The Insane Looking Bowers and Wilkins Nautilus Speakers


Look at these wild looking speakers from Bowers and Wilkins. The Nautilus is a four way speaker optimized for soundstage type performance. And they look a bit like something the Maxell guy would have in his house. They have all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a high end speaker:

Mathematically precise, tapering wave-guiding tubes house each unit’s 1″ and 2″ tweeters and 4″ mid-range driver. Rear-traveling sound waves are channeled, absorbed, and dampened, resulting in pure sound coming from the front and none from the back-the pattern of vibration is verified to within 1/3000th of a millimeter using laser-doppler velocimetry. Each has a powerful 12″ bass driver housed in a curved, spiral-shaped tube that allows sound waves to travel its length without reflection. The speakers’ active crossover network frees each driver to operate purely in its own frequency band (unlike typical passive crossover designs) for sound that is crisper, clearer, and more vibrant.

Couldn’t have said it better myself (mostly because I have no idea what any of that means). You will need four separate amplifiers for each speaker to power them. The insane looking enclosures weigh almost 100 pounds each and are handmade of fiberglass reinforced ABS with high end automobile style lacquer on them. Your choice of blue, black, or silver. You might want to check your credit limit first because these speakers are available here from Hammacher for $60,000. Not a typo- that’s sixty thousand dollars.