The engineers at England’s famed Bowers & Wilkins have
been at it for a long time. 1966 to be exact. The company’s SRE (Steyning Research
Establishment) is where much of the audio magic happens. In the late 90s,
B&W introduced their now ubiquitous 800 Series of speakers, including several
floorstanders, a standmount, and a pair of home theater center channels.
Not ones to let technology pass them by, the engineering
team has released a comprehensive update of the entire 800 Series line. Everything
from cabinets, to crossovers, to speaker construction has been touched, with
spectacular results. Feel free to geek out on the official press release below.
Pricing ranges from $5,500 for the HTM82 D4 center channel up to $35,000/pr for the flagship
801 D4.
Cheers!
Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series Diamond. Excellence.
Evolved.
How do you improve on the world’s most successful and iconic
range of high-end loudspeakers? It’s a challenge that has occupied the past six
years for the finest minds at SRE, home of the world-renowned Bowers &
Wilkins engineering team. Their solution is to combine continuous improvement
of every component in each design with innovative and proprietary technology
that re-imagines the fundamental basics of a conventional loudspeaker drive
unit: the new, unique and revolutionary Biomimetic Suspension.
The new 800 Series Diamond range continues to feature seven
models, beginning with the two-way 805 D4 stand-mount speaker. That’s joined by
a series of three-way floorstanding models, including the 804 D4, 803 D4 and
802 D4. For the flagship model in the range, Bowers & Wilkins is pleased to
reintroduce an iconic name to its portfolio, with the launch of 801 D4 to
replace the existing 800 D3. For home theatre use, the HTM81 D4 and HTM82 D4
provide a pair of high-performance centre channel speakers to complete the
range.
Every new model in the range combines hundreds of detail
improvements plus several entirely new technologies to create the most
transparent, detailed and natural-sounding series of loudspeakers Bowers &
Wilkins has ever produced.
Refined Design
Refined, elegant cabinet proportions plus luxurious, premium
detailing combine to make this the most premium 800 Series Diamond range yet.
The first and most obvious change is the addition of a
fourth finish to the line-up. The new range now includes a Satin Walnut finish,
joining the established selection of Gloss Black, White and Satin Rosenut.
Every stereo model in the range also enjoys a significantly
upgraded cabinet design with an all-new rigid, cast aluminium top section –
replacing the previous wooden version – to offer even greater stiffness and
thus improve cabinet quietness still further. In a luxurious touch, the profile
of the new aluminium top is finished in ‘Leather by Connolly’ – in black for
dark cabinets (Black, Satin Rosenut) and light grey for lighter finishes
(White, Satin Walnut).
Every model in the range adopts a revised version of the
iconic Solid Body Tweeter-on-Top housing, with a new, elongated tube-loading
system to produce an even more open sound for high frequencies. This supremely
stiff enclosure deftly resists unwanted resonance and is an exceptional
acoustic form – especially when combined with a new two-point decoupling system
that isolates it from the rest of the loudspeaker
more effectively than ever. As before, the Solid Body
Tweeter is milled from a single solid block of aluminium and now, it uses an
anodised finish, either dark or light depending on the cabinet colour, to
celebrate that fact.
Finally, the range introduces three entirely new cabinet
forms. The 805 D4 and 804 D4 stereo models adopt the reverse-wrap cabinet
design first introduced in 2015 for the larger speakers in the series. This new
form reduces the profile of each cabinet’s front baffle while dramatically
increasing the overall rigidity of the complete system. It also allows
crossovers to now be mounted in dedicated spaces on the rear of each speaker,
housed behind the rigid aluminium spines.
The 804 D4 builds on the potential of its new configuration
by adding a downward-firing port with an integral aluminium plinth – again,
much like the form used by the larger floorstanding speakers in the range.
Alongside the 805 D4 and 804 D4, the all-new HTM82 D4 centre speaker adopts the
reverse-wrap cabinet form of its siblings, for superior acoustic and mechanical
performance.
New technologies
Continuum™ Cone, FST & Biomimetic Suspension
The result of an eight-year research programme, the
composite Continuum Cone – used for both midrange and mid/bass applications –
is already famed for its open, transparent, and neutral performance. When used
as a midrange drive unit in Bowers & Wilkins floorstanding speakers, it is
always combined with our Fixed Suspension Transducer (FST) midrange technology,
which carefully avoids the coloration that traditional cone surrounds can
introduce.
Now, Bowers & Wilkins has combined the twin benefits of
Continuum and FST with an all-new advance that transforms the other key element
of a drive unit’s normal operation: the fabric spider. Over decades of
continuous development to nearly all areas of speaker design, the fabric
spider, a key element in the suspension of every conventional loudspeaker drive
unit, has remained largely unchanged – until now.
The all-new composite Biomimetic Suspension replaces the
conventional fabric spider with a minimalist composite suspension system that
revolutionises midrange cone performance by greatly reducing unwanted air
pressure – aka sound – that a conventional fabric spider can generate, removing
its unpredictable, non-linear effects. The result is unprecedented midrange
transparency and realism.
Decoupled Midrange & Turbine™ Head
Bowers & Wilkins combines all the performance-enhancing
benefits of its Continuum Cone, FST midrange technology and Biomimetic
Suspension with careful isolation of the complete midrange assembly from the
rest of the surrounding cabinet. In all three-way models, midrange drive units
include a highly stiff all-aluminium chassis featuring Tuned Mass Dampers (TMD)
to quieten any resonance. These complete drive units and motor systems are then
isolated on sprung-mounted decoupling mounts, further restricting the flow of
vibration into the assembly.
Finally, 803 D4, 802 D4 and 801 D4 include the massively
stiff all-aluminium Turbine Head enclosure for their midrange drive units,
providing not only an outstanding acoustic form but also even better isolation
– since the head assembly is itself further decoupled from the bass enclosure
below.
The HTM81 D4 and HTM82 D4 introduce a new and similar
concept but inside their cabinets: each centre-channel model now features an
internal aluminium enclosure that provides a stiff, well-isolated housing for
the midrange drive unit and its decoupling mechanism.
Solid Body Tweeter
To minimise the unwanted transfer of resonance into each
model’s Diamond Dome tweeters, an exceptionally stiff enclosure is required.
The new 800 Series Diamond introduces a revised version of the iconic Solid
Body Tweeter housing; this continues to be machined from a solid piece of
aluminium, but now it features an elongated form (almost 30cm/12in long) with a
longer internal tube-loading system.
The new Solid Body Tweeter assembly is now decoupled from
the speaker body or Turbine Head (depending on model) in two locations rather
than one: this notably improves spaciousness and openness. At the same time,
the tweeter’s motor assembly has been re-engineered to allow the drive unit to
‘breathe’ more effectively with no loss of performance. The result is a notable
reduction in the resonant frequency behind the tweeter dome.
Reverse-Wrap Cabinet & Matrix™
Matrix has been a core Bowers & Wilkins technology for
more than 30 years and has also been continually developed throughout that
time. An internal structure of interlocking panels that brace the loudspeaker
internally in all directions, Matrix helps to make speaker cabinets rigid,
inert and quiet.
The 805 D4 and 804 D4 now feature the reverse wrap speaker
cabinet previously reserved for the larger floor-standing 800 Series Diamond
models. Each model now has a stiff aluminium plate on the inside face of its
cabinet, bracing its baffle against resonance. Inside, both models also feature
updates to their Matrix bracing, with thicker panels made from solid plywood
rather than the previous MDF, reinforced by aluminium bracing sections.
Every stereo model in the range also features the new cast
aluminium top replacing the previous wooden design, dramatically increasing the
rigidity of the speaker enclosure. As before, drive units are housed in stiff
aluminium pods mounted to the baffle of the speaker while crossover units are
fitted to equally stiff aluminium spines running up the rear of the cabinet.
Finally, 801D4 introduces a steel plate in its base section around the port –
again, all in the name of adding stiffness to the enclosure and further
quietening its operation.
Aluminium Plinth
The 804 D4 now joins the other floor-standing models in the
800 Series Diamond range by offering a downwards-firing Flowport bass port,
exiting on to a new, stiffer solid aluminium plinth complete with a constrained
layer steel damping sheet designed to offer a rock-solid foundation and to
control unwanted resonance. The 804 D4 also has greatly upgraded spikes and
feet, with huge M12 spikes that are both more stable and stiffer than the
outgoing M6 designs.
803 D4, 802 D4 and 801 D4 use the same arrangement of
downwards-firing Flowport, solid aluminium plinth and constrained layer steel
damping, but retain the wheel-plus-spike configuration introduced in 2015,
making each model far easier to manoeuvre to the perfect listening position
than any rival design.
Aerofoil™ Cone
The result of advance computer modelling, the Aerofoil Cone
is a composite bass cone with a varying thickness designed to offer maximum
stiffness where it is most needed while preserving a low mass – thanks to its
carbon-fibre skin and light syntactic foam core.
Alongside revised and optimised motor systems, each
floorstanding speaker in the 800 Series Diamond range now combines its Aerofoil
Cones with a new foam Anti-Resonance Plug, which gently braces the voice coil
and lowers distortion as the cone moves through its operating range, ensuring
even cleaner bass.
Together, all these advances deliver unprecedented
performance. Available globally from September 1st, the new 800 Series Diamond
is the finest range of loudspeakers Bowers & Wilkins has ever created.
