(May 10, 2023) When it comes to memorable speaker designs, few are more iconic than Bowers & Wilkins' shell-inspired Nautilus. It's a speaker with a mesmerizing oceanic twist that gives the eye plenty to chew on. And, as it turns out, it's easy on the ears too.
Nautilus was born from a directive to design a loudspeaker that "doesn't sound like a loudspeaker." Without a firm timetable and few cost restraints, engineers spent the better part of five years exploring how the negative effects of traditional speaker cabinets could be eliminated through innovation. The result was a beautiful off-the-wall design that Bowers & Wilkins affectionately says "emerged almost as concept car made reality."
Costing roughly $70,000 a pair in modern dollars, Nautilus isn't a speaker that's mass-produced. Instead, it's built to order in three different stock colors (Midnight Blue Metallic, Silver, and Black), or any custom color, in the company's Worthington, England manufacturing facility. And if that doesn't add to the speaker's charm and mystique, perhaps a celebratory color will. To commemorate 30 years of existence, Bowers & Wilkins has produced a unique pair in a dramatic Abalone Pearl finish. While pearl might not approach green, the traditional color associated with a 30th Anniversary, it’s all the more appropriate since it’s the color of the internal shell of the marine mollusk that inspired the Nautilus name.
Nautilus is still built the same way it was 30 years ago, leaning heavily on the concept of the exponentially tapered tube to loudspeaker design. The Nautilus tube would go on to win a Queen’s Award for Innovation and was just one of many breakthroughs developed for the Nautilus project that would subsequently influence all of the company’s future product design. Ironically, building a pair of Nautilus is a painstaking hand-crafted process performed by a manufacturing facility known for automated precision. Building just one Nautilus speaker enclosure takes over a week – and that’s before it's sanded, painted, and polished. And yes, there's an order waiting list (currently standing at two years and counting).
“While Bowers & Wilkins is committed to advancing the future of high-performance audio across all of our product portfolios, Nautilus remains of the highest importance to all of us. It readily communicates everything that is exceptional about Bowers & Wilkins and our no-holds-barred approach to creating the world’s best-sounding, most beautifully designed audio products.”
The 30th Anniversary Pearl-finished loudspeaker will star in a new company film that explores the story behind the birth of Nautilus, the craft and passion that goes into making each pair, and the extraordinary impact of its design on the world of audio.
