Up to 84% in savings when you subscribe to The Absolute Sound
Logo Close Icon

Begin typing your search above and press return to search. Press Esc to cancel.

Bowers & Wilkins Caps Diamond Series 3 with New Flagship

Bowers & Wilkins Caps Diamond Series 3 with New Flagship

Last September, with suitable fanfare, Bowers & Wilkins launched the long-anticipated update to its inordinately successful Diamond Series 2 speakers. The Diamond Series 3 was not simply an evolution of the D2 lineup; it was a re-examination of every single part and principle that had comprised those venerable speakers. The result, as I reported from the D3 introduction event—and as has been reiterated in these pages—is a world-class speaker line.

Conspicuously absent at that launch, though, was a new flagship. At the time, B&W released the 802 D3 down through the 805 D3, each a replacement for its respective D2 counterpart. Missing was the successor to the top dog 800 D2. (The company doesn’t make a Diamond Series 801.) The reason, it turns out, is that even before the official launch of the D3’s, B&W received a wave of pre-orders for the new line’s lower models. The company knew it couldn’t produce a flagship until manufacturing had caught up with demand.

Bowers & Wilkins Caps Diamond Series 3 with New Flagship

Now, with a 155,000-square-foot factory that has been churning out speakers 24 hours a day, six days a week, that time has come. To launch the 800 D3 and, by the by, to celebrate its 50th anniversary, B&W recently invited a group of journalists to its U.S. headquarters just outside Boston. There I learned about—and heard—the new flagship, which will sell in the U.S. for $30,000 a pair.

From the top end through the midrange, the new 800 D3 is identical to the one-model-down 802 D3. The two speakers have in common a 1″ diamond tweeter fitted into a single-piece, solid-aluminum, maniacally heavy turbine body. Both also feature the firm’s 6″ Continuum FST midrange, with its woven composite cone that controls breakup modes far better than its Kevlar predecessor. The two new speakers look similar as well, sporting the now-familiar broad-shouldered woofer tower supporting the higher-frequency “head”. The 802 and 800 even have nearly identical height and weight—but not width. The flagship needed to be wider to accommodate the main feature distinguishing it from the 802: a pair of 10″ woofers substituting for the 802’s 8″ pair. Before you jump to the conclusion that the new 800 is simply an 802 with more bass, let me disabuse you of that notion. True, the 800’s greater woofer surface area allows it to play lower and louder—and those virtues aren’t to be minimized. But the real reason for—and benefit from—the new woofers has to do with distortion.


Bowers & Wilkins Caps Diamond Series 3 with New Flagship

At a fundamental level, and all other things being equal, larger woofers don’t have to work as hard as smaller versions to move the same amount of air. That means less and inherently more linear driver excursion. Yet larger drivers impose tradeoffs such as a loss of cone stiffness and greater inertia. These represent formidable technical challenges. To tackle them, the 800’s woofers aren’t simply bigger than those in the 802—they’re completely re-engineered.

 

Specifically, while carbon-fiber skins still form a sandwich around a foam core, the thickness of the cone is now variable. This technique confers additional stiffness without adding a lot of material costs. The use of pure aluminum for the plinth (the metal structure at the base of woofer) in place of the 802’s zinc-aluminum plinth results in a woofer that’s actually lighter than its smaller brother. Combined with an entirely new suspension, voice coil, dust cap, and cage, the new design achieves virtually perfect pistonic motion within its range, according to B&W.

The benefit can be seen in the 800’s strikingly lower distortion figures: 10db less second-order harmonic distortion, and a whopping 20db lower third-order harmonic distortion. It’s important to note that these reductions favorably impact not only bass but the midrange as well. That may seem counter-intuitive, but those second- and third-order artifacts appear smack dab in the midrange. B&W’s plan, then, was to reduce woofer distortion not only to benefit the low end, but to improve midrange purity as well.

Bowers & Wilkins Caps Diamond Series 3 with New Flagship

Because B&W had no 802’s on hand for our demos, I can’t tell you if the flagship has audibly—as opposed to measurably—lower distortion. However, I can attest that the 800 D3, as driven by Classé CA-600 monoblocks, is an effortlessly transparent speaker. Further, despite those larger woofs, the new speaker’s defining virtue may well be its impressively clean attacks, which are evident from top to bottom. Whether it was a kick-drum, Sonny Boy Williams snapping his fingers, or Dead Mouse’s synthesized dance foundation, the 800’s transient crackle was marvelous. I can also attest that the new flagships can play very, very loudly without even a modicum of strain.

In a separate room, B&W offered a five-channel surround configuration. Several of the home-theater writers present looked around and remarked disapprovingly on the absence of a subwoofer. Once the music began, though, it was obvious that none were needed. Indeed, I can’t imagine a sub adding anything to the bass horsepower of the 800’s, and no sub in my experience can match the 800’s stop/start prowess.

While the demos made it clear that the 800 D3’s can deliver plenty of bass punch, in both demos the bass pitch was not especially well defined. For now, I’m chalking this up to the listening rooms, which seemed to be summing all the bass frequencies somehow. Although carefully designed and constructed, the spaces were completed literally the day before we arrived. B&W noted that the tuning process was still ongoing, so even though the 800 made a thoroughly impressive outing, I expect that process will improve things even further.

B&W’s Diamond Series 3 launch heralds a new era for the company. Now the line is complete, capped by the innovative 800 D3. The new flagship gives every sign of being a significant step upward—and forward. I’m hoping to be able to evaluate it in my own system and listening room very soon. When that time comes, I’ll give a full report.

Tags: BOWERS & WILKINS

Alan Taffel

By Alan Taffel

I can thank my parents for introducing me to both good music and good sound at an early age. Their extensive classical music collection, played through an enviable system, continually filled our house. When I was two, my parents gave me one of those all-in-one changers, which I played to death.

More articles from this editor

Read Next From Blog

See all

Adblocker Detected

"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."

"There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain..."