Survey: B&W

The spirit of the post was to find out what B&W FANS thought was their greatest speaker achievment; price vs performance or just overall. There are many excellant speakers out there so if you feel one mfg. is better than another thats fine, it's your opinion. But no one can deny that B&W has done tremendous R&D for many years to push the realism of sound reproduction further: in this regard, it benefits us all.

The only B&W I would own: Nautilus 800
The B&W with best price/performance ratio: Matrix 801 S3

I agree with Phasecorrect in regards to the Nautilus line
being way overpriced. The Nautilus line did not deserve a 2x
markup from the S3 Matrix line. The N801 should be a $7500
speaker, not $11,000. And $16,000 for the N800 is almost
laughable. It's a nice speaker, but not $16,000 nice.

On the other hand, I think some of their less expensive
speakers are terrific values, especially the DM series.

I had 805's, 802s3, & now have 801s3 with Northcreek crossovers and a bass filter from Listenup. I love these speakers alot. Sure there is always something better & people like to knock down B&W. But let's ask the million dollar question? How many B&W speakers have you owned and with what gear!!!!!!!

Great Topic
Jim

I've been very happy with my 802 Matrix IIIs, though I couldn't justify an upgrade to the 802 Nautilus. I do think the Nautilus line is overpriced, but I guess someone has to pay for the R&D.

Looking at B&W distortion specs:
DM601s3 2nd and 3rd order harmonics:
<1% 88 - 20kHz (90 dB spl, 1m)

Nautilus 804 2nd and 3rd order harmonics:
<1% 70 - 20kHz (90 dB, 1m)
<.5% 150 - 18 kHz

At ~1/10 the cost of N804, the 601s3 is a fantastic value looking at specs like these. Small cabinet has little resonance so don't need expensive curved cabinet of Nautilus. Even has the tweeter tube.