B&W: THE FACTS
BOWERS FROM BLETCHLEY: During World War II John Bowers was based at the world-famous Bletchley Park where he helped the Allied war effort by intercepting radio signals. He also spent time behind enemy lines, and upon returning to England in 1946 he set up an electrical shop called Bowers & Wilkins with his army buddy Roy Wilkins.
MISS KNIGHT’S LEGACY: The company was helped on its way by a generous donation of £10,000 (worth over £130,000 today) by a kind benefactor called Miss Knight. John Bowers had sold her a pair of the loudspeakers he was then making at the back of the shop, and she was so impressed she left him the money in her will with the express instructions that he should set up the loudspeaker manufacturing company that he had often talked about.
SIR KENNETH: In 1974, John Bowers brought on board one of the world’s leading industrial designers, Kenneth (now Sir Kenneth) Grange of the famous Pentagram design agency, responsible for the design of such icons as the Inter City 125 train, razors for Wilkinson Sword, and Kodak’s Instamatic camera. The first product Sir Kenneth worked on with John Bowers was the much-loved DM6, affectionately known as the ‘Pregnant Penguin’.
BULLET-PROOF SPEAKERS: The DM6 was the first Bowers & Wilkins speaker to feature Kevlar drive units, the same material used in bulletproof vests. John Bowers realised the material had the ideal
properties for good midrange sound, even though it took years of research to discover just why that was the case. Kevlar has been a feature in Bowers & Wilkins speakers for over 40 years and is still used today in the company’s CM Series and 600 Series.
AS USED IN ABBEY ROAD: 1979 saw the launch of the 801, a loudspeaker that quickly became the reference monitor for the world’s greatest recording studios, including Abbey Road, Decca and Deutsche Grammophon. Its success enabled a seismic shift in Bowers & Wilkins; the company was only just entering its second decade but it willingly took on the mantle of the manufacturer of the reference loudspeaker for a major proportion of the recording industry.
UNIVERSITY OF SOUND: In 1981, John Bowers realised his dream of freeing R&D from the demands of manufacturing and sales by moving the research department to the small village of Steyning in the South Downs. Removing these constraints quickly fostered a sense of freedom at the ‘University of Sound’ that allowed for pioneering research which not only developed technologies that changed Bowers & Wilkins loudspeakers, but changed the way the entire industry made loudspeakers.
NAUTILUS RISING: Before John Bowers died, he gave his engineers the brief to create the world’s best loudspeaker, with cost not being a consideration. The result of this five-year project was Nautilus, a speaker that is still in production over 20 years after its inception. Nautilus sound is like no other speaker you would have heard, and the speakers can be ordered in any colour you desire.
DIAMOND DOMES: Bowers & Wilkins was the first loudspeaker manufacturer to use diamond as a tweeter material. Manufactured by Element 6, part of the De Beers Group, synthetic diamonds are ‘grown’ by a technique called Chemical Vapour Deposition using temperatures as hot as the surface of the sun. Diamond dome tweeters are used in the 800 Series Diamond and the audio system for the all-new BMW 7 Series.