Bowers & Wilkins 702 S2

HIGHLY COMMENDED:

What we liked best about the $6500 B&W 702 S2 loudspeakers was that everything we played through them sounded great. Rather than aiming for studio monitor-like accuracy, B&W instead seems to have engineered this design to make whatever music you play through them sound richer, more musical and more exciting… in a way almost larger-than-life, yet at the same time not. The result is that the B&W 702 S2 speakers will be able to fill even the largest room with great sound at high volume levels.

The cabinet of the 702 S2 is cornered rather than curved like the company’s higher models, and that seems to have left funds for a goodly dose of ‘high-tech’ driver technology, including the classic ‘tweeter on top’ in its jet-engine-like aluminium housing, the 25mm ‘carbon’ dome diaphragm on the front a brandnew design for B&W. The ‘Continuum’ midrange weave has trickled down in an amended form from the flagship 800 Series D3, as has the triple-layer ‘sandwich’ of the three 165mm-diameter bass drivers, and though here the sandwich is of paper with inner layers of expanded polystyrene, the combination delivers a rich bottom-end that works wonderfully well across genres in this friendly and successful design. More info: www.bowers-wilkins.net