B&W Speaker Score!

Are the speakers bi-wired or single wired? If single wired what jumpers are you using? N802's are less aggressive single wired to the bottom terminals and using the B&W supplied jumpers.

The speakers should be aimed such that the outside of each of your shoulders is the target. Too much on axis will be bright.

Bi-wired.  Toe in, distance, all placement positions tried.  thanks.

Dastro - You obviously know what you're doing and you are totally correct that with bass filter that you're going to get more perceived extension out of your matrix speakers - which it's great to know that you love them so much.

Perhaps in the end the 802s aren't for you, but a couple more things to look at assuming that you've completely ruled out any obvious defects (and I agree that the dented tweeter will have little effect).

Have you checked that the transit lock screw is off and that the midrange drawbar tension is OK?

Are the midrange center plugs tightened appropriately?

Are the bass port plugs in?

Finally - are you sure that they're adequately broken in (perhaps the original owner never used them)?

In the end, even if you prefer your s2's, you might consider keeping the N802s considering what you paid and went through to acquire them.  Either way, it's a bummer that they're not "singing" to you.

Greg

Greg- all components have been checked and rechecked.  They're definitely broken in- the previous owner used them frequently.

I don't think there are any technical issues with them- the previous owner is a veteran of this hobby and had quite an extensive collection of various, high end gear.

It's interesting to me that their sound puts me off so much.  They just sound superficial.  Even my wife, who doesn't care about audio whatsoever, commented without solicitation that they didn't sound right.

Oh well, the journey continues...

You hear what you hear. No way around it. Someone else may love them. Smart to not change system for speakers. My humble opinion is that great musical speakers show their merits even when not perfectly set up. If you have to tweek a bunch and try other gear for mating they aren't great speakers. Also think great audio gear will show its merits out of the box then get better. Moral to story in my opinion is that you shouldn't have to work hard or at all to determine if a product sounds good or not. 
You'll have to sell them as you'll never be happy with them but the next guy might. Best wishes.

@dastro My first reaction was that that was a heck of a good price for Nautilus 802s.  That said, I wonder if the reason the price was so good is that they didn't sound right to the original owner either.  I'm with the other posters who say check to make sure everything is working correctly.  I've seen reviews where something didn't sound right and it was found that something was wired out of phase inside the speaker.  You could easily check that by reversing ONE set of speaker wires to see if the bass gets better.