First, this is just a impression report and not a formal review on the new 800 Nautilus speakers. More audition are needed to give the final verdict. Being a 801s III onwer I have great expection to the new 800 Nautilus lines. This is even more so since I auditioned the B&W Nautilus and was quite impressed by its performence (but not its price and system requiremants).

Here it goes:
System: Krell FPB600, Krell KPS-25s, and unknown cables. There were few people audition the speakers at a time.

801 Nautilus and 802 Nautilus:

Side by side A/B compare the two speakers gave the following "impression":

801 is more spacious and smoother in the midrange and trebel. This is a puzzle to us because both 801 and 802 use the same midrange and trebel unit.
However, we did hear the 801 Nautilus has bigger soundstage, more spacious sound. We were also surprised that the upper midrange is smoother on the 801. The difference is small but is quite audiable to us. 801 is also more dynamic and gow lower than 802. What surprise me is that 801, with 15 inches woofer,
does not go much lower than the 802 which has two 8 inches woofer.
But it seems to me the 802 has enought bass to most of people. But 801 can give more dynamic sound.
Both 801 and 802 are very "quick". The sound is forward and intimate and
detail. The midrange is very nice for vocal. Very natural, detail, and intimate.
A big plus to me. Some people feel they detect a "nasal" sound from the 801. But I was not sure of that. It only sound "nasal" when you compare it to the 801 III matrix... Both 801 and 802 produced big orchestra sound. Even more so on the 801. It's much more spaciou. 802 seems to be more "focus" and has more "edge" definition of each individual instruements. 801 does not have such "edge" definition and is more spacious. I think 801 sounds more natural than 802.
Most of us thouight 802 Nautilus in its red cherry finish is the most beautiful B&W speaker. It's even prettier than the silver signature 30. 801 Nautilus look a little bit dumb and fat. But we think 801 sound better. What a shame.

801 Nautilus and 801 Matrix III:

A quick A/B between the new and old 801 again surprise us.
801 Nautilus sound more forward, more detail, more spacious, more transparent, and more dynamic. However, 801 III matrix is quite good too! Nobody thought it's bad compared to the 801 Nautilus. Some people even prefre the deeper depth and more focus and "darker" midrange of the 801 matrix. The bass is also quite good too. It might go deeper than 801 Nautilus??? I don't know. My impression was that 801 Nautilus is much more dynamic but not necessay go deeper. Another surprise!
OK. This is my summary:
Do I think 801 and 802 Nautilus is a better speaker? Yes!
Will I upgrade my 801 III Matrix? My answer is Yes!
Do I feel I need to upgage my 801 III Matrix NOW and immediately? My answer is NO. I still enjoy 801 matrix for its laidback,deep depth,dark midrange,and deep bass souns. I will also enjoy the detail,spacious, dynamic Nautilus sound - when my pocket is ready.

Imaging, bass, clarity

Too big

I connected it to my NAD 20W/channel amp and got excellent sound. Who says you need to buy Krell?
Buy it and have no worry.

Similar Products Used:

JBL

Sound, Build quality, Looks in a studio

Looks in home

This review was trigerred by Mr. Kevin's intervention below.
I think these speakers have deep, powerful bass, mids to die for and delicate, layered highs. They have a typical B&W sound at its finest. But are they perfect? Of course not, 'cause there's no such speaker. Are they for everyone? No, but I can't imagine any music lover listening to these properly set up, properly matched, properly powered and fed with quality recordings without a big, big smile on his face. Want perfection in details, music under microscope type of sound? Get the Wilsons' or the Tiels'. Want mids and soundstage to live and to die for? Get Maggies or Martin Logans! Want best of both worlds? Get B&W! Each of these brands gets 5 stars from me and I recommend each of their speakers highly. They are among the best in their class, no question about it and there's no such thing as a mediocre speaker named B&W, Thiel, Wilson, Martin Logan, Revel or Magnepan. Considering their competition, these speakers (B&W N801) are actually good value. Anyone who says they're
not worth it is either a fool or a bigger fool. Now back to Mr. Kevin. Is he a fool? 'Course not, with such an impressive acoustically related resume posted below, but he's just found out how revealing these speakers really are, you know, the garbage-in-garbage-out sort of things.
Would be interesting what a Bose-head thinks non-mediocre equipment in audio is, so I'm looking forward to reading more of Mr. Kevin's valuable contribution.

Similar Products Used:

Many. See review

Natural bass, smooth midrange,beautiful female vocals

Nothing specific noticed

With a view to possible purchase, I auditioned these speakers at a dealers, with Chord Electronics amplification and a Linn CD12 CD player. I took along 10/12 of my CDs with which I am very familiar, comprising a wide range of music, including Ella Fitzgerald, Prokofiev's choral work, Alexander Nevsky, Jean Guillou's organ transcription of Pictures at an Exhibition, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Beethoven's "Archduke Trio", and Brahms's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion.

I listened very critically, being used to a good quality of reproduction on my KEFs. In every case there was a considerable improvement, as should be expected from speakers costing twice as much.

For the first time in my Hi-Fi experience I heard cathedral organ that bore a realistic resemblance to the scale of the real thing, with the full range of pipes realistically reproduced. The second movement of the "Archduke" was most impressive for the speed and rhythm of the playing. The Pink Floyd - my perennial "test disc" - never sounded better, especially the clarity and sharpness of the "clocks", the realism of the tills and coins in "Money", and the clarity of the quieter spoken passages, much of which has been almost indistinguishable in the past.

The highlight was Ella's voice, which was reproduced with a creamy smoothness and timbre I have not heard since I sold my Apogees. I suspect that The Linn player was making an outstanding contribution throughout - but the point is that the 801s are easily capable, on this showing, of revealing the virtues of great equipment.

The only negative feature of the whole session was a strange, almost reverberant effect which I noticed on the piano in The "Archduke" Trio, coming from the right channel - almost like extraneous noise from the pedals. I had never noticed this effect on my own equipment and thought at first that it was being shown up by these ultra-revealing monitor speakers. But...what did I hear on the Brahms but the same kind of effect at the same mid- frequencies. I told the dealer that I thought the right speaker's midrange unit was faulty, and he switched the speakers round (remarkably easily on their castors) and there it was again...on the left channel! The dealer admitted that the midrange unit was faulty, and put it down to the speakers having been "all over the shop", i.e. shipped to various parts of the country for demonstrations.

The remarkable thing was that the fault was not detectable otherwise than on piano. Even with this "flaw" I have to award the 801s 5 stars overall (with 5 stars also for value, since these speakers are far cheaper here than, say, Wilson System 5/6) and cannot wait for a home audition which, providing my listening room can support the marvellous bass, should lead to a purchase.

Similar Products Used:

KEF REFERENCE FOURS MARKI; APOGEE DUETTAS

Incredible clarity. Real sound.

Sky-hight price. Difficolt, very difficolt to packed

I replaced my N802 with 801.
A reference for sound engineers
a reference for music lovers. Try and listen some classical music. You will understand...

Similar Products Used:

B&W N802

I found possibility to compare Nautilus 801 among Rewell Saloons and Wilson Witts at the same room, same equpment.
Equipment was Cello amps, krell transport.
801 failed around these two. First we audiotoned 801, than revell and wilson witt.
801 sounded very bright, unnatural at bass and highs . Unexpectially it was sounding very loud, especially at high volumes.
Bass was boomy, bigger than the original instrutment and artificial. Treble was exaggerated and a lot. After listening these three, we were all agree that 801 was lost it's natural sound compared to 801 Matrix series (Which I have one). Wilson Witt was very natural, transparent much better than any loudspeaker that I listened.

I have heard this speaker being driven by Levinson equipment. I have to say that I was most unimpressed with the sound. The speakers are too slow-sounding. I also heard the N802's being driven by Electrocampaniet gear and they sounded better. Both there is a problem in general with B&W speakers....the treble. It is far from smooth. For the money, one should expect much better.

Clear, Authoritative, Distinctive

Physical Presence, for some; slow bass, relative to other configurations

Let's have a round of applause for McGarnagal: sanity with articulation.

The N801s are ranked by several magazines as Top-Tier, and when you look at their price relative to the Revel Salons, Wilsons and Thiels, they are a bargain within the competition.

I own the N802s, for more than a year now, and they are wonderful; I opted not to buy the N801s because of the 'wife-factor", they were above my budget, given the additional amplification requirements, and my listening room would have closed them in.

If you have the money and the domestic capabilities they stand with any speaker made (there are better, I guess: I really liked the Salons, but I'm not willing to pay for that level of sound).

Kevin: go pound sand with your head, and leave the listening to us.

Similar Products Used:

N802s, Aerial Acoustics 10T, Revel Salons

Transparant and a pleasure to listen to. Its possible that there are a few better ones a lower prices, but the differences will not be as night& day as some of the extremists in here want you to believe.

Slightly slow bass, would have been a better design (an unbeatable design) with 2 10"s instead of the big, heavy 15".

Has everyone here seen kevins Rantings yet? If you haven't, I'm sure you will soon. As long as he posts a review a week endlessly crusading towards some point or another. He really reminds me of that fat comicbook salesman from the simpsons as in, "B&W Nautilus 801- WORST LOUDSPEAKER EVER"
Could you guys see him saying that? I know I could. Its easy to cough up a bunch of technical jargon and say you have degrees from any # of fine institutions, but with such a great mind and experience in the industry, I find it very strange that "Kevin" makes absolutely NO mention of what we should look at instead. Add to that his $27000 system of unknown ends. Its not like what he owns is personal business, after he practically wrote an autobiography into the review about his impressive education. Its one thing to critique, but its hardly conclusive with no direct comparison with whichever speaker does indeed beat the 801 for $550; you did say that they where 20X (right...) overpriced, did you not??? In summary, Kevin, you aren't helping anyone by writing what you did. To me it just sounds like you want to post 1 star reviews, so you simply burp up a paragraph of bias, lackluster blatherings in hope that someone will see your way, which I don't see happening any time soon.

Similar Products Used:

Revel Salon, Nautilus 801, 802, 803, Martin Logan Prodigy.

I recently heard these speakers backed by Krell's FPB 600 and all I have to say is they had to wipe me off the floor! I've never seen Tool live but after playing one song on the new 801's, man! I want to! These babies Rock! Serious bass, serious dynamics, serious soundstage. Now where the hell am I gonna get $11,000?!