B&W Nautilus 800.....where's the bass?

Krellm7, thanks for the suggestion. They are all tight. I will be trying some different equipment this weekend. So far, I still do not have a clue.

I must say all of the negative comments on B&W had me thinking about replacing my speakers. I am happy to say it never was the speakers. It was everything else! My system is now Aesthetix Calypso, Musical Fidelity Tri Vista, and Classe mono's. I no longer use or need a sub. With tubes in the system, my speakers sound as good as the well regarded speakers I have auditioned and not bright at all. Listening to these speakers in a poor system is probably what leads to all of the B&W bashing.(just a guess) With the wrong front end they can sound pretty bad. To those who disagree, that's fine. I respect your opinion. No need to rehash. Can we just let this thread die? It is slightly embarassing that I started it by complaining about the only good piece of gear I owned at the time.

This is baffled....the Audiogoner formerly known as [email protected]. I started this thread eight months ago when I was just getting my feet wet in this hobby. I am happy to say that I found SOME of the bass when I replaced my Adcom amp with Classe. I found ALL of the 800's bass when I replaced my Denon 3910 with a Musical Fidelity Tri Vista tube CDP. All cables have also been replaced. I have an Aesthetix Calypso on the way. These speakers continue to amaze me as I upgrade my digital front end. No complaints....no worries......just good music.

Lawyerman......I am happy to say I paid less than 6000.00. Perfect condition. I like 'em even better now!

To answer a few questions....the back of the cabinet is three feet from the wall. One is near a corner and one is not. The room is 26 by 28 all closed. The 9's sounded fine like this, but I do realize position is proprietary to each speaker.
Judy, if I had to base my opinion of B&W on the 800's alone I would totally agree with you ( assuming mine are not defective). I also own the CDM 9 NT, CDM 7NT, and HTM1. These are fine sounding speakers at the price point. I have to admire that you put your opinion out there knowing you were going to get spanked! At the very least I would appreciate knowing what speakers you think I should audition in the used 6k to 8k range just in case these 800's go up on the block.

Avent91....I just purchased two Classe 700 WPC mono blocks. Hopefully this can rule out amplification as the potential problem. The amps will be here in about two weeks or so. I also have new cables and I/C on the way.I will post the results here. I am not familiar with your amps. How powerful are they?

Ok, I am already at 300 (questionable) WPC and it does not seem to be enough. I did move the speakers to 6 ft apart (from 10 ft) and that made a noticeable improvement. I am paying close attention to the advise from snickelfritz (something I never thought I would say out loud) and it makes sense. However, those floppy little woofers sound pretty good to me. If I could get the 800's to work half as hard as the 9's do it would be nirvana. Curious to see what the new amps and cables will do.
Nothing personal snickelfritz....it's the name, not the advise!

Programmergeek....yep, bi wired....no jumpers.

Just received my Classe 700 W mono block amps. Sincere thanks to those who suggested I lose the Adcom amp. You were all right on the money. These 800's have so much bass now I cannot believe an amp change could make such a difference. Mids and highs dramatically improved as well. As a new guy I just learned a valuable lesson about watts AND current. I even dragged out my 25 yr old Cerwin Vegas from the garage system and tried them on the new amps. Seemed like a harmless experiment at the time. Now I am shopping for a new amp for the garage! Thanks to all who responded.

Thank you for all of the responses. I should have been more clear....we are not talking a small difference in bass between the 800's and the 9's. The difference is at least 50 percent in the bass between the two in a two channel direct A/B comparison. The 9's have two 6.5" woofers, and the 800's have two 10". When you hit two 10" woofers with 300 watts, even if it is Adcom, something should happen! If the difference was more subtle, I would put more faith in the I/C, cables, amp,and positioning theories. If it is a defect,I also have a hard time believing that both speakers could have the same defect at the same time. The processor is new and I am still figuring out some of the features. I keep having this nagging feeling that a crossover is engaged, but that would not explain the difference in the two speakers when running in two channel side by side. I even tried switching sides. The results were exactly the same using the old Adcom processor. My guess is the 800's are putting out about 30 to 40 percent of the bass they should be capable of. It really is as if they are not getting the full signal. Is it reasonable to conclude that either these speakers are defective, or they just need gobs of power to produce descent bass?