I heard the Nautilus years ago at a S'phile show and thought it was sublime. Easily the best sound at that show, and for me, many shows since then. I'm not sure how it would stack up against the Giya, as I haven't heard each with the same system or room, plus I heard the Nautilus years ago. BUT, I didn't get the same favorable impression when I heard the Giya's.
Did you hear the Giya with tubes? I bet it would sound amazing with your CAT gear, which is how it was displayed at the Munich show.
Necro thread bump.
My local dealer had a demo of this yesterday so I attended. Being not as exposed to high end as most of the forum members, I thought this was a good chance to compare my setup with a top line speaker.
The demo ran from a MacBook playing iTunes via (looks like AQ USB cable) to the Classe CP-800. It is then connected via (what seemed like low end Transparent cables - they were beige not the black TechFlex ones) to the Nautilus active crossovers and split to 3 x Classe CA-D200 driving the tweet/mid-tweet/mid and a Classe CA-2300 driving the woofers. The Bowers and Wilkins Nautilus was painted grey (Grigio Granito) to commemorate B&W collaboration with Maserati and the event was to celebrate the speaker's 20th (or was it 30th) year since its inception.
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Ok...to be blunt, I was not impressed. It sounded like what one would consider hifi 10-15 years ago. Maybe because I'm a neophyte, maybe because these are very direction and my seating position was terrible, maybe because the new digital amps aren't very good, or maybe it's the ALAC rips on iTunes (or a combo of them). The aluminum tweeter was kinda bright and while a lot of the highs was very good defining clarity of instruments, there seem to be no weight in it. Like there is no mass nor volume to the instruments. He played a cello piece and it sounded like stings/fingerboard/neck and that's it...like no body on the cello. A piece I'm quite familiar with - Oscar Peterson's We Get Requests: Days of Wine and Roses - was played and the keys just did not sound acoustic. It's hard for me to describe but it seems like the string attack was a bit late then it gets too harsh then there seems like no natural decay.
Anyway, he cycled through a whole bunch of music and it was all over the place for me. Like I said, it sounds good but not impressive; especially for a CAD$70K speaker.
Afterwards, I went to the other rooms and the 802D Diamonds was playing connected to a Mac amp (can't recall which model) and it sounded way better. Fuller and better depth. Also chanced by their D'Agostino display (DCS Scarlatti and Totem Element) and it sounded smooth and full.
I hate events like these because I come out of them more confused and depressed (since my gear are of the same brands).
My two cents (USD$0.018).
Cheers,
-H
I am not surprised on your comments HedgeHog, usually demos are not the best place to build up solid conclusions on any piece of audio gear, added to the fact that expectation could be way up with such a high sales tag attached.
I have had Classe amps some years back and were "good sounding" equipment, nothing expectacular IMO (these were entry level amps so take my comment with a grain of salt).
My two pesos (USD$0.24)
I am not surprised on your comments HedgeHog, usually demos are not the best place to build up solid conclusions on any piece of audio gear, added to the fact that expectation could be way up with such a high sales tag attached.
I have had Classe amps some years back and were "good sounding" equipment, nothing expectacular IMO (these were entry level amps so take my comment with a grain of salt).
My two pesos (USD$0.24)
The diamond tweeter was a huge improvement to the B&W high-range speakers, and the lack if one would probably make the Nautilus a no-go for me because of the old tweeter.
Lee
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