B W Nautilus 802 - How much power?

I own a pair of B&W N802's myself and recently upgraded my amps ( an Aragon 8008BB to a Proceed HPA ). Though the power difference wasn't a lot ( from 200 to 250 watts ), the results were much better sound overall, smoother and more detailed. Like you, I have been told that the 802's require lots of power( up to 500 watts )and am now thinking about a Mark Levinson 336 or a pair of 436 monoblocks( 350 watts per channel ). What I'm looking as I'm sure you are is better quality sound versus more power. I'm wondering how much of a difference the ML would make.

Czapp,

I A/B'd the 802's with my Proceed bpa (125 watts) and a McIntosh MC352 (350 watts). Big Difference! Soundstage is much larger w/ the McIntosh but the biggest difference is how the McIntosh took control of the bass. The Proceed sounded OK at first but after listening to the MC352 the bpa sounded flabby (bass, but out of control and boomy). The McIntosh controlled the speakers and let them do what they do! The warmth and control of this amp was an ear opener! Good luck.

The N802s are listed as 8 ohms, nominal, yet actually spec-out at about 6 ohms. More importantly, a significant portion of there LF is in the 3 ohm range (there are significant peaks to 12 and 13, at certain frequencies). As such, your more important amplifier statistic is the 4 ohm power.

Also, an amplifier's 'slew rate': how quickly it can get from one signal to another, is very important: the N801s and N802s are that good.

There are any number of excellent amps out there: the Brystons, Theta Digital, Levinsons, et al. My only recommendation is careful audition anything that could be bright, such as the Krell. For the money, the Bryston is my first choice, either the 14 / 7 B-ST or the 4B-ST (250wpc). The N802s are rated at 91SPL, so you need a sophisticated amp (those named about or equivalent), not necessarily an extremely powerful one.

I currently run a Levinson 335 (250 watts) with my 802s. Prior to this, I had a Levinson 334 (125 watts). There is very little difference between the two amps 95% of the time. The only exception is at very loud volume levels with a lot of bass, and even then the improvement is small. I beleive that more important than raw power is the quality of the amplifier and although I have not heard your amplifier, I'll bet that it would be more than sufficient.