B&W Nautilus 803 & 804 Vs The World

I have the 803's and the Matrix 802 SIII. In comparison to the 804's, the 803's have a richer more open sound and more apparent bass, not just deeper. Both are brighter than the Matrix series. The 803's definitely need a high current amp for best performance.

I was suprised at sound of 804s. Something had to be wrong. They sounded like a blanket covered them in an a/b with 805s. I bought the 805s and would skip the 804 and go 803 or 802 with bigger room.

there's a lot of better speakers for the money. value is low when its B&W. cheaper & better are maggies & vandys. much better for similar money are merlins. from 50hz to 20k, nothing sounds better than merlins IMHO. (look at some of the frequency response charts. you'll be hard pressed to find flatter response than merlins.) rhyno

Can one judge a speaker's performance by its frequency response alone ? Does a flat response from 50 Hz to 20 KHz imply that it is a good speaker ?

I listened to the N803's and thought they sounded good. Then right after to the N802's and the difference was tremendously better in favor of the N802. The N802's are more revealing and have better bass extension plus the styling makes quite a visual statement.