One of the most iconic shapes in our industry is the Nautilus loudspeaker by Bower and Wilkins. This is an ultra-high-end loudspeaker that has been hand built to order in B&W’s Worthing factory for the last 30 years.
To celebrate this milestone B&W have announced an anniversary version of the Nautilus finished in Abalone Pearl paint. This is an appropriate choice with pearl being the traditional gift for 30th anniversaries, and it is also the internal color of the marine mollusc that initially inspired the name Nautilus.
The Nautilus was a bold and groundbreaking design in its day. The brief from B&W founder John Bowers was to ‘Make a loudspeaker that doesn’t sound like a loudspeaker’ commencing a five year project with no time and few financial restraints. The end result was radical even by todays standards, but the lessons learned during this time are still integrated into today’s designs, the most notable being the exponentially tapered tube used today in many of the B&W designs (and in one shape of another many of their competitors).
We don’t have pricing on the anniversary finish, although the traditional Blue, Black and Silver finishes sell for $115,000 the pair.
The good news is that you will have plenty of time to gather the necessary finances – despite being 30 years in production the waiting list for a pair of B&W Nautilus speakers is still two years.
