B&W 804's Vs. Vienna Acoustic Beethoven

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.

I'm not a real big B&W fan. But what matters is what you like. The Viennas and the B&Ws are very different sounding speakers. If I had to pick, I'd definittely go with the Viennas. Also consider Aerial.