Analog Gear News

Bowers & Wilkins has just served up eight new speakers that caught our immediate attention. To wit: The company’s new 700 series is offering three floorstanding models, three stand-mounts, and two center channels.

We’ve since learned these 700 series speakers, which took three years’ worth of development time, deploy much of the same technologies found in Bowers & Wilkins’ flagship 800 series Diamond speakers, many of which can be found in a number of the world’s top recording studios.

The eight models in the 700 series are as follows: the 702 S3 floorstanding speaker ($7,000/pr), 703 S3 floorstanding speaker ($6,000/pr), 704 S3 floorstanding speaker ($4,000/pr), 705 S3 stand-mount speaker ($3,400/pr), 706 S3 stand-mount speaker ($2,200/pr), 707 S3 bookshelf stand-mount speaker ($1,800/pr), HTM71 S3 center-channel speaker ($2,500/each), and HTM72 S3 center-channel speaker ($1,500/each).

The 700 series speakers offer slimmer cabinets with curved front baffles and drive units mounted in external pods that form a direct visual and technical link to the look and feel of 800 series Diamond offerings. This revised form is said to reduce the impact of the speaker baffle on SQ by minimizing the “cabinet diffraction effect.”

The new cabinet forms are offered in an all-new, highly grained Mocha wood finishes. Mocha joins the Gloss Black and Satin White finishes previously offered to form three options for most markets globally. (A fourth finish, Rosenut, will be offered exclusively in Asian and Pacific markets.)

Additionally, Bowers & Wilkins includes its notable solid-body Tweeter-on-Top technology in four of the eight models in the 700 series — namely, the 702 S3 and 703 S3 floorstanders *the 703 S3 array is shown directly above), the 705 S3 stand-mount, and the HTM71 S3 center channel. In effect, consumers have the option of building a complete 700 series system featuring Tweeter-on-Top all throughout.

The Tweeter-on-Top form in the 700 series is said to have been re-engineered and machined from a single, solid block of aluminum. The Tweeter-on-Top enclosure has also been lengthened to reduce distortion. This longer form is further enhanced by the introduction of improved, two-point decoupling to better isolate the assembly from the speaker cab.

Not only that, but the Tweeter-on-Top diaphragm retains the Bowers & Wilkins carbon-dome tweeter with its 47kHz first break-up performance, coupled to improved vented voice coils with new and upgraded magnets. The models featuring tweeters mounted in the baffle — i.e., the 707 S3, 706 S3, 704 S3, and HTM72 S3 (shown below) — incorporate all these changes, alongside an elongated tube-loading system that, as with the Tweeter-on-Top, works to reduce distortion.

In all three-way speakers in this new series, Bowers & Wilkins has included Biomimetic Suspension, which was first deployed last year in the 800 series Diamond range. Replacing the conventional fabric spider found in the suspension of many a speaker built over recent decades, Biomimetic Suspension is said to reduce unwanted noise from the output of the spider as the midrange cone operates. Used alongside all of Bowers & Wilkins’ other proprietary midrange cone technologies — including decoupling for the entire midrange assembly, an aluminum drive unit chassis featuring tuned mass dampers for reduced resonance, FST™ surround-less suspension, and Continuum™ cone material — the expected result is midrange transparency. Models with mid/bass drive units — i.e., the 707 S3, 706 S3, 705 S3, and HTM72 S3 — have been upgraded with new motor systems and an improved chassis.

Bass utilizes the latest-gen of Bowers & Wilkins Aerofoil™ Profile bass-cone technology, based around a composite sandwich of materials with a carefully formed variable profile aimed at delivering cleaner, lower-distortion bass.

The 700 series also introduces upgraded, 800 series Diamond-inspired speaker terminals that feature more substantial contact connections and are better laid out for use with spade-terminated speaker cable. The feed-upgraded crossovers use Mundorf capacitors, enhanced with multiple bypass capacitors and improved heatsinking. All models in the 700 series also feature updated, larger-diameter Flowports that are said to offer more substantial output. In the case of the 702 S3 floorstander, that approach is taken one stage further due to the re-orientation of a downward-firing port on its integrated plinth.

Finally, all floorstanding models in the 700 series feature upgraded spikes to anchor them to the floor. On the 704 S3 and 703 S3, stainless-steel M6 spikes are included with their integrated plinths, whereas heavy- duty M10 spikes are provided with the 702 S3. Meanwhile, the FS-700 S3 floor stand ($800/pr; in use in the 705 S3 shown above) has been visually upgraded to match the slimmer, curved profile of the new cabinet design while also offering acoustic improvements thanks to the introduction of the stiffer M6 spikes.

To learn even more about the Bowers & Wilkins 700 series of speakers, go here. (The 792 S3 is seen below in a full-on lifestyle setting.)

To find a Bowers & Wilkins dealer, go here.