[70sMac]

Originally Posted by Art Vandelay

As the 800 series progressed from pre-Nautilus to Nautilus, D, and Diamond, the 3-way crossover became increasingly simplified but employed higher quality components, peaking with the 800D2 model, which uses the expensive Mundorf SGO's throughout the mid & tweeter networks and individual circuit boards for the tweeter and FST mid components. Housing the crossover in the large aluminium plinth definitely had its advantages.

Pre-Nautilus, B&W used 4th order mid-tweeter, moving to 2nd / 3rd order with the 800 Nautilus and 2nd / 1st order since the original 800D series.

So where to with the 800D4? It's difficult to imagine how they can substantially progress the design, but I still expect evolution rather than a complete redesign of the 3.2 driver / 3x enclosure design philosophy that's characterized the 800 series from inception some 40 years ago.

Most of the (technical) criticism leveled at the 800 diamond series by armchair critics and self-proclaimed experts on social media has focused on the slightly uneven frequency response around the mid-tweeter crossover region, both on and off tweeter axis, so it's possible that B&W engineers will attempt to create a speaker that performs better from a measurements perspective. However, it's also true to say that the slightly laid back "B&W sound" relies on a slight off-axis power dip in the vocal presence region (1-3kHz), and what some people refer to as the "BBC dip" was found to produce the most natural playback of orchestral music, so there's no doubt that this aspect of measured performance has always been deliberate

I suppose we'll have to wait and see, but anticipation is already building as D4 day looms ever closer.

Thanks for adding your thoughts about the evolution of the Nautilus line to the thread. Having read everyone's input, I [at least] know now that the "Nautilus" part of the 800-series was dropped at a certain point. Here we were visiting B&W sound rooms asking questions about "those Nautilus D3s." Well, at least the kids auditioning the B&Ws didn't laugh right in our faces.

Oy, Art, are you an architect, by any chance, mate?