Nautilus 801 bass/room size amplifiers

my 801's are placed almost exactly as rives simulator shows(around 5 feet from the front of the speaker) except I went for further apart(around 7.5 feet apart inside to inside). My room is 17 by 20 not 19 by 20. I measured wrong initialy. My seat is about 2.5 to 3 feet from the back wall. When I look at this it seems close to the wall to me and I picture a major reflection, which there is when the volume is turned up. I'm expanding my room to 27 feet.

Asin I'd like to know how you feel about the bass accuracy from 801. Check out thread: nautilus 801 bass accuracy... Thank's

I too have the N801's but in an L shaped room. They have given me real difficulties in the bass and I have been through Tact 2.0, Tact 2.2X, Rives and currently some Rane eq's believe it or not. I have also tried elevating them 6" or so (pointed down slightly - helped the bass but made a mess of the mids and was as dangerous as hell as we live in an earthquake prone area). The best I have achieved from them is by moving them further out from the wall on their standard castors - the fronts are currently about 6' from the rear wall. Other things that have helped have been eliminating the use of valve preamps - had two including a CAT - both added woolliness in the bass that the 801's make sound even worse. The various eqs all have their plus and minus points - I biamp so the Rane and Rives are able to be placed in the woofer path only. The Tact is a lot more complicated since it is a full range device and also has processing delays - no half measures there. Speaker cables also had effect - some added woolliness to the bass too. Right now I just use 3 paralleled cat 5 cables stripped and platted 3.0m long - works well - 1m didn't - no idea why not.

They really can be awesome speakers but they have to be driven with seriously good gear to get the best from them - otherwise they can sound pretty average or worse which I'm sure accounts for a lot of the negativity out there.

Good luck - any questions?

Murray

I had 801s for a while and was 'ok' with some room treatments. Then I replaced them with 800s and got a Accuphase DG-28 digital equalizer which did a lot for them to get rid of the Grand Canyons in the bass. Then I replaced those with Wilson Audio Maxx - and happily sold the equalizer, since it couldn't better the response of the Maxx....

There must be something to the large B&Ws that is not optimal....