B&W Nautilus 4 Way Active Speaker

It’s obvious that Nautilus is no ordinary loudspeaker, even before you listen to it. That’s because it’s the product of no ordinary speaker manufacturer. The Nautilus is the end result of the most ambitious research and development project Bowers & Wilkins has ever undertaken – to create, as near as possible, the perfect loudspeaker. When Bowers & Wilkins set out to create the world’s best loudspeaker, we asked ourselves some fundamental questions. Is it possible to create a theoretically perfect speaker – one that produces next to no distortion? Does a speaker have to be a box? If you remove the box, what would a speaker look like? More importantly, what would it sound like? The result was Nautilus. Nautilus demands craftsmanship from skilled people. For instance, the Nautilus shell's pearlescent finish comes from 12 carefully applied lacquer coats containing aluminium and mica particles, and a unique baking and curing system. Nautilus is an icon of speaker design. Form followed function in a quest for audio perfection; design awards followed. Nautilus was accorded a Millennium Award and has been seen at the Design Council and the Design Museum London. Crucial drive unit components are made using a mix of hand-assembly techniques and semi-automatic production. For example, voice coils are wet-wound with high-temperature resin, then baked in a special oven to ensure enhanced performance and durability. This perfectionism makes for a slow production process, but ensures we consistently reach world-class levels of quality. Nautilus's beautifully curved, seamless exterior is moulded from 10mm-thick, glass-reinforced ABS, like a Formula One racing car. Stiff, solid and durable, with no sharp edges to diffract sound, it’s ideal for a speaker enclosure. Nautilus comes in three standard colours: silver, black and midnight blue. But, as befits such a unique speaker, we also offer a special service that can match any colour you specify from a sample or colour reference. Our founder, John Bowers, always dreamed of building the perfect speaker – one that brings sounds to the listener exactly as they were recorded. His dream inspires all Bowers & Wilkins designs. And it's why we set out on the groundbreaking, five year research and development programme that resulted in Nautilus. The result is the dream of a visionary audio engineer made into reality.