B&W Nautilus 800.....where's the bass?

thanks Null1

I must say all of the negative comments on B&W had me thinking about replacing my speakers. I am happy to say it never was the speakers. It was everything else! My system is now Aesthetix Calypso, Musical Fidelity Tri Vista, and Classe mono's. I no longer use or need a sub. With tubes in the system, my speakers sound as good as the well regarded speakers I have auditioned and not bright at all. Listening to these speakers in a poor system is probably what leads to all of the B&W bashing.(just a guess) With the wrong front end they can sound pretty bad. To those who disagree, that's fine. I respect your opinion. No need to rehash. Can we just let this thread die? It is slightly embarassing that I started it by complaining about the only good piece of gear I owned at the time.

Baffled: Your tale is both instructive and heartening, ignore the other stuff. In audiophilia you find that any company of a certain size or larger, and especially one that does as much original science r&d as B&W and has one leg in the mass market, makes an inviting target for a disproportionate share of bashing. Guys like to champion shoestring causes and rail against the establishment, but companies like B&W (actually, there really is no other speaker company quite like B&W) oppress nobody, as evidenced by the continual plethora of garage start-ups in the high end speaker biz. Every David needs his Goliath. Personally, I find it comforting that the largest speaker company on the planet also happens to take good sound seriously and makes a quality product. No, they're not hand-crafted and yes, they're sold at chain stores, but they're not evil, just uncommonly competent by and large. For the record, I don't own 'em, sell 'em, or even necessarily prefer 'em in lots of instances, but I do respect and appreciate them. Enjoy your system secure in the knowledge that for the most part the rude detractors are merely jealous.

Actually, Zaike, that's a very good point you're making & I agree totally.
In a similar spirit, other mass manufacturers also produce highly performant products (take B&O & Sony for one spkr model each) -- and no, they aren't hand crafted either, but they're sometimes cheaper than their garage equivalents, as they SHOULD be.
The only thing that sometimes annoys me is that manufacturers with huge resources, i.e. lower R&D & production cost, charge too high prices for certain of their products... Not being B&W's CFO, I feel justified in ranting at the asking price of their small models. Indeed, just compare the price of a 805 to the 800...
End of ranting.

Just think how good that new front-end would sound on some good speakers!

(That ought to get people going)