FIRST LISTEN B&W 700 SERIES
Following a launch event for dealers held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Sydney, journalists were invited the following morning to see and briefly listen to the company’s new 700 Series loudspeakers, which are pitched to replace the successful CM series which has now run for more than a decade. The new 700 Series all carry an ‘S2’ appendix to their model numbers, to distinguish them from an original 700 Series which was discontinued in 2008.
These are interesting times for Bowers & Wilkins, bought 18 months ago by Silicon Valley company EVA Automation, which now has under development a ‘B&W Lab’ in Redwood City, California; under the Jobs section of EVA’s website it is currently advertising for key positions from senior hardware and software engineers to web developers and, perhaps interestingly, a video QA engineer. EVA Automation is said to have some killer technology up its Silicon sleeve with which it will be equipping B&W for a new era; speculation is strong around Wi-Fi and multiroom abilities, but for a true killer application we’d forecast something above and beyond. Consumer multiroom with video might just fit the bill (Blackfire RED is the only platform so far we’ve seen promising consumer-level video multiroom), but then again, would video multiroom have made B&W an obvious fit for EVA Automation when it went partner-seeking?
We must, for now, wait and see, as there’s no word yet on this upcoming revolution, while the 700 Series is comfortably in the UK Bowers & Wilkins tradition, bringing technologies trickling down from the company’s top-level 800 Series Diamond to these new models, which include three floorstanders, three stand mounts (with dedicated stands available), two centre-channel models and one subwoofer intended specifically for the 700 Series, though the trio of other DB Series subwoofers recently announced could equally be paired with 700 Series models as well as with the higher-level 800 D3 Series and the recently announced Diamond Cinema custom installation designs.
These latest B&W subwoofers are interesting in eschewing the usual crossover and phase controls, instead doing all that in their digital preamplifier, accompanied by an app for automatic calibration and equalisation (though we doubt it yet moves the subwoofer physically into the optimum position, so for that you might still take Australian Hi-Fi’s advice at avhubcom.au/subplacement).
The main three DB Series subs all use twin bass cones arranged in an opposed, balanced configuration, while the DB4S intended for the 700 Series uses a single 250mm (10-inch) Aerofoil cone bass, while sharing the other subs’ Hypex amplification module (most likely UcD rather than Ncore), in this case 1000W in a closed box. RRP for the DB4S is A$2599.
The subwoofer shares the three available finishes for the 700 Series, which are gloss black, satin white, and a lovely rosenut which is unvarnished, maintaining the feel of the grain, as on the 800 Series rosenut finish.
Material secrets
All models in the new 700 series use the Aerofoil-profile composite-sandwich construction bass driver that was first developed for the 800 Series Diamond, but in a new version using paper rather than carbon fibre for the outer skin, and possibly a variation on the foam-like base material which on the 800 Series is formed around tiny beads. The Aerofoil name refers to the driver’s cross-sectional shape, developed using computer modelling to improve stiffness and rigidity. But it is hard to be certain of anything much in material terms since B&W has been keeping details of its latest proprietary cone materials firmly under wraps ever since they first appeared in the 800 Series Diamond D3, partly as we’re told they’re still patent-pend-
ing, but surely partly because their previous ‘trademark’ yellow Kevlar cones were copied by competitors keen to ride the company’s quality coat-tails. So that the new midrange drivers are referred to simply as “Continuum”, which sounds more like a reference to another computer-generated profile than to the woven silver strands that form their outer coating. “Beyond Kevlar” is the most we can get out of the local team on the subject, though they are quick to assure us it is “the cleanest and most transparent midrange cone material Bowers & Wilkins has ever used’. It features on every floorstanding model in the new 700 Series, but using a new aluminium chassis that is stiffer than the zinc chassis used in the outgoing CM Series, plus a tuned mass damper to dampen any remaining resonances in the structure. We can certainly expect the silver midrange cone to become ‘the new yellow’ as an identifier for Bowers & Wilkins speakers henceforth.
Which carbon?
The two flagship models in the 700 Series use B&W’s ‘tweeter-on-top’ housings that are now crafted from solid billets of aluminium, another technology trickled down from the 800 Series. Throughout the range the tweeter itself is not ‘diamond’ but stiffens a 30-micron-thick aluminium dome with a layer of vapour-deposited carbon. Again specifics were wanting — vapour deposition of simple disassociated carbon atoms seems unlikely, while we’d guess if they were forming nanotubes they wouldn’t be able to resist using the nano word in their marketing. We know it ain’t diamond, so perhaps graphene would fit the bill; graphene deposition is apparently a laborious and difficult process, but no more so than for diamond. Canadian McGill Universty start-up ORA last year announced it could deliver dome diaphragms using a composite of 95% graphene flakes bonded with oxygen and other proprietary additives to form a laminate material with a Young’s stiffness modulus of 130GPa, compared with B&W’s diamond-deposited domes at 1000GPa. The graphene figure seems in the right ballpark for the 700 Series.
Whatever form its carbon takes, “the new carbon dome tweeter is the best-performing non-diamond tweeter that Bowers & Wilkins has ever produced,” John Martin told
Australian Hi-Fi recently. “It delivers sweeter, cleaner high-frequency performance even further up the audible bandwidth than the aluminium double-dome tweeter previously used in both the CM Series and the 600 Series.”
Its break-up mode is higher as well, raised to 47kHz by the combination of the new coating and a new 300-micron carbon ring profiled to match the dome and then bonded between its inner face and the voice coil. “The result is exceptional stiffness and resistance to distortion”, says Martin. The HF response across the 700 Series is listed as -6dB at 33kHz.
We were able to listen first to the rangetopping 702 S2 (above), with RRP at $6500, sporting three 165mm Aerofoil bass drivers, a single silver 150mm Continuum FST midrange (so effectively decoupled that given a shove it will move within the cabinet), and that 25mm carbon-dome tweeter in its ‘Solid Body’ top capsule. The midrange and tweeter combination showed their strengths in both tone and sound staging, a scintillating splash cymbal shining through at one point far out to the left of the physical speakers, while vocals emerged with the legendary B&W smoothness yet clarity. Piano sounded suitably percussive, balanced and stable.
B&W Australia’s General Manager Angus Fischer was most keen also to bring out the little B&W 707 S2 ($1,499 per pair) on their optional but recommended stands, as he intimated we might be surprised by the bass output available from speakers so compact. He wasn’t wrong — these two-way standmounters (right) rolled out high level and yet high quality low frequencies from their single 130mm Continuum cone, yet when the program material was returned to more vocal and guitar audition fare, it was clear they were more than capable of delivering traditional strengths of tone and imaging as well. Their hi-fi performance was perhaps assisted by the significant Classe power behind them, though Mr Fischer told us they’d been running from perhaps a more likely partner in a NAD C 388 amplifier the night before, fed by Bluesound streaming, and had similarly impressed dealers then.
Nice price
The full range of 700 Series speakers is now beginning to roll out across B&W dealers nationally, and we were pleased to note that while some markets have seen significant upward shifts in pricing from the discontinuing CM range to the new 700 equivalents, Australia is benefiting from the new structure for B&W here since B&W decided to have a direct sales and marketing office here instead of the longterm relationship with Convoy International (though Convoy remains involved with logistics and support). Prices are thus broadly comparable with US and UK pricing, a fair achievement given the smaller market size here. More info and specifications on the whole range at: www.bowerswilkins.net