Excellent mid and high repro in a tower
Written: Sep 14 '99 (Updated Aug 28 '02)
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Pros: Excellent sound stage, particularly adept in music
Cons: Not as attractive as the 801 and 802s, good subwoofer required for Home Theater
The Bottom Line: Highly recommended. Great speaker in this price range.
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| Everclear22's Full Review: B&W Nautilus 804 |
UPDATE 8/2002: Please see my review on the B&W Nautilus 802 (http://www.epinions.com/content_73946861188) to read a review of my latest equipment.
This product is a perfect of example of why ignorance is bliss.
I was closing on a new home with a basement that I was going to turn into a dedicated Home Theater. This meant that my Acoustic Profiles speakers just were NOT going to cut it anymore. I had listened to the M&K THX speakers, the Paradigm Monitor series speakers and a few other commonly recommended speakers, and although they were very good speakers (particularly the M&Ks) none of them left me 'itching' to buy (you know what I mean.. when you can't get to sleep without thinking how incredible those speakers sounded). I finally decided to go to a 'Mom and Pop' audio specialty shop to see what they had available. I told them my price range and took a listen to the B&W CDMSE series. I was in love!! I thought that *THIS* was my speaker. How could these little beauties (I was looking at the CDM SE1s bookshelfs) produce such a wonderful sound. I left that day secure in the knowledge of what I wanted.
The next day I brought my buddy who was also in the market for speakers in to take a listen. He agreed they were far superior to other speakers we had listened to and were getting ready to leave (and sweet talk our spouses into letting us buy them) when he said the four fateful words 'Can we hear those?'.
'Those' were a set of B&W Nautilus 804s. We were both skeptical since we had also heard the CDM CSE7s (the tower version of the CDMSEs) and found them to lose some of the treble and midrange clarity in exchange for better low range.
The 804s are tower speakers and are stunning to look at. We wanted to listen to them so we could dismiss them and be happy that we were walking with the right speakers for us. The technician moved the speakers to the same room and we fired up our reference music.
It was like an out of body experience. The entire room was full of music. Crystal clear clarity, Full dynamic sound range and incredibly accurate reproduction of sound. My friend and I looked at each other and both said 'Holy (expletive)!!' To say we were impressed is an understatement. We tried another CD, this one dedicated to testing the high end. We thought surely this tower can't reproduce this without introducing distortion from the case. WRONG!! Once again the 804 shined like nothing either of us had ever heard before!! We asked the technician to hook up the 803. We could hear no discernable difference with our reference music (except possibly slightly more range at the low end), but no additional reproduction value.
With this jump in price I tested other speakers in the same range (including Linn and Martin-Logan as well as higher end M&Ks) but could NOT find a better sound than the Nautilus 804s. I tested this multiple times in a music environment and in a 5.1 movie environment and could find no equal.
The one drawback to the 804s compared to the 801s and 802s is they do not have as much bass range (they do drop down to 45hz so they are better than most speakers). If you enjoy hip-hop or plan to use these in a theater environment I recommend a good subwoofer to complement the sound.
If you have the means I HIGHLY recommend these speakers. Of course, sound is very subjective so I also recommend auditioning other speakers so when you come back and buy these, you can know that you got the best speakers for under $10k
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1575 each
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Epinions.com ID:
Everclear22
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Reviews written: 13
Trusted by: 10 members
About Me:
An HT enthusiast who has spent much time (and money) bringing the theater experience home.
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