tweeter

low frequences

First of all I want suggest to everybody who is using hi-end speakers to get a "power company 400s" - it is an big inductor box (30lbs).

I drive these speakers a Arcam AVR100, i know kind of on the lower range to drive these speakers - but i am happy with the outcome.

I used B&W P4 for sides and the CDMC NT center speaker sounded great but with the 804 Nautilus and the HTM2 that sound it just so much better it is unreal. The real value in these speakers are the tweeters. Dont get these speakers if you want a big bass. B&W never made speakers with big bass and bottom line i agree.

I will replace the rear speakers are currently have, Rock Solid with the SCM1 Nautilus.

So go listen - and you will see.

Martin

Similar Products Used:

B&W P4, DM602, DM601

If you think the bass is weak with this speaker then your amp is the culprit. Audition these with a Bryston amp and the tight, controlled bass will blow you out of the room.

Great soundstage, amazing on vocals and jazz

Non-standard binding posts, Paid full retail

I have owned the 804s for 5 months now and I am extremely happy with my purchase decision. I auditioned the B&Ws, Sonus Fabers and the Vienas over several weeks. I was biased to like the Sonus Fabers and Viennas due to the reviews I read, but I ended up with the 804s because I heard details in my audition CDs that I had never heard before. I continue to like these speakers more every day.

I use my system 75% for music and 25% for home theater. I listen to everything except country music. I have listened to literally hundreds of CDs on these speakers from classic jazz, classical, rock and pop that most of the "audiophiles" would deride.

I think that the other reviewers have covered the strengths well. I will try to add a few things that I did not see.

- I found that the belief that B&Ws perform poorly with rock recordings mostly a myth. Almost any rock CD mastered within the last 5 years sound great. Even new stuff that most "audiophiles" would never own including New Radicals, Sugar Ray, Smashmouth etc. sound great. Your old Cars Greatest Hits will sound terrible, but mine sounded bad on my old Klipsch speakers as well.
- They sound great as HT speakers. I also have the HTM1 center channel and love the way that they sound. I am not sure why they have received negative comments here. Some of the new 5.1 DVD concert disks sound great with these. I think that the B&W center channel cannot be beat for vocal reproduction and there will be a bunch more 5.1 audio disks comming out over the next year.
- The competition. The speakers I auditioned fall into two categories, floor standing $3500 and two-way $2000 plus stands. Ironically given the comments here, I found that the Sonus Fabers were more sensitive to break in than the other speakers I auditioned. All are great speakers. For the floorstanding, I rank them N804, Vienna Beethoven, SF Grand Piano. For book shelf, N805, SF Concerto, Viena Mozart. I was diappointed in the Grand Pianos but loved the Concertos. If you are looking for a smaller speaker, you should definately listen to the N805s and the SF Concertos. The SF center channel is also great, better than the Viena.
- Whay spend an extra $1000 on the bigger speaker? I found the sound of the 804s were just fuller than the 805 (to be expected). The stands for the 805s are also very expensive and in the end, the difference in price might only be $750.

Listen to all of these a couple of times and find a dealer with a decent listening environment. You could not go wrong with any of the speakers on my final list.

My system: Nakamichi CA-1 preamp, Nakamichi PA-1 amp (5x100W), Sony DVP-7000 DVD, Monster Cable spaded speaker cables, Tributaries interconnects, B&W 804 front, B&W HTM1 center channel, Mits 35" (limited edition version with dense phosphers), BDI stand, currently auditioning new surrounds and subwoofer.

Similar Products Used:

Sonus Faber Concerto Grand Piano and Concerto, N805, Vienna Accoustics Mozart and Beethoven

Attractive, well built, low distortion.

$3500.00 Price Tag

These attractive speakers produce clear and detailed sound. They essentially amount to smaller versions of the Nautilis 803's with less bass response. The most favorable characteristic of Nautilis 804's are their near complete freedom from distortion. As a consequence, they really shine when rendering instruments such as the piano, horn, violin, Guitar and Cello. They also admirably produce clear human vocals.

Three dimensional crystal clear sound

none for me

I spent many months researching speakers through the web, magazines and in-store demos. I was put off the 804's (before hearing a note) as I have Linn amplifiers and many reviewers have cautioned against Linn and B&W together. Anyway, I got 804s on a home demo and was instantly taken by them. I couldn't believe the improvement in clarity and three dimensional sound. After two weeks I didn't wish to try anything else and couldn't part with them so agreed with the dealer that I could keep them until the ones I bought were delivered. When they finally arrived, running in was relative quick - I did use them almost constantly and kept them running when I wasn't in the room but they were soon playing as well as the demos.

Mid and high frequencies were crystal clear and whilst not being a bass-freak, they can really thump when necessary. Never found them lacking in bass as some have mentioned here. I find many CDs transformed, I hear things I never knew were there. That said, there are a few CDs that don't sound much different from before. Records (which I rarely play) also reveal so much more than I expected.

My set up is:
Rega Planer 2
Linn Genki
Linn Majik-P (pre-amp only)
Linn LK140

Overall, I am very pleased with them being the best speakers I have heard. These are expensive speakers so the question is whether they are value for money. For me, they certainly are.

[By the way, the photograph at the top of this review page shows (or at least was showing on 30jan01) an 803 not an 804. Although very similar, the bass units are narrower, similar in diameter to the mid-range unit.]

Overall mix of quality

Lack of impact that I expected.

My review is only based off of showroom listening so take it with a grain of salt, Different power and room dynamics would of made a big difference.

Setup: Marantz seperates
Music: Madona, Yellow Jackets (Dream)

Impression: 804's need more range, they didn't strike me as 3x better than a pair of CDM1's. Base could be better as well as tightness.

Rotels on the other hand came out fuller and with more clarity in the highend which really suprised me due to the famed Nautilus tweeter design which didn't shine for me.

Maybe the B&W needed more power which I did experience years ago when deciding on the CDM series versus the P4 floor speaker, the P4 needed power to sound good, otherwise it didn't compare to the smaller cousin...

Happy listening all. Still don't what to move up to

Similar Products Used:

Rotel, Canton, Joseph Audio

Superb Sound, when combined with a Decent Sub. Look great also.

Low on Bass, but Sub fills in very well.

I have had my B&W 804s for 3 months now, Red Cherry finish.
Beautiful speaker, sound is Suberb!!! Added a B&W ASW2000 Sub, One of the finest Speaker/Sound combinations out there, Period! It is very important to have good electronics - AMP/Pre-AMP, CDP...

SYSTEM:-
Bryston 4B-ST AMP
Bryston BP25 Pre-AMP
B&W 804 Main Speakers
B&W ASW2000 Sub (Incredible)
Sony XA20ES CDP
Rotel RCD991 CDP
All Kimber Kable Silver Streak, Hero and 4TC Interconnects.

Awesome. Try it, you will not believe the sound.

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha, Sony etc.

Finally I bought a pair of Nautilus804 two weeks ago. I auditioned Nautilus805 and 804 for 3 times in the past one month with my refference CDs (Jazz/Classic) at the usual audio shop where I bought eight of B&W speakers to date.

For classic music of my taste, Bach Violin, 805 sounds very good enough however, 804 obviously has the advantage of bass than 805 for Jazz. Finally I decided to buy 804 and it was delivered two weeks ago.
I'd used B&W DM603 about 14 months and it still sounds great however, I wanted wider sound stage, more focused sound image, transparent "highs" for classic music (violin sonatas) and fast tighter "bass" for my jazz music.

For the frist 10 to 15 hours play after I opened the box and bi-wired to my Mark Levinson 332 (200W ea, dual mono Amp), the bass and midrange were not good, but highs were as good as I expected.
Somewhere around 25 to 30 hours play, my 804 started singing. Highs are getting better and more transparent, mid range creates more resound, and bass is representing lower than before. (But still I need a little lower...)

I hope my 804 is still in the process of "break in" because I think that DM603 represents lower bass than the current status of my Nautilus804...

Although I have a B&W subwoofer as one of my Dolby Digital 5.1ch equipment however, I don't use subwoofer when I listen to stereo music, because sub's bass is slow and sounds dull to me.

I don't regret to have paid $3,500 plus CA tax for this pair of speaker. I am very happy with the quality of this 804 for the money I paid.

Some people may say, there are better speaker systems out there for the money. But I don't care, because I am not an audiophile and I just love B&W speakers
sound and designe as well than the others.

Totally neutral, beautifully voiced, excellent hi-end, midrange, excellent bass response for such a small tower speaker.

Slightly Laidback, definetely not bright like older B&W speakers.

Incredible speaker, was really interested in the 803's, but after hearing the 804's I could'nt justify the $1500.00 difference. From what I understand, Stereophile gave the Nautilus 803's a Class A rating, they would be complete morons if they rated the 804's anything less than Class A. I do realize that the 804's bass response does not go as low as the bass response on the 803's but I believe it's just as tight. Save yourself 1500.00 and buy the 804's, they are just awesome. Hey you, Chris Wymm, and others like you, with your stupidity about the 804's not having good pitch accuracy, etc, it has nothing to do with these speakers, it's your other components, or are these monitors out of your league, meaning you can't afford them, please don't put near perfection down, remember nothing is perfect.

Similar Products Used:

Nautilus 803's and too many to list.

Midrange, Speed, Looks

Bass

I've been a B&W owner since 1996 when I bought my first pair of DM630s, however after several upgrades I now feel happy with the N804s, having achieved a great balance of sonic characteristics that suit my tastes.

Having owned B&W DM604s, I found the midrange to be pleasant, but the bass rather boomy (maybe due to tuning) and highs slightly bright. After upgrading to N805s (bypassing the 605s) I was delighted with the presentation of mid-upper end, but even though I'm not a bass fanatic, I found the understandable lack of bass (given no bass driver) to be thin for my taste.

After many years of admiring the old matrix 803 and 804, I finally upgraded my 805s to 804s and am now delighted with the results. At this point, I should get in a plug for my dealer of choice - Just Hi-Fi in Brockville & Kingston Ontario (www.justhifi.com) - they have a great product line, a trade-up program, good service and excellent pricing. It's well worth a call or visit if you're in the market.

On Holly Cole's "Don't Smoke In Bed" (particularly 'I Can See Clearly Now'), the 804s excel. Holly's soaring voice is almost astonishing and the quickness of the 804s two bass drivers is impressive (especially in contrast to the 6 series)in rendering the upright bass.

On "Time Out of Mind" from Steely Dan's remastered 'Gaucho', the 804s really shine, especially in rendering Donald Fagen & Michael McDonald's voices and again in snap and slam.

Finally, on "Iron Hand" from Dire Straits' "On Every Street", Mark Knopfler's voice and acoustic guitar are simply haunting. Especially in contrast to listening to lesser experience, it's amazing to hear how well the 804s render acoustic guitar. It's really the audio equivalent of cleaning your eyeglasses.

After listening to the 803s, I can see that the law of diminishing returns is really starting to take effect (or maybe it did long ago), but having listened to 802s, maybe there is a reason to continue to upgrade. However, I must say for the first time, the 804s have given me a balance of sound that I can live with...happily. On the strength of their performance compared with the 803s, I give these 5 stars and 5 stars for performance.

Oh, and my wife gets five stars for appreciating their sound and letting me get them!

Similar Products Used:

Tested B&W 802,803,6 series,ProAc,Thiel,Paradigm,PSB,PMC, Owned B&W 805,604,630