History of the Nautilus loudspeaker • Hacker News Board

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#21

Post by qiqitori » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 8:09 AM UTC

rorykoehler wrote: post #11

Not a fan of how these look (subjective) but am generally a massive fan of B&W speakers. They are a class apart. Truly stunning sounding. You can listen for hours on end with zero fatigue. My bro has has pair of bookshelf (CDM1?) hooked up to Arcam pre and power amps and the sound is out of this world.

I use Bowers & Wilkins P5 (series 1) headphones after having tested every other pair in the shop and found these to sound nicest. Really like the sound, but the discoloring is pretty bad (I got the white ones).

(Could have something to do with the shop being a somewhat noisy environment and these being the only headphones without active noise cancelling that still shut out most noise, so YMMV.)

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#22

Post by JohnBooty » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 8:14 AM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #13

ninjaoxygen wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in high-end AV. Perceptually, in a good space, those fantastic speakers often do not make the sound people associate with "loud", no distortion, no top end becoming hissy, just the concert-level bass to clue you in to how loud it is. People who have paid a lot for their system want that "wow" factor that immediately makes anyone think it's loud. The other issue is that different listening material definitely n…

As an audiophile (without the madness), I can understand you. On the other hand, with a pair of good speakers and a nice amplifier with bass, mid & treble knobs, you can almost dial the tone which's best for a genre. A 2x10 band eq is better, but I prefer to listen pure-flat instead. In my setup, only vinyl needs loudness + tone circuits, the rest is happy with pure flat. Of course music and sound is a subjective tas…

    but 90% of the road can be traveled with just 
    basic, but good components IMHO.

Amen. No expert here but I've been in the hobby for a while and have demo'd some high end stuff at audio shows.

I strongly believe a really good "90% of the way there" system can be put together for well under $500 retail, or even less if going DIY or used.

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#23

Post by JohnBooty » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 8:24 AM UTC

te_chris wrote: post #10

I haven't listened to the Nautilus but I have listened to the B&W 800 (RRP £23500) speakers and they really have to be experienced to be belived. I was listening in a studio environment that had just installed them, as an upgrade from the already very nice Quested setup they had. When we switched to the 800's the effect was profound. The speakers just disappeared leaving this seamless soundstage where noises just hap…

I demo'd the 800 D3 at a hifi shop and was very impressed. What impressed me most was that it sounded utterly effortless like they were utterly effortless. They were powered by a pair of 1KW monoblocks and every peak in the music was reproduced without a hint of strain even at concert levels.

I will say that there was a lot of treble. Stereophile's measurements (which I did not see until after the demo, so please don't think they colored my impressions!) show some big 5dB humps in the upper treble which I would say correlates to what I was hearing. https://www.stereophile.com/content/bampw-800-diamond-loudsp...

I think this boosted treble is generally a part of B&W's secret sauce across their product range. I really believe their speakers are tailored for middle-aged and elderly guys with some degree of high frequency hearing loss. Makes sense; those are the guys with enough cash to blow on speakers like these.

I am one of those guys (well, the hearing part... not the cash part) but I prefer maybe 2-3dB of boosted treble and not a full-on tweeter assault. =)

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#24

Post by bayindirh » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 8:26 AM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #22

bayindirh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an audiophile (without the madness), I can understand you. On the other hand, with a pair of good speakers and a nice amplifier with bass, mid & treble knobs, you can almost dial the tone which's best for a genre. A 2x10 band eq is better, but I prefer to listen pure-flat instead. In my setup, only vinyl needs loudness + tone circuits, the rest is happy with pure flat. Of course music and sound is a subjective tas…

but 90% of the road can be traveled with just basic, but good components IMHO. Amen. No expert here but I've been in the hobby for a while and have demo'd some high end stuff at audio shows. I strongly believe a really good "90% of the way there" system can be put together for well under $500 retail, or even less if going DIY or used.

High end stuff has no limits, there's always a better system in some feature/property. Also, when you start to upgrade something, there's chance of endless loops (these speakers needs better amps, which shows some defects of my DAC, etc.)

So setting a limit, reaching it and leaving it there is good IMHO.

I run an entry level HiFi CD player with iPod interface through a vintage amplifier to a pair of bookshelf style speakers (which are pretty big for their class though).

If my friend is confusing whether his phone is ringing because a similar sound is present in the playing track, then it's good enough. Similarly, if you're enjoying the sound you're getting from your system, you've accomplished your goal IMHO.

I'm neither looking for loudness, nor for that ethereal sound. If I can hear everything in relatively clear manner, and I'm enjoying it, that's it. I'd rather enjoy it instead of sweating over smallest details.

For context: I used to play in orchestras.

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#25

Post by JohnBooty » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 8:28 AM UTC

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #19

te_chris wrote: post #10

I haven't listened to the Nautilus but I have listened to the B&W 800 (RRP £23500) speakers and they really have to be experienced to be belived. I was listening in a studio environment that had just installed them, as an upgrade from the already very nice Quested setup they had. When we switched to the 800's the effect was profound. The speakers just disappeared leaving this seamless soundstage where noises just hap…

You can DIY high-end speakers, saving thousands. Sounds weird, but its true. Here is one example that is popular, there are others: http://www.donhighend.de/?page_id=3212

This is true.

I'm going to make a vast oversimplification here, but a rule of thumb is that a lot of the well-regarded DIY kits on the market compare well with retail speakers that cost 2-3X as much. Some examples:

https://www.parts-express.com/speaker-components/speaker-sub...

https://www.diysoundgroup.com/home-audio-speaker-kits/home-a...

https://meniscusaudio.com/product-category/speaker-kits/

etc.

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#26

Post by e17 » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 8:34 AM UTC

I once got to listen to a pair of these at Abbey Road studio in London as a teenager. They blew me away. I was already a burgeoning audiophile (working in a branch of Sevenoaks Sound & Vision if anyone knows) but these speakers really started a love affair with audio.

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#27

Post by JohnBooty » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 8:40 AM UTC

On one hand I like spare-no-expense halo products like this. They are fascinating, at least visually.

On the other hand this is why the hi-fi hobby is dying.

With products like this, we promote the idea that high fidelity audio requires all sorts of exotic equipment that few can afford.

The happy reality is that excellent audio reproduction can be achieved without spending much money; certainly less than a modern game console.

One example would be JBL's excellent entry level studio monitors. While they don't play super loud, they measure nearly impeccably and sometimes go on sale for as little as $200/pair. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/j...

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#28

Post by Philip-J-Fry » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 8:52 AM UTC

ninjaoxygen wrote: post #8

bwang29 wrote: post #4

I used to work in boutique audio retail. One of the big challenges of the business is how big and heavy good speakers are. In the old days we would need to crate the speaker to customers’ house for audition as every room has a different acoustic, and try a few different speakers with more crates with a upfront fee/credit to purchase, but it doesn’t happen nearly as often anymore. Showrooms nowadays also mostly do not…

I work in high-end AV. Perceptually, in a good space, those fantastic speakers often do not make the sound people associate with "loud", no distortion, no top end becoming hissy, just the concert-level bass to clue you in to how loud it is. People who have paid a lot for their system want that "wow" factor that immediately makes anyone think it's loud. The other issue is that different listening material definitely n…

On the topic of speakers here, does anyone here feel like the Cinema does not offer the audio experience advertised? I've been to old cinemas and brand new cinemas with Dolby Atmos yet in each of them the audio is just absolute ass. Is this just my local cinemas or is this a common experience?

You'd think that a cinema would know how to tune their speaker set up correctly. Yet even at a brand new cinema the audio is just blown out in loud scenes. Like they've got the speakers turned up too high.

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#29

Post by te_chris » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 9:02 AM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #23

te_chris wrote: post #10

I haven't listened to the Nautilus but I have listened to the B&W 800 (RRP £23500) speakers and they really have to be experienced to be belived. I was listening in a studio environment that had just installed them, as an upgrade from the already very nice Quested setup they had. When we switched to the 800's the effect was profound. The speakers just disappeared leaving this seamless soundstage where noises just hap…

I demo'd the 800 D3 at a hifi shop and was very impressed. What impressed me most was that it sounded utterly effortless like they were utterly effortless. They were powered by a pair of 1KW monoblocks and every peak in the music was reproduced without a hint of strain even at concert levels. I will say that there was a lot of treble. Stereophile's measurements (which I did not see until after the demo, so please don…

Could've also been that they were new. I've got B&W 606's and at first I really didn't like the treble, but they mellowed nicely.

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#30

Post by stinos » Wed, Jun 02, 2021, 9:34 AM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #17

em500 wrote: post #16

Never heard these myself, but I remember that Nautilus speakers were used in an MP3 listening test by the German c't magazine in 2000[1]. Conclusion: > In plain language, this means that our musically trained test listeners could reliably distinguish the poorer quality MP3s at 128kbps quite accurately from either of the other higher-quality samples. But when deciding between 256 kbps encoded MP3s and the original CD,…

After a certain point, lossy compression doesn't create any perceptible loss in audio quality as long as the rip is done well (with a good encoder, etc.), and you don't know every part of the piece in question. e.g. in classical music, you can tell subtle differences if you've listened the piece live or performed it inside an orchestra. However, that's a pretty edge case. There are always differences if you know wher…

e.g. in classical music, you can tell subtle differences if you've listened the piece live or performed it inside an orchestra

Can you explain this a bit more? How is having heard a piece live, which by definition means a unique performance, going to affect whether or not you can pick out whether the recording of (likely) a different performance has been put through lossy compression? Or do you mean a recording of that same live performance?

I mean I'm used to subtle differences coming and going depending on room/speakers/crappy compression, but only because I use the same source as reference (say, the same CD). Using a live performance as reference sounds strange, because there I would be able to here one of the musicians doing something different, but difference isn't there on another recording so not usable as cue for hearing differences in sound reproduction.