Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus 30th Anniversary
BOWERS & WILKINS NAUTILUS 30TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATED WITH A PEARL
One of the world’s most iconic loudspeakers, the Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus celebrates its 30th Anniversary with a new Abalone Pearl finish.
Nautilus has been hand-made to order at the Bowers & Wilkins factory in Worthing, UK, for 30 years. To mark this milestone, Bowers & Wilkins has created a unique pair of Nautilus finished in an Abalone Pearl paint.
BOWERS & WILKINS NAUTILUS ABALONE PEARL
To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of this iconic loudspeaker, Bowers & Wilkins has produced a unique pair in a dramatic Abalone Pearl finish. Pearl is, of course, the perfect colour for a 30th Anniversary,and it’s all-the-more appropriate since it’s also the colour of the internal shell of the marine mollusc that inspired the Nautilus name.
JOHN BOWERS AND LAURENCE DICKIE
That Nautilus is testimony to vision of both company founder John Bowers, who initiated the Nautilus project shortly before he passed away, and the lead engineer who would eventually deliver on that legacy, Laurence Dickie.
The idea behind Nautilus was simple, but immensely challenging: ‘make a loudspeaker that doesn’t sound like a loudspeaker’. Armed with an exceptionally wide brief, no time constraints and few limitations related to practicality or cost, the Nautilus emerged almost as a concept car made reality, a radical five-year project to explore how many of the negative effects of the loudspeaker enclosure could be eliminated by innovative design.
QUEEN’S AWARD FOR INNOVATION
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.
30 years later, Nautilus is still built the same way. Simply building one speaker enclosure takes over a week and that’s before any notions of sanding, painting or polishing each cabinet are involved.
BOWERS & WILKINS NAUTILUS 30TH ANNIVERSARY
Commenting on the 30th Anniversary, Dave Sheen, Brand President of Bowers & Wilkins said: “While Bowers & Wilkins is committed to advancing the future of high-performance audio across all of our product portfolio, 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.”
BOWERS & WILKINS NAUTILUS PRICE AND FINISHES
Standard (Black / Silver / Midnight Blue): £90,000 | $100,000 | €100,000
Abalone Pearl: £110,000 | $125,000 | €125,000
Bowers & Wilkins also offers a custom-finish service that will match the product’s colour to any reference the customer chooses at an extra cost.
HiFi PiG Says: A beautiful finish for one of the most distinctive loudspeakers ever created.
