B&W 802 Nautilus speakers

I  let the store know what happen Saturday when I went to the owners home that the B&W speakers stop playing and would come back on again and stop again and so on. they said they would check  it out. I hope they do because they are still up for sale I see. . I hope somebody does not get took and buy them.

Pass

Pass.

The reason I called B&W on Friday was that I saw in the picture that the aluminum dome on speaker was pushed in and called The Hi-Fi dealer and owner of the speakers and they said it did not affect sound whatsoever but I knew this wasn’t true so to verify it I call B&W speaker company and they told me yes it would affect the sound and I would need to replace it as soon as possible if I bought the set of speakers to get full range in that speaker set.
 Saturday was when I   Went to audition the speakers and they would cut in and out with the music and come back on and then go back out .  Husband and his wife would say oh wow they're out again and then they would say hold on they are  back on  again .  I looked at the wires they looked fine so it must be something in the speakers. I noticed the guy really like To crank them very loud I just wonder if they've been abused.  It was so loud that the music sounded terrible and my ears hurt .  I play my gear just  loud  enough to have a nice sound stage three dimensional but not ear piercing .

I would not look to the speakers as the problem.  Make sure your wires have a solid connection with no strands of copper unconnected. Then I would be suspicious of the new amp. 

Unless the owner/store can isolate the issue and it is not the speakers, I would pass.

Dave

I think you should buy a new Monitor Audio on sale from Parts Connexion here on Audiogon instead. :)

Best,


E

The speakers I am talking about are up for sale for a owner that a Hi Fi store set up for a demo in the owners home using new gear because the guy sold all his gear. This was done to let people listen to the B&W Nautilus 802’s . The owner said , he had not played them in a long time since moving from Colorado and sold all his gear in Colorado but he kept the speakers . Now the Hifi store wants to sale him a wireless system and take the money that they make from the sale of the speakers to buy his new system with. The thing is I went to the owners home on Saturday to listen and one tweeter was push in and the speakers would play for about 5 to 10 minutes then cut out with no sound and it did this a few more times so the owner would turn up the volume up and it would be ok again. I do not want buy speakers that are go to cost me a lot to fix . I called B&W Friday and asked them if the push in tweeter would make a difference in sound and they said yes a lot of difference and I ask the cost to fix it about 500.00 to 600.00 dollars at least. What do you guys think am I getting in to can of worms with this pair of speakers ? Please help me. Thank you. Owner of the B&W said they were made back in 2002 or 2003 he said they are about 16 years old or so.

Also, if you have headphone option, try to replicate the issue thru headphones instead of with the speakers. Cheers,
Spencer

garryh16, I'm having great difficulty thinking there is a problem with the speaker in the scenario you describe. Can you verify the sound cuts out at low volume and not high volume? Also, would you mind listing the other components, amp, preamp, source?

All good advice above.  Assuming ampler is not the problem its probably a blown driver.   Check each driver with an Ohm meter and see if you have any out of spec.   

Whenever you change things and problems appear, best to first suspect that whatever you changed is the issue. If your speakers were working fine with your old amp and wires, look there, new or not. Process of elimination - try your old amp, then your old wires with your old amp, etc. Also, recheck all connections.

Dave

The amps are new and wires the amps are new an the wires so you think it could be some type of short in the speakers?

Assuming you have eliminated the amplifier and source, the most likely reason the speakers cut out is that the midrange and/or tweeter are blown. In this case the voice coil may be rubbing against the housing and they only get over the resistance or friction at higher volumes.