Excellent solid imaging, deep bass, detail.

Not the most natural sounding, but still exceptionally real.

I just thought I should post something here since everybody seems to want to know what these sound like. I was looking for where the next major improvement in my current system would come from (thinking CD or DAC) but ended up deciding the speakers would make the most difference.

Current System:
Meridian 506.20 CD Player
Chord Electronics CPA3200E Pre
Chord Electronics SPM600 Power
Wilson-Benesch Orator Speakers
Power leads are Kimber High Current PowerKords
CD->Pre: Kimber Select KS1011
Pre->Pwr: Kimber Select KS1120
Spkr Cable: Kimber 8TC

I took this lot to a local dealer to hear if my lack of imaging at home was due to the room. It was. I was staggered by how much difference the room made. More than any speaker. Nevertheless, I thought I needed a better CD player. To see how much improvement aa CD could make we changed the Meridian for the £12000 Linn CD12. this brought out amazing detail and tight timing, but it was obviously not worth the outlay. So we changed the Wilson-Benesch Orator's (£2900) to the £6000 B&W N802's. Huge improvement in imaging and real weight in the music. Detail was exceptionally good, although it seemed to lack some of the Wilson-Benesch's naturalness from low-mid to top.

An impressive speaker. Easily beats others I have heard costing around the same amount although I have yet to hear the Wilson-Benesch ACT One's at £7000. My own WB Orator's can't achieve the scale of the B&W N802 or the detail, but what there is from them, does seem more natural albeit without as much bass (which I am after). I suspect the Wilson-Benesch ACT One may prove better than the N802, but proof is in the listening.

Nonetheless, the B&W N802 is a very impressive speaker and despite my suspicions that WB can produce an equal or better still think this speaker is 5 star stuff!

Incidentally, this demo proved the Chords are world beaters amp wise and why they are used in many world recording studios. The SPM600 (£2000) power amp is just up from Chord's entry level power amp and it had no trouble driving the N802's and didn't even get hot - we were giving it plenty of welly! Shame about the guy who has to upgrade his expensive Plinius SA100 (£2840) to SA250 (£5690). Driving current hungry behemoth speakers should have people thinking "Switched Mode Power Supply" not huge "Toroidal Power Supply"!

Similar Products Used:

Similar - don't think there is!

very loud speakers

unclear fuzzy midrange. poor bass believablity no imaging

I am visiting new york right now and hitting all the hifi store I can find. I recently went to lyric hifi I was very interested in hearing what they had including the magnapans, b&w, classe, etc. I was blown away by the mags, beautiful soundstage incredible image (I'll save this for another review) and was excited to hear the b&w 802s they had on display so I saved the best for last. After hearing many of the setups they had I finally listened to the 802s and let me say I was deeply disappointed, I couldn't believe the unclear, hashy midrange I was hearing and the muffled unbelievably fake bass. On top of this there was absolutley no soundstage or imaging. Holy moly!!! This for me had to be the biggest hifi let down I've ever experienced, I've heard b&ws mid and lower end stuff and was never really impressed with it for the same reason, but I figured their 3rd to the top of the line speakers for $7500 would sound better than this!!! I'm mostly not impressed with its sloppy midrange, but the bass was equally as bad. As mentioned before I have heard many speakers and own the nOrh 9.0s which completley convinced me of the benifits of an "inverted horn enclosure" which is almost exactly what the b&w line has for it's midrange and tweeter. My theory is the problem with these speakers lies in the kevlar midrange driver. If you visit b&w homepage they explain how the driver is more or less fastened to the baffle as opposed to using a rubber surround. This basically causes the cone to opperate in modal break up over the entire midrange spectrum! I have not heard of any other manufacturer that uses this techinique of intentionally operating in break up, as a matter of fact the exact opposite is true, they want the cone as stiff as possible and ideally never to distort its shape. well I've heard an old pair of bw 801s nautlius and thought their bad midrange performance was due to age, this just proves to me that its the design!!! Any way I have heard worse but not at this price I have to admit they play loud and the highs ain't bad but I am giving these speakers what I believe to be a poor score, they're just not for me

Similar Products Used:

magnapan ribbons, nOrh 9.0, dunlavy IVa, lots others

Great sounding soundstage, transparency etc much like most of the reviews below.

There really is no weakness but I cannot explain why in words why my ears liked the Infinity,s better.

I listened to these for SEVERAL HOURS hooked up with Pass Labs X series Amps and a Marantz SA-1 SACD player, Nordost Valhalla cables throught. It did sound absolutely great. Clean like if you were there. I also had the opportunity to listen to the same set up with Infinity's Prelude MTS speakers. I don't know how to say it but I preferred the Preludes if you can believe that. So I ended up with the Preludes at about the same price. I do recomend the B&W's too.

Similar Products Used:

Infinity Prelude MTS.

Natural sound. Very accurate. Large sound stage.

Long break in period.

I purchased N802 a little over two months ago. The decision was based on expert's reviews, my personal experience with N805 (which is an excellent speaker for chamber music, jazz, solo instruments and vocals), and many of my CDs show that recording engineers used B&W speaker for their record monitoring.
Before the speaker is break in, the sound was very harsh especially at high frequency. I was worried about this high frequency harshness but the harshness disappeared after several weeks of break in. Now, the sound is the best I ever heard from any speakers. The sound is very accurate but very natural. Sound like musicians are playing front of me.
If someone interested to purchase or review the N802, please make sure audition the fully break in speaker with good source.

My equipment:
Sony SCD-777ES
Morrison ELAD as a pre-Amp
Bryston 4B ST
Audioquest Gibralter Cable
B&W N802

Similar Products Used:

B&W N805 and JBL

After auditioning av systems and speakers over couple of years I finally bought these speakers a month ago. The speakers sound amazing. The price tag is pretty high, but, ....

My AV system consists of:
Sony DVP-S7700 (dvd/cd transport)
Sony SAT-A4 (sat' dish)
Proceed AVP (pre-amp)
Proceed HPA2 (amp for stereo channels)
Proceed HPA3 (amp for center and surround)
B&W Nautilus 802 (stereo)
B&W HTM1 (center channel)
B&W Signature 7NT (surround)
REL StentorII (sub)
Taralabs Air2 (interconnect and speaker cable)
Panasonic 31" tv (will be replaced soon w/ a big screen rptv).

Similar Products Used:

None

I'm planning on buying Nautilus 802 B&W loudspeakers, which I'd drive with my old power amplifier MC 2205.
I've listened to the B&W 802 with Jeff Rowland and Mark Levinson amplifiers and I found the result simply great.
Unfortunately I do not have the possibility to test how they would work with MC amplification, either in a shop or at home, and I wonder if anyone out there has had prior experience in this respect (viz: will the old MAC be up to it or do I have to replace it? That's the question!!).
Thanks.

I'm planning on buying Nautilus 802 B&W loudspeakers, which I'd drive with my old power amplifier MC 2205.
I've listened to the B&W 802 with Jeff Rowland and Mark Levinson amplifiers and I found the result simply great.
Unfortunately I do not have the possibility to test how they would work with MC amplification, either in a shop or at home, and I wonder if anyone out there has had prior experience in this respect (viz: will the old MAC be up to it or do I have to replace it? That's the question!!).
Thanks.

The nautilus 802 for the 8000 dollar price tag are definetlynot worth the money! I have had them in my house now for about three weeks.
The midrange and highs are terrible right out of the box . Even with break in
they remain overly brite. The bottom end is muddy.I really believe their biggest problem is in there lack of coherency. I,m taking mine back for the
Hales transcendence 8 . What a difference !!! I was running my 802s with a Levinson 332 amp, c.j. 12 preamp and the Levinson #39 cd processor

I have to say that I am absolutely thrilled with the Nautilus 802.There is no comparison to the older Matrix 802 series.
The imaging is nothing less than THE BEST I EVER HEARD!
The power handling capabilities of the 801 and 802 Nautilus are substantial.
According to B&W the 801 Nautilus can handle more power than the
huge Matrix 800, which I previously owned. The 'old' 6'4" matrix 800
behemoths easily took the full output of the Bryston 7BST in series
mode (approximately 800 watts) without any audible distortion-- so it is
amazing that the new 801 nautilus is rated at 1000 watts, assuming B&W
has kept the same rating scale.

The 802 Nautilus is rated at 500 watts, even though they have the identical
mid-range and tweeter of the 1000 watt 801 Nautilus. So If I understand
correctly, the midrange and tweeter of the Natilus 802 are actually capable
of handling 1000 watts (relative to Matrix 800 rating at 800 watts).
However, the smaller 8 inch bass drivers are the limiting factor of the
power handling in the Nautilus 802. This is a concern for me because
I occasionally like to test the SPL limits of a system. I have fun shaking
the room once in a while. But since I am purchasing 2 Velodyne F1800RII
subwoofer, I am not concerned about bass response or power handling anymore.



I have (2) 7BSTs modified at Bryston Vermont with WBT binding posts.
I am going to purchase 3 more shortly to complete a 5.1 system.
I am not thrilled with all of the flexibility that Bryston put in to the
7BST... In other words, I would have preffered a totally balanced only
design and also a series only design. (But If I owned electrostats that
need high current, I guess I would have wanted parallel only design).
I know it must be less than optimal to have extra circuitry and switches
for all this flexibility... HOWEVER, I can find no fault with the 7BST
and the amount of POWER is incredible... I can't make that amplifier
clip! NO MATTER what the source (turned all the way up). There is
supposed to be a switch from green to yellow when the amp is
APPROACHING the clipping level... yet I've never seen the yellow
let alone the red. This is when I owned the B&W 800s which could actually
handle the full clean output... the source was a Kinergetics KCD-20 hooked
directly to the 7BST with Straightwire interconnects unbalanced.

Even though I don't necessarily like the 'flexibility' of the 7BST,
I would have to spend a great deal more to have MONOBLOCKS
that would outperform the 7BST.

I will be using the EAD Signature as my preamp processor, but I am
unsure if I will use the balanced connections to the 7BST or not.
EAD has stated to me that the next version of the Signature will
employ not only 24 bit, 96 or > DACS, they will be offering a fully
balanced output for all channels... This part is set in stone they
said since their new amplifiers are 5 channel fully balanced.

I am shopping for new speakers, so, as you can imagine, I am auditioning as frequently as possible to determine in which speakers I will invest my hard earned $$. I had a long session with the B&W Nautilus 802's. Don't waste your money on these speakers. I was seriously disappointed. For speakers that will cost you about $10K for a pair, the bass was overdone and not pleasant. Long term listening would be quite fatiguing. Perhaps it was placement or the room in which they were being shown, but I was not impressed with the speakers' ability to produce a soundstage or image the players. (You would think that the an audio store would put its most expensive speakers in a room that would show the product off to the best advantage.) Everything seemed to be coming from the boxes. For $10K I expect the transducers to disappear and leave me with a mental image of the stage and the players places thereon. You shouldn't expect any less. I rate these at 1 star for the novel appearance.