What are your general thoughts of B&W speakers

Nishna:

The curved cabinetry was one of the features that attracted me to them in the first place. The 800 series is where this is employed to the highest degree. Go to their website and download the 800 series brochure. In there they show photos of just how complex the manufacture of those curved cabinets really is.

When did B&W start using curved speakers? I ask because i recall the SF Guarneri came out in 1994 and given their continued success (18 years!), i imagine they too inspired a number of curved speakers.

Never could warm up the B&W midrange in the 800 series. I'm guessing it's something about those Kevlar drivers that just sound kinda flat to my ears. They seem to lack the life and openness of other speakers I've heard in that range.

As for alternatives, I think the new Joseph Audio Perspectives would be very worth an audition, and with typical discounts should be right near the top of your range. Others I'd recommend hearing would be Usher CP8571, Vandersteen Quatro Wood, Merlin VSM, and whatever Nola, Marten, and Reference 3A have in that price range as well.

Have fun with your search, and best of luck.

The original Nautilus speaker (snail) was introduced in 1993. The Nautilus 800 series was introduced in 1998.

I would love to finally HEAR the B&W diamonds for myself so i can come to my
own conclusions. My 1st high-end speaker was a B&W 801 matrix, and the clarity in the midrange plus the DEEP BASS response was hard to beat for $5K (New) IF you had some excellent components upstream. The treble was a bit hashy (not surprising given a lot of CD's available in those days and the technology available to play them). BUT LATER ON i got to hear the same speaker sound very different and MUCH smoother with an advanced cdp and Pass Aleph amplifiers.
SO it is difficult for me to understand why B&W has not advanced MUCH further on in developing an even more transparent speaker in 2012. Of course now $5,000 only buys the smallest 800 series loudspeaker in the line instead of the largest (the 805). If the 801 was the "audio end of the road" for a stereophile reviewer back then, and the 802D2 got a rave review a few months back in the Absolute Sound, they must be doing something right. Not that they don't now have a lot of competition, but over the years the competition borrowed an awful lot of ideas from....(B&W...).