Bowers & Wilkins are marking the 30th anniversary of the most visually impressive loud speaker ever designed with a Abalone Pearl version.

Pearl is the 30th anniversary gem and, as the company notes, 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.

The idea behind the speaker was to 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,” the company explains.

The Nautilus tube would go on to win a Queen’s Award for Innovation and would subsequently influence all of the company’s future product design. Despite Bowers & Wilkins being known for its breakthrough in automated manufacturing of speakers, the Nautilus is still built the same way.

“Building a pair of Nautilus is a painstaking hand-built process,” the company explains.

“Simply building one speaker enclosure takes over a week – and that’s before any notions of sanding, painting or polishing each cabinet are involved.”

The waiting list for a new model currently stands at two years.

“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,” Dave Sheen, Brand President of Bowers & Wilkins said.

“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.”

Nautilus is available in three standard colours: Midnight Blue Metallic, Silver and Black, as well as a custom-finish service that will match the product’s colour to any reference the customer chooses.