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

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?

Is it reasonable to conclude that either these speakers are defective, or they just need gobs of power to produce descent bass?

Well, you're feeding them with 300W capability per channel, so normally that shouldn't be a problem (unless the impedance below 80Hz or so is very high which is unlikely). UNLESS, indeed, the adcom has trouble driving those 10" woofs: i.e. the sound intensity of the top part of the spkr is much higher relative to the low part, which means that you can't "hear" the bass. A solution would be to borrow another two channel amp fm s/one and try it on the woofs. This is probably the problem.

You may, if you wish, play the spkrs connecting ONLY the woofs and listen to what's happening.

You may also be experiencing a null at some upper bass frequency due to yr room. For that, there's little to be done (other than room treatment), but experiment pulling the speakers ~1/3 into the room to gauge differences, if any. Also keep them far from each other & slowly move them closer until you hear the L&R low midrange sound coupling.
And good luck!

Tighten all the screws on your woofers. When I got my
Matrix 800's the screws were loose when I thightened them it helped very much.

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.

Judy is either deaf, an idiot or both to say that about B&W, unless she has some deep rooted personal issue with this line of speakers, if that is the case get happy pills and sit ona couch and talk it out lol