B&W Nautilus 801s vs. Wilson Audio Sophia?

On the subject of "midrange suckout" try aiming Wilsons at a point behind the listener for a prime example. This speaker really needs to be aimed at the listener.

B&W's arent as picky on setup as the Wilsons with regards to midband performance. My room has ranged from slightly down to peaky in the midrange depending on the setup of my N803's. Using the Rives Audio test disc really helped me fine tune my speaker position for the best response.

With proper power the bass response of the N801 is in another league compared to the sophia. This makes setup for bass response potentially more difficult with the N801 but the rewards of course are much greater.

Both are fine speakers

I agree with Yoga as the suckout problem is one which is not tolerated for myself. I used modified NEAR's which use to have these same problems until I was lucky enough to have them revamped by Bill K of NEAR. A whole other speaker after that.

New Drivers and XO's make a world of difference. I do not see how B&W has not addressed the problem> with the davent of new meterials for drivers and XO components it does not seem that it would be a hard thing to overcome. They have had enough time to do it and yet the problem persist. If it were me I would look to another manufacture for speakers rather than have to live with problems which should not be there when paying such a heavy amount for quality components.

I use to live with a euphoric presentaion ,for lack of a better description, until I found that I prefered a presentation which I felt was truer to the actual event.This was the problem or signature which NEAR drivers had .Now that I have better drivers and XO components my enjoyment of the reproduced musical event is much more enjoyable. I compare it to Electrostatics or panels to Boxed speakers. While speakers such as Maggies are euphoric and very involveing I do not feel they represent what the actual event is suppose to sound like. I went from Boxes to Panels and now back to boxes which I will happily live with boxes till I go to the big gig in the sky.

Hey ,but that is just my opinion and if you can live with the tradeoffs and inherent problems such as Suckout then you'll be a happy listener.

Good luck!

The 'suckout', or problems mentioned in this site relative to the 801's, and 'all B&W's' is, to many people's way of thinking, the famous, "Mylar Honk" as quantified, then coined by John Atkinson of Stereophile. Mylar has an uneven response, which causes a loud peak at an unfortunately obvious frequency, in the upper midrange, I believe, giving the speaker an unpleasant 'honking' sound.
It seems odd to me that a company with B&W's resources can't build a better loudspeaker than these.
Best,

Lrsky
Not that they cannot build a better speaker,but they do not want to correct the problem which baffles me.

A speaker I use that had older drivers had this type of signature also. I mentioned it to the designer and he had updated drivers which he gave me to try. Not only did the malefic go away ,but the new design was tighter and went deeper in the Bass with no hump. So it can be overcome if B&W would simply redesigned the driver.

I think it is also a matter of buyers wanting or getting tricked into a Euphoric presentation instead of being aware that a speaker should come closer to the natural or actual event instead of some colored illusion. It is the wow factor which get people hooked or fooled instead the realism factor I guess.

That is what I think anyway.