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History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

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Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#31

Post by growt »

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.

Can you give an example of such a <$500 system? I'm genuinely curious.

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#32

Post by robin_reala »

e17 wrote: post #26

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.

Ah, Sevenoaks. I got a very good set of separates from them in ’98 (Arcam, Myryad, and B&W speakers), but I did spend a lot more money than I’d originally planned as I was young and rather susceptible to hard-sell techniques. Ended up buying everything else from Richer, who were dramatically better in that regard.

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#33

Post by stef25 »

mixedbit wrote: post #14

Perhaps the primary goal of Nautilus as a product is to sell other B&W speakers. It is so extraordinary and easy to remember that it can be the reason for people to choose a pair of normal looking and affordable speakers from B&W. Nautilus was for sure how I have first encountered B&W.

A bit like the Bugatti Veyron. When it first came out it was explained that several companies had been trying to build this mythical car (1000HP, 400Km/h, trying to stick F1-like performance in an easy to drive "consumer" car) and all failed.

Then VW decided they'd buy the brand and do whatever it takes to make it work, result being that it's sold at a loss. Even at a million bucks. According to Wikipedia the production cost is 5 million and "Volkswagen designed the car merely as a technical exercise"

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#34

Post by ants_a »

bayindirh wrote: post #15
mixedbit wrote: post #14

Perhaps the primary goal of Nautilus as a product is to sell other B&W speakers. It is so extraordinary and easy to remember that it can be the reason for people to choose a pair of normal looking and affordable speakers from B&W. Nautilus was for sure how I have first encountered B&W.

It's a show of engineering prowess. It's like Nikon's f0.95/50mm lens. Almost perfect, but impractical for most. Moreover, these kind of show pieces allow technology creep to lower levels, allowing the know-how to practically improve other products down the road. I think it's necessary to have products like these.

A similar product could be produced reasonably cost effectively with injection molded plastics and doing the unit adapted crossover in digital domain. I think it has not been done because the story of it being painstakingly manually crafter, the tower of monoblock amplifiers needed and even the high price itself are the allure of this kind of product. Just like the selling point of a high end wristwatch is not about its capability to accurately tell time.

Another important part is that the speaker itself is only a part of the overall acoustic system, the room that it is placed within forming the other part, equally capable of changing the sound. Very few people have the luxury of designing the listening room with as much consideration for acoustic performance as the speakers have.

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#35

Post by vatican_banker »

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,…

My honest and unscientific opinion is that the difference _is_ discernible but the listener needs to know what to hear for. Also, the reproduction quality is impacted by several factors like room, equipment, and recording quality (not just speaker quality).

[Anecdotal] One example of the difference between MP3 and lossless: the "image" [1] on 256kbps MP3s is worse compared to the the original uncompressed, lossless, versions (but the listening room must be appropriately prepared to reproduce a good image).

This is a highly subjective topic. IMO we'll never reach full agreement. Personally, I listen MP3 while on-the-go and lossless music at home.

Important to keep in mind the "size" of the experiment. Two interesting quotes from the article in c't magazine:

> twelve participants would be asked to come to Hanover.

> It's true that the data we collected does not support watertight conclusions, but they do provide interesting insights.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereo_imaging

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#36

Post by bob1029 »

JohnBooty wrote: post #27

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 gam…

You can get damn close to the performance of the halo products with stuff as humble as Polk Audio floorstanders and some Emotiva amps.

Any dumbass with a table saw, glue and a bunch of clamps can make speakers that rival the highest end for pennies on the dollar. There are lots of online resources for this sort of thing.

If you think this hobby is about the most precise listening experience (bit rates, conversion, etc), you would be wrong in my eyes. It's more about the presence/power you get from a system that can saturate a 20A circuit with transients. The effective dynamic range in a real world listening room. Having your walls rattle a bit when the depth charges explode is an experience. You don't get that with sound docks/bars, headphones, etc.

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#37

Post by stinos »

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…

The speakers just disappeared leaving this seamless soundstage where noises just happened within it, rather than relative to the L/R points of the spectrum like most speakers. It was incredible.

This make me curious about this whole situation: speaker change equals physical location change, would that have played a part in it? Because what you describe here is exactly what (at least for me) is the effect of proper speaker placement vs suboptimal placement. I.e. this 'you don't hear the speakers anymore, instead it sounds like you're sitting in the sound' effect. Which definitely isn't there if placement is off, no matter how good speakers are. Then again, I'm not really an audio engineer so maybe you're talking about a different level of soundstage..

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#39

Post by Gauge_Irrahphe »

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…

Bass distortion is the only big factor. Everybody knows it doesn't matter, but it's actually where distortion is the easiest to hear. Chinese manufacturers don't know, and do care, so even cheap USB speakers blow out of water the majority of even much more expensive products.

Re: History of the Nautilus loudspeaker

#40

Post by blipmusic »

john61 wrote: post #38

Best high-end audio for at home: https://www.boesendorfer.com/en/pianos/disklavier-edition If you do not have the time and talent to play it yourself, you can listen to Horowitz or others playing live in your home on a real piano.

:-)

Also see Glenn Gould's Goldberg variations:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/12/arts/music/12conn.html
    https://www.prosoundnetwork.com/archives/yamaha-disklavier-and-zenph-restore-goulds-1955-igoldberg-variations
    https://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-13701/
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