B&W 804's Vs. Vienna Acoustic Beethoven

I've sold both lines, and I don't think the 804's sound very good overal! I like em quite well actually, especailly bi-amped. I wouldn't necessarily rate the Bethoven's any higher overll either. But then I'm not a big Vienna Fan. Personal taste will win out there.
Also, consider that set up, room acoustics, proper associated equipment, etc, all will determin what you heared from those AUDITIONS you had! It's too hard to tell in DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS, in different situations...just not a fair comparison.
I have however had very good experiences with the B&W 804's in the right system/room. They do a lot right for the money..and I wouldn't call em GARBAGE!..as one personal called em. While I have come across higher end speakers than the B&W's for sure, they certainly aren't slouches or junk. Infact they make fine speakers at all price points, including the N800 series.
Yes, be sure, the DENON receiver(like all receivers) will be a weak link in your system. With this level of speaker, you should be considering saving for SEPARATES..IT'S JUST NO CONTEST HERE! However, depending on your budget, the speakers are the most important part of the gear-chain.
Keep in mind, if you're looking for DUAL PURPOSE higher end speaker, that the room and set up will have a lot to do with what's going to work well and what's not!!! If you have low ceilings, and/or sit back further from your speakers in proportion to WALL PROXIMITIES TO THE SPEAKERS, a standard traditional MUSIC SPEAKER (like the Bethovens or B&W's) aren't going to work so well ideally!..especially for HT! The sound will be more colored, the immage more BLURED, the dynamics and focus of the sound will be SOFTER and more DIFFUSE sounding! Unless you have MAJOR ACOUSTIC TREATMENTS in your room in this situation, or you sit CLOSE to your speakers in a smaller room environment/set up, you should STRONGLY consider a more HT friendly, and even dedicated cinema speakers!
There's a reason ALL THE HT MAG reviewers and STEREOPHILE writers and such use DEDICATED HT SPEAKERS for their HT systems!..they work better! And there's some very very musical and MUSIC FRIENDLY HT types of speakers out there, or speakers that do HT BETTER at least. If you notice the vast majority of these guy's use either DIAPPOLITO, HORN LOADED HIGH END SPEAKERS, THX DIAPPOLITO monitors, or other more CONTROLLED FOCUSED SPECIALIZED speakers for their HT's.
There are quite a few hi-end, more refined speakers that won't cut you short of what a good DD/DTS movie soundtrack has to offer, and will sound superb on music as well! If you look closely at all the reivews for equipment in some of these magazines, such as HT mag, Stereophile Guide to HT, etc, you'll notice what speakers and gear these guy's have in their REFERNCE SYSTEMS personally!!! Trust me, they know what works well, because they've heard most everything, for every purpose!!!!
Personally, a lot of what I would recommend for your application, would largely depend on what your room set up looks like! This will have a lot to do with what you can and can't do to be the most effective with your speaker chioces.
Good luck

I've gotta disagree regarding the N804 analysis. Granted, the 804s don't have DEEP, booming bass. However, they do bass extremey well depending on the particular recording. Well recorded/mastered bass sounds extremely robust on the 804s while poorly recorded/mastered bass does sound lean.

I happen to love the sound of the 804s. To me, they sound "right." I picked them over the 803s since I didn't hear THAT startling a difference. The big step up would've been the 802s if $$$ had permitted.

It's also true that the 804s require really great power and components to really sing. I've got a Musical Fidelity set up (Nu-Vista CD, A3cr preamp and A300cr power amp at 225 wpc) coupled with Coincident CST-1 speaker cable. This set up does wonders for the 804 and makes them sound fabulous. Also, I sit about 8' from the speakers.

I don't think B&W is garbage at all or that the Nautilus line is a failure. Their sound may not be for everyone, but they are great speakers nevertheless.

Look, the 804 and 803 differ VASTLY in their spectral tilts.
The 803N can work in a large room in free space, and perhaps quite nicely. Its splashy tweeter is anathema for HT, though....
The 804N is REALLY anemic by comparison, and again, an afterthought at B&W, produced after marketing pressure to do so. They were the last to land here because B&W wouldn't give up 803N production line space to the 804N until the 803N pipeline was filled, if that tells ya anything....
I could see where the 804N works in a small room if some boundary support is used, but then the soundstage is foreshortened, of course. But they DO need lots of help at the bottom, but even then you end up with a west-coast sway-back freq resp, not a bad thing for rock/elec jazz, but anathema for classical or acoustic jazz....
Sorry to upset N804 owners with my impressions. I even found
lowly Paradigm Ref 20s to sound better balanced, or the sublime new Thiel 1.6 as another $2k giant-killer....
Thanks for the HT/2ch radiation patter/room-interface reminder, foreverhifi.

My post was not to be taken seriously. "Nuff said.

Cdc, your original tongue-in-cheek hit too many nails on their heads, as I keep running into musician after musician who, after stepping into mi-to-highend waters ALL complain about how UNnatural the Naulius' sound to them! Again, I WANTED to like the 803, especially as my wife said it was tolerably attractive (you should have heard her swearing about the Revel F30 and Aeriel 8) but in a nearfield setup couldn't get them to cohere...nor tame those bright tweets. If only they had padded them a bit more to allow that decent midrange driver to come forward a bit. I'm not alone on this. B&W IS a large manufacturer...and so is Bose.