Am I the only one who thinks B&W is mid-fi?

They have always been sold to the public as speakers the mastering engineers use. Many do.
Even if the B&Ws were flat (and some are more than others) then you might think them unmusical due to poor quality recordings/and or poor reproduction chain. And then there's the possibility that flat frequency response is not all there is to speakers sounding like music (or not even the primary quality).
Voicing speakers is very tricky and the one size fits all approach does not work. That's why there are 1,000 speaker manufacturers out there, and 1,000s more in garages. I say, if you don't like the sound, make your own!

I feel most people do not use quality high end or matched components while owning B&W. I think that is why they are sold often without even knowing their full potential. Different strokes for different folks and my 801 III with North Creek's keep me happy even when compared to the Nautilus or any other brand.

Krell1 (and others) you're right. I still laugh at a review on Audio Review where one guy trashed some high end B&Ws because they did not sound good connected to his Yamaha receiver. Another person returned their B&W P series to the store for being too harsh, and went out and purchased Cerwin Vega. I can only imagine what cheap gear the rest of the system must have been composed of.

B&W are used as monitors by many sound studios for the simple reason that they accurately play back what they are given, good or bad.

I tend to agree with Mikez. Let's not discredit him just because he's new to the site. Time will tell if he's just a s#!t disturber.

I listened to the Nautilus 800s (absolutely gorgeous to look at) played through an all Levinson setup.

390S CDP/Processor
380S Preamp
33 Monoblocks

Those of you who respond with things like "maybe it was a bad recording", or "maybe it was setup with poor electronics" crack me up. I would hope that most of us know to audition systems with good source material. Obviously, you can't refute the the "quality" of the electronics that the 800s that I heard were setup with.

The speakers sounded very flat and lifeless, IMHO. I had to really crank the volume to get them to come to life. I was very surprised. I wanted to be impressed. I was not.

I don't think that it was the recording - I tried a few different discs. It wasn't the electronics. And...I'm pretty sure that it wasn't the room. About 4 months earlier, I heard the Nearfield Acoustics Pipe Dreams setup in the same room and they were INCREDIBLE!

Other B&Ws that I've listened to recently are less exotic; N805, N803 and both of them were very fatiguing to these ears. Additionally, there has ALWAYS been something that sounds better at that given price point.

To each his own...but I don't find anything to get excited about when listening to the B&W line. I've come back to them time and again, figuring that I must not have been giving them a fair shake, or that perhaps they were not setup very well, etc.

I've tried to like them, but - honestly - I don't see what all the fuss is about.

It's all about buying a name and an image. Kind of like McIntosh....but that's a whole different debate!

Very interesting! There are old Agon threads that describe Levinson as being "sterile, clinical, lacking in palpability, soft, dull, and to get it right, proper speaker matching with them is important". Are you sure it is the B&Ws?