B&W Nautilus 803 or B&W 702 S2?


I'm currently sporting Paradigm 60 v3 for my fronts and considering purchasing B&W Nautilus 803 that are 10 years old or purchasing new B&W 702 S2.  My room is 25 x 20 feet, using Anthem A5 currently with McIntosh 135. Which would be a better fit based on these specs...and am I better off keeping the Paradigm's?
Ag insider logo xs@2xtophedwards
If you want musical sounding speakers I would look for something else other than B&W. Something from DeVore Fidelity, Sonus Faber (at least Olympica line or higher), Harbeth, Roger, Spendor, ATC, ProAc, Accoustical Engineering, Vienna Acoustics, Wilson Audio, Wilson Benesch, Magico, Raidho, Vandersteen.

B&W 800 series D3 is great for home theater and is one of my favorite high end home theater speaker system but not for 2ch music. If it's for 2ch music your money isn't wisely spent on B&W.
There are countless other cheaper options than B&W that are better for music. 
The B&W 800 series D3 aren’t bad for music but my point was that there are other speakers that cost less than the B&W that are more engaging with music and are more musical overall with richer timber and tonal color and possess more natural organic relaxed presentation and fuller sound than the B&W. When used for music to me B&W musical presentations sounded somewhat processed lacking natural organic sound especially with vocals and string acoustic instruments lacking midrange bloom and image depths and possess very forward presentation that I found them can be somewhat unpleasant at times for music especially with standard resolution digital recordings such as that of bad CD recordings. To me B&W fails to convey that lush emotional expressions of the artists and players.
I think I am not the only one who feels that way.

However, when it comes to details, clarity & resolutions B&W is top notch but that isn’t the only crucial elements that I’ll be looking for in order to achieve musical enjoyment from a system. Details, resolution, attacks, speed are important for movies (home theater), especially with those lossless HD surround sound formats eg DTS HD MA, Dolby True-HD, Dolby Atmos, DTS-X, which makes movie watching experience very exciting. That’s what B&W 800 series D3 are good at IMO.

I have to admit that the 800 D3 models are quite a bit better than their predecessors D2, D1, etc etc. I just couldn’t stand the previous B&W 800 series D2 models. The D3 are indeed better more realistic sounding than their previous D2/D1 models. B&W finally realized and moved away from using kevlar material for their midrange drivers.

But again it all comes down to personal preferences and tastes when it comes to speaker choices. You and others don’t have to agree with me.

B&W is perfect for home theater application IMO and is my to go choice for home theater.
I’m not bashing B&W as I am a B&W owner myself strictly used for my home theater room. I do own the latest B&W 800 D3 speakers for front with the matching HTML1 D3 center speaker and all custom theater in-wall B&W 800 series D3. I love them. They are spectacular.
Huh, that's interesting.  I am a B&W owner and had the D2 and now own all D3s.  I have the complete opposite experience from you, caphill.  My B&W D3 are extremely engaging for music and are very rich and full sounding.  It at all, I would say the midrange is slightly laid back when compared to other more forward speakers, such as Monitor Audio and such.  I think it may be a synergy with your amplifiers / cables.
Like I have already mentioned above that yes the D3 is more refined and have different sound profile than the D2 and indeed more musical than the D2 but they are still other speakers that cost less than the D3 but more engaging with music.

As far as synergy.....well, my B&W 800 D3 are in my dedicated home theater room strictly for home theater duties.
I drive them with the Classe Delta CAM-600 monoblock amps (class AB) and they sounded terrific together. I am using Transparent Reference speaker cables for them.

However, I have also tried driving them with my other amps that I have had in my separate dedicated reference 2ch room. So we literally dragged my B&W 800 D3 over to my dedicated 2ch listening room and had them hooked up with a pair of D’Agostino Momentum M400 monoblock amps before with the ARC Ref 10 linestage preamp + DCS Vivaldi full four stacks served as my digital front end as well as the Kronos Pro turntable + ARC Ref 10 phonostage pre served as my analog front end. I had some people help me with the move and placements and everything as the 800 D3 are big and quite heavy.
And when I compared them to my previous Wilson Audio Alexx that I had in there at the time, no comparison.
My speaker cables are Transparent Magnum Opys. Interconnects and power cables are Transparent Opus.

Recently I went through a significant upgrades with my stereo setup that I have in my dedicated refetence 2ch listening room. I traded in the ARC Ref 10 linestage pre and the D’Agostino Momentum M400 monoblock amps for the Naim Statement gears which consist of the Naim NAC S1 linestage preamp and the Naim NAP S1 monoblock amps. I also traded in my Wilson Alexx for the Magico M6. But I keep my DCS Vivaldi full four stacks as my digital front end components and I still have the same Kronos Pro turntable with the ARC Ref 10 phonostage pre.
Last week we had my B&W 800 D3 dragged over to my reference stereo listening room again and had them hooked up to my new Naim Statement gears and compared them to my Magico M6. No comparison. I know it isn’t a fair comparison as the Magico M6 cost $176k a pair and the 800 D3 cost only $30k a pair.