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Polishing Up a Real Gem Bowers & Wilkins Introduces 4th Generation Diamond Series By Michael Heiss The design of the speaker cabinet serves as more than just an enclosure for the drivers. In many respects it is as key to acoustic performance as any other loudspeaker component. Throughout its history, B&W has paid extra attention to that aspect of the product, seeing it as both an industrial design/ appearance feature but also as an important element of determining the way it sounds.
Think about speakers whose industrial design and appearance are as iconic and recognizable as their sound and a few legendary products will immediately come to mind: the original Altec Lansing’s A7 “Voice of the Theater,” JBL’s L-100 with their orange, Quadrex foam grilles that were featured in the famous Memorex ad, the original Klipschorn, Bose 901, and Martin Logan electrostatic speakers with their tall, metal grilles. Since 1979 one other member of that exclusive group has been the Bowers & Wilkins 800-Series Diamond models. The unique “Tweeter-on-Top,” combined in some models with the equally distinctive Turbine Head mid-range enclosure are melded into a sleek form that has made them instantly identifiable. Oh, and there is a beast inside the beauty as they are also world renowned for their sonic performance.
The cabinet top plates are now made from an all-new, rigid, cast aluminum plate, rather than wood. For an even more luxurious appearance, the top plate is covered in Leather by Connolly in either black or light gray, depending on the cabinet finish. That is the same leather found today in Ferrari and Aston Martin luxury cars as well as previously becoming famous for use in many classic Rolls Royce, Bentley, Jaguar, and Maserati models.
Icons tend to change very little over time, so when one does, then it is big news. That is even more difficult in B&W’s case as their products already have a reputation of being among the “best of the best.” Although the company started life with the goal of making only home loudspeakers, their products also have been widely adopted as monitors in recording studios across the globe. Thus, the formal unveiling of new top-range speakers in B&W’s Diamond line at CEDIA Expo 2021 will generate a great deal of noise (pun intended). As the “D4” model line designation tells, this is the fourth generation of “D-Series 800” models, and the new range updates some of the brand’s distinctive appearance features. Most obvious, the new 805 and 804 models’ cabinets adopt the front “reverse warp” baffle cabinet look formerly reserved for the larger floorstanding models. All cabinets will now be available in Satin Walnut finish, joining the current Gloss Black, White, and Satin Rosewood options.
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Residential Tech Today | Sept/Oct 2021
Another aluminum plate runs vertically inside the front of the cabinet. The stiffness of these components will significantly reduce cabinet resonance to let the listener hear the true sound of the driver array, not unwanted noise from the speaker’s structure. Solid plywood also replaces MDF for the internal bracing, even further increasing cabinet stiffness. The marriage of industrial design and sonic precision extends to the trademark Solid Body Tweeter enclosure atop each of the new models. Still manufactured from a solid piece of aluminum, its length has been extended. A similar tweeter enclosure inside the cabinet is now used for the two horizontal center channel models. Finally, the tweeter driver design has also undergone design updates and improvements. The formal unveiling of new top-range speakers in Bowers & Wilkins’ Diamond line should generate a great deal of noise.
Of course, no matter how innovative the cabinet design might be, the heart of a speaker is its drivers. While the basics of driver design
