Which amplifier to drive B&W Nautilus 802?

Accustic Arts

manufari,

Gregm gives you good advice. I happen to agree with him as that was my personal experience as a former B&W owner.I used to own a pair of the (less exalted) DM series & even tho I had them hooked up to my (German) Symphonic Line amps, they never really sounded their best unless I cranked up the volume. They had below average low volume details despite the Symphonic Line amps being high current amps. I think that this had to do with the xover component quality & topology.
Hence, look for a high current amp - not necessarily a high wattage amp but a high current amp.
If you can lay your hands on the oldie but goldie Plinius SA-50 power amp that should give you decent SPL assuming that you will listen at the 85dB SPL level. I'm sure that it can provide more SPL but I don't have a feel for where it will commence straining itself with the N802. Often I see Plinius SA-250, SA-102, Krell FPB-XXX i.e. the highest power level you can afford!, Rowland Model 10 & Model 12, Pass X350, Spectron Musician II driving the N801, N802 & N803 speakers.
I found that the cleaner the power amplification source, the better the B&W speakers sounded i.e. their sound muddies up very quickly as the quality of amplification degrades. FWIW. IMHO. YMMV.

I think you need an amp that puts out atleast 400 watts into 4 ohm load. Solid state, no tubes unless it's a real powerful one.

I don't know about any of the technical or mathematical reasons, but I have found that the 802's are dramatically different if you give them as many watts as you possibly can. I ran them with about 170W per speaker solid state for awhile, then started bi-amping them w/170W to the bass portion of the speakers (lower terminals), and 200W to the mid/tweeter portion (upper terminals). Only bass above 80hZ is going to the 802's, anything below that goes to a Velodyne subwoofer.

The first time I fired them up after the bi-amping I almost fell on the floor. The music was so much more real that it was scary. For the first time I fully undestood the term "dynamics". Every type of music has an unbelievable presence and detail. From unacommpanied vocal and guitar to full symphony orchestras, it is now all right there in the room. In fact, just for fun, I would like to give them 300W per terminal (600W/speaker) but that is not financially possible right now.

At one point I emailed B&W and ask if it was possible to overamp the 802's, and the engineer replied that the biggest danger to damaging the 802's was in underpowering them, and that they are built to take huge amounts of power and that their 500W per speaker is a very conservative rating.

I have read similar remarks in other online reviews/chats from 802 owners, saying that to really open them up and take full advantage of their capability you need to give them as much high quality juice as possible. They will still sound really good with lower wattage, better than most speakers out there, but these things are heavy duty speakers that were made for lots of power.

You don't necessarily have to bi-amp, but the engineer also confirmed that they were designed to play more efficiently and with more purity in a bi-amp setup.

Anyway you do it, they are awesome speakers that I intend to enjoy for a long time.

I agree with Greg try many different amps, but I would definitely stick with Solid state.

1. Chord abbey Road studio uses them on their N801's
2. Krell Used KSA-250 or FPB series are plentiful
3. Mark Levinson Good deals can be had on 335 or 336.
4. Plinius 250's are out there
5. Electrocompaniet Not many of these out there but
they have an amp designed to drive B&W speakers.