Musicality, midbass slam, magical midrange

Ugly

kevin below, obviously has either a vendetta against the B&W N801 or he is deaf. I do not own these speakers, however, I consider them to be one of the most musical full range speakers available today, irrespective of price. I consider them to be a bargain at $11,000 compared to the Wilson Watt/Puppys 6.0 at $20,000.

Musicality, midbass slam, magical midrange

Ugly

kevin below, obviously has either a vendetta against the B&W N801 or he is deaf. I do not own these speakers, however, I consider them to be one of the most musical full range speakers available today, irrespective of price. I consider them to be a bargain at $11,000 compared to the Wilson Watt/Puppys 6.0 at $20,000.

none

I upgraded my naut 802 for 801.I am very pleased with these speakers although my 802 done a wonderfull job.I feel sorrey for Kevin, his K-mart boom box must have broken down and he is upset with the rest of the world "audiophill"? I dont think so.I drive my 801's with Chord electronics,ie

SPM 4000 power amp
CPA 4000 pre amp
sony sacd. player
MIT shotgun 850 bi-wire
MIT 350 proline ref. (xlr)

Similar Products Used:

kef ref. wilson

Kevin, geez. You're absolutely false about these speakers. I don't know what's wrong, when you listen to me, but believe me, they are indeen full range speakers. I do not own these, but I have auditioned them and are actually gonna spend a lot of time with them next weekend, with my SACD player.
But these speakers can go low. And why do I know this? It's simple, I heard it. Maybe you haven't heard it, and so be it. But I, and others, have heard them go low, which means they can. This makes sense, right?
For reference, the speakers was connected to pure Holfi equipment: Holfi NFB-Rex CD player. Holfi Pre NB1SE and Holfi Power NB1SE. - This combination had the speakers going very, very deep, without problems, at all.

They are acurate. I can't argue that. Though even through the sub-standard equipment I originally heard them on they still sounded stellar. But the bottom line is if you have the room and the money and you actually mate them with compatible electronics; I don't see them disappointing anyone.

Very expensive and very big, needs a BIG room to perform. Low-end freq. is arguably outperformed by the less expensive 802.

It always makes me laugh to see the same person give 2 pairs of similarly priced speakers totally different ratings. As if compaired by the same person; a pair of Aerial 10ts will define sonic nirvana and a pair of Vienna acoustics Mahlers will sound like Bose 501s. It just makes no sense. I think its probably the degree of contraversy that comes into play in this league/price. Somebody probably feels like their REALLY making a statement to give these speakers 1 star. Its kinda sad. Probably all disgruntled Bose fans.....
Keeping in mind that all people are different and that no matter how compelling or assinine any 1 arguement is, this is hardly the place to take anyones opinion for what its worth. All I have to say is that for ME they sounded amazing, and that was through crappy electronics, so I could just imagine what they'd sound like through some top notch stuff.

Similar Products Used:

Revel Salons, N802, Mark Levinson, Krell.

OK, guys, you understand exactly what's going on here, don't you? You've this guy Kevin whose life consists of getting onto the internet and pretending to have a real life. He's posted his reviews with the intent of stirring the pot, and after all that hard work, he's finally a success. It seems clear that this guy's akin to Poo Poo (I'm not joking, check his review here and for the n802). I'll tell you, some people will thrive on attention any way they can get it!

a few

a lot

It looks like AudioReview cancelled my second message... what a shame. Basically disregard much of my first post because AudioReview's server garbled the message and huge parts of it were chopped out on the upload (CRC handling anybody?) What the message was all about; the B&W's sound fine but they are NOT full range speakers. They are pathetic at high volume levels with low frequency material, and NO, I'm not talking about sending them sub bass material... just good, low, kick-drum style bass. They do show bad compression in the highs at higher volume levels. No, I have no angst with B&W, I just hate to see a company charge 20 times what those speakers are worth on false pretenses. My other point, if you base your purchases and critiques of others on the price of the equipment, then you are an uneducated loser who needs to get a life. Quit trying to "keep up with the Johnsons" next door and buy what you *actually* like. If it's the B&W's... fine, so be it. I'll retire to my $27,000 "K-Mart" sound system now... haha, you guys are sooo pathetic. Hey, I'm not one of you for the record, I got my undergrad at Virginia Tech in Electrical Engineering, my master's at U. of Maryland, and my doctorate in EE at MIT... my dissertation was on acoustic back-wave coupling within aperiodic membrane loud speaker enclosures. I've done more research on audio reproduction than you guys could ever dream of. Now get back to writing those big checks for mediocre equipment. NO, I do NOT work for any competing speaker company or such affiliates.

Similar Products Used:

all of them

I have yet to hear these speakers sound impresive. They have been ran by very expersive Krell, in treated rooms, but they don't sound right to me. I just can't hear the mids and highs without thinking that it sounds really harsh. Apart from that, there was no soundstage, it just wasn't there, a little bit of an image, but not much. I have other speakers I prefer much more in this price range.

I somewhat agree that the whole 800 Natilus lines are expensive. I think the problem is that the older 800 Matrix lines are already very good sounding speakers. It's hard for Matrix owners to justify the 2X retail price of the Nautilus lines. I agree wholehartly about this viewpoint and I can see how B&W is going to have little problem to persuade the Matrix customers to upgrade.
But, I do have other view points.

First, if B&W can sell their Signature 30 for $12K, then I don't have problem
B&W ask $11K for the 801N. The trebel and midrange of 801N is not too far off Signature 30 and the bass of 801N is so much better.

Second, compared to the speaker above $10K in the market, I don't think 801N is that much off the price/performence ratio. I auditioned the Avalon Eidolon ($20K), Willson Watt/Puppy ($18K), and the new Ravel Salon ($15K). They all sound quite different from 801N. Each of them sound better than 801N in certain area. But, as a whole, I really do not think they sound more musical than 801N.
Of course this is my opinion. You need to make your own judgement here.
My feeling is this, 801 Matrix make speakers above $5.5K very difficult (this include 801 Nautilus) to sell, and 801 Nautilus make speaker above $11K also even more difficult to sell.

By the way, I recently did more audition to A/B the 801N to 802N. It's now very clear to me that 801N is a better speaker. Not only bass is better but the midrange and trebel are also better! 801N will be my next pair speaker.
Enough said.

Enjoy!

This may constitute a biased review since we are B&W dealers, but I feel that some points should be made regarding B&Ws new Nautilus line of speakers. Lets face it B&W has always built a fantastic speaker in terms of value vs performance. I think people are spoiled by the fact that the matrix series went 12 years! without any price increases. While other companies steadily increased their prices for eg. KEF 104.2 originally sold for 2000.00 then jumped to 3600.00 with no change to the speaker other than grill and bi-wire. I heard these new 801's at the Stereophile Show in LA and thought they were stunning for the price after comparing them to speakers like the Wilson Max. Listen for yourself. Their R&D has paid off.