelf i've compared it to (but not my 802's). I'll also say that the tonal balance has shifted and improved during the few days I've been listening as the speakers break in. Frankly i liked how these sounded right out of the box, but they are just getting better with time. one has to realize when buying B&W speakers that they are getting a product that will break in, gel with the cables and other system components and really cook harder as time goes by.

it is disturbing to read reviews like the one below, in which the person seems to have liked his friend's matrix models which had been broken in for god knows how many months, yet he judges the N805s poorly without explaining that for all he knows, they may have just come out of the box. that might account for the description "clinical"--although god knows what clinical means when you're talking about music. as for the lack of warmth, i've never heard anything by depeche mode that sounded what i'd call "warm" on any system.

try some jazz if you really want to hear the N805's sing. with the sudden changes in volume and the handling of stark silence, upper register horns, midrange piano and strong acoustic bass, the real advantages of the N805s show through, even when they're not fully broken in. for surrounds, their extreme detail, clarity and transparency will provide major benefits.

for someone to rate N805's as ** because they are expensive and too detailed is just plain wrong. these speakers do what good bookshelf models are supposed to do. if you can't afford them that's understandable but that has nothing to do with their performance. they sure are a lot better than the matrix models which obviously colored the sound IMO. N805's are ***** products.

The imaging of these speakers are superb. Soundstage is excellent. Detailed and revealing.

The stands are over priced. Requires very good electronics. Takes a little work to find the proper room placement.

Overall, these are possibly the best small(monitor) speaker made. Excellent build quality and sound for the $.
Associated equipment: MMark Levinson #29 amplifier, Adcom GFP-750 preamplifier, Meridian 508.24 cd player. Speaker cables: Transparent Plus Bi-Cable. Interconnects: Transparent Musiclink Plus.

Similar Products Used:

Enigma Oremus, Aerial 5's

Does not color music, size, look

The stands are too expensive

These are wonderful speakers. They do not have the range of a floorstanding speaker, nor do they have the bass of o subwoofer. But, they are not supposed to, they are designed to be small speakers that fit into lots of different rooms. What I like the best about these speakers is the fact that they don't sound like anything. I had Sonus Faber Concertos for several weeks and I thought that they sounded wonderful, until I realized that I was hearing the speaker. The Concertos have a rich, warm, gorgeous sound, so everything sounded rich and warm and gorgeous...even if is not supposed to!!!!!! My B&Ws don't sound like anything other than the music that is being played through them. They do what they are asked. They play the music.

They do take a while to break-in. I played them as soon as I got them out of the box, and I thought that I had made a big mistake. The music sounded thin and cold. But I have a great dealer (Natural Sound in Framingham, MA...best audi shopping experience I have ever had!) and knew that I could always bring them back if I weren't satisfied. So I played them for 48 hrs straight, and at the end, the bass had deepened, there was more room and more space in the top end, and the vocal imaging had improved tremendously.

These aren't the world's greatet speakers. A floorstander will give you more depth, and a larger speaker will give you a greater presence. But, for the price (about $1800) and the size these speakers represent the very best that a small speaker can give. They give you music.

Equipment:
Denon AVR-5700
Rega Planet
B&W N805 (w/B&W stands )
Monster Cable M15 Speaker Cable
Monster Cable M1 Interconnects

(I will be buying the B&W center channel and 2 more 805s to round out the surround sound manifest destiny that awaits my living room!)

Similar Products Used:

I auditioned a bunch and liked B&W every time. Sonus Faber Concertos

The Nautilus 805 is a very refined speaker. It is similar to the CDM 1se, however, it does not exhibit the hooty, cupped-hands quality that I sometimes hear through the CDM 1. The treble on the CDM 1 is open and airy, but it does not sound as smooth, particularly under stress, as the 805 N. Moreover, the sound that the cabinet contributes is noticeably less in the 805 than in the CDM. The 805 simply sounds less busy, fewer extraneous noises. The guy who said that he heard the Nautilus sounding really nice on the Classe gear hit the nail right on the head. I have heard the B&W speakers on mark Levinson equipment also. I prefer the Classe equipment. I played everthing from Bach to hip-hop through the Nautilus 805. This set-up provided me with more goosebumps and tears than any system I've experienced. I like the Nautilus 802. Nevertheless, I listen mostly to acoustic jazz, and the 805 is downright eerie on well recorded jazz. With the 802 one is sometimes aware of the many different drivers and cabinet structures, this is much less apparent in the 805, in audio-speak, the 805 sounds at times more coherent than it's larger sibling. Speaking of large, the 805 holds together well under big climaxes, (1812 oveture), and it throws an alarmingly big soundstage. Make no mistake, this is a suave performer. I own a Classe cdp.3 and a CAP 80. The Nautilus 805 is next on my buying list.

Accurate and precise sound, good soundstage

As bookshelf speakers none!

These are wonderfull speakers for small or mid size room. Some people say that they can't play low bass - this are bookshelf speakers and you must consider that small speakers can't produce deep bass (for the size of speakers - bass is very good). The only thing you need is good amplifier with at least 100 W/ch. or more.
When I first start the speakers I said to my self: So much money for such poor sound. But every hours I noticed improvement and now after 50 hours they really shine.
I didn't buy B&W stands becouse they are to expencive instead this I bought ATACAMA SE 24 stands for 180 $ and I filled them with sand.

Equipment used:
speakers: B&W Nautilus 805 with Atacama SE 24 stands
amplifier: Electrocompaniet ECI-1 (100 W, dual mono)
CD player: AH! Tjoeb 99
interconnect cables: Tara Labs RSC Reference G2
speakers cables: Tara Labs RSC Prime 1000

Similar Products Used:

Sonus Faber Concerto and Concertino