Nautilus Loudspeakers

This year, the iconic flagship loudspeaker from Bowers & Wilkins will be 25 years old and yet it still provides the inspiration for every other Bowers & Wilkins design to date.

A labour of love driven by a passion for music, the Nautilus has been at the heart of the quest for perfect sound for 30 years at Bowers & Wilkins: an unprecedented five years of research, and an amazing 25 years of production… so far! Its core technologies can be found playing a major role in the performance of all their loudspeakers.

In a world where the latest gadget or technology is seemingly capable of replacing predecessors no matter how tenuous the ‘improvements’ on offer are, it’s reassuring that truly groundbreaking technology and breathtaking performance can still combine to achieve timeless appeal. The Nautilus loudspeaker offers just such a combination and, 25 years after it first became available, this iconic statement of technological excellence remains popular.

Many of the innovations discovered during the five years of development that went into Nautilus are now to be seen not just in all the brand’s loudspeakers, but in many other high-end speaker manufacturers’ products as well. John Bowers, the founder of Bowers & Wilkins, set the Nautilus project in motion as part of his desire to produce the perfect loudspeaker – even if it didn’t make lots of money or sell in vast numbers. His vision of taking loudspeaker technology to new heights put in place a legacy still very much in evidence today.

These technologies include the famous tube-loaded tweeter, which can even be found in an adapted form on Bowers & Wilkins’s latest 700 S2 speaker range, as well as their in-ceiling, in-wall and home theatre speakers. And the lessons learned regarding drive unit design have improved the performance of everything from the high-end 800 Series to the incredibly popular 600 Series.

Traditionally, the Nautilus comes in three colours: silver, black, and midnight blue. But Bowers & Wilkins now offers the Nautilus in any custom finish you like – the possibilities are truly endless.

The Nautilus is an active loudspeaker, not in the traditional sense - there are no amplifiers built in. But equally there is no crossover inside the Nautilus. Instead Nautilus are supplied with a pair of mono line level crossovers, individually matched to each loudspeaker. The output of your pre-amp is connected to the input of the crossover, which has 4 outputs, one for each drive unit in Nautilus. You therefore require 8 channels of amplification, traditionally in the form of 4 stereo power amplifiers or 8 monoblock amplifiers. The no compromise nature of Nautilus requires such an approach with the rest of your system. 

Please contact us to arrange a demonstrations and specifications.