Bowers and Wilkins (B&W) is one of the most world-renowned speaker companies on the planet. You’ll find their speakers in recording studios and mixing facilities around the world. The BBC, Abbey Road, and Skywalker Ranch are just a few of the places that rely on their truthful sound. The 802 has been a coveted speaker for music lovers since its introduction over 30 years ago. B&W also spends more on R&D than any speaker company we know of with a huge facility in Stenning, England, home to a 50+ team of engineers and all kinds of exotic speaker measuring equipment.
The real beauty of Bowers & Wilkins for the vast majority of music lovers comes from their trickle-down technology. When they design a new $30,000+ speaker, the tech they come up with eventually makes its way into their less expensive models. If a speaker company never really pushes the limits, they don’t really invent new things and just use off-the-shelf generic components. B&W has developed more new types of materials to push speakers further than any company we know of. They pioneered the use of Kevlar, diamonds, and more in the speakers over the years.
The Bowers & Wilkins 600 series has actually been around in one form or another for decades. We have always felt this series was a great value, offering honest true sound for a modest price. B&W recently had a pretty serious update to their 600 series which is the subject of today’s article. The new series offers two bookshelf speakers, a tower speaker, and a matching center channel. The speaker components found in the 600 series have trickled-down from speakers costing $6,000/pr or more.
B&W has always had a top of the line 800 series. These are the speakers recording studios around the world use day in and day out. Every few years, B&W will update the lineup and incorporate all the new tech they have learned. This happened to the 800 series in the fall of 2015. It took a few years, but much of the new technology from the completely revamped 800 series has now made it into new models that start out at $600/pr, a tenth the price of entry into the 600 series!
While you don’t get the beautiful matching wood veneer curved cabinets of the 800 series that take almost 100 hours to create, you do get superb sound quality for a price that is hard to beat.
Let’s dive in and learn more about the new speaker technologies that have made their way into the new 600 series.
Bowers & Wilkins 600 Series - Features and Tech
For decades, B&W had used Kevlar for its midrange speaker drivers in the 800 series. Their engineering team was given the task of inventing a better material that would offer significant improvements over their current Kevlar drivers. It took over eight years, but they finally came up with a new material called Continuum. Continuum was completely developed by the B&W team and is only found in their speakers. When we first heard it in the new 800 series, to say we were blown away would be an understatement! The improvement in midrange transparency was just stunning. Continuum, when used in a midrange driver, does not need the typical surround you need in most midrange speakers either, which contributes a lot to this new level of openness. Another factor is a great reduction in distortion. If you ever get a chance to visit their R&D facility in Stenning, you’ll see all kinds of lasers used to analyze speaker cone distortion, which they used in the development of Continuum.
Many years ago, B&W invented a tapered tube that sits behind the tweeter. In the original 800 models, it sits proudly on top of the speaker. As years have passed, this design has been refined and shows up in the 600 series as their Decoupled Double Dome. If you were to take the tweeter apart, you would see this is a very accurate description of the tweeter. The combination of the decoupled dome and the tapered tweeter tube for the rear wave of the tweeter result in a tweeter that can extend out far beyond most tweeters on the market before any distortion or break up occurs. The range actually goes out to 38khz which is twice as high as anyone under about 20 years old can even hear. The sonic improvement is a more open top end that is very smooth and sweet without even a hint of harshness.
B&W has always paid a great deal of attention to reducing cabinet resonance. Their engineers use laser systems to measure the cabinets and design ways to make their speaker cabinets as inert as possible. They don’t make a big deal about this in the new 600 series, but we have to say, the cabinets are extremely solid and dead. The front of the cabinet is a matte finish composite material about ½” thick. By mounting the speaker drivers to this material, then coupling it to the cabinet, resonance virtually goes away. When we wrap our knuckles on a new 600 series cabinet, it has that feeling we have learned to love when a designer gets the cabinet right! We also like the fact that B&W has upgraded the grill system to a hidden magnetic design.
Another technology found in all the new 600’s is B&W’s Flow Port system. Most speakers are vented in some way and the way the air escapes the speaker cabinet can have a pretty big impact on the sound and how you must position the speaker for best performance. B&W has been addressing this for years by analyzing designs to come up with the type of port that gives you the best performance. The port used in the 600 series uses their patented Flow Port system which, just like Continuum, was originally designed for their 800 series.
The rear of all the speakers have very solid connections capable of either bi-wiring or single wiring. These types of connections are not very common on speakers in this price range and are normally found on models costing far more.
Another nice thing about all the models is the white color option. The 600 series have always just been a black finish with a pretty basic vinyl wrap. The new models have a much nicer finish with a choice of black or white. If you get the white finish, the grill will be a light grey color. B&W also took its current line of 600 series subwoofers and upgraded the exterior to complement the new 600 speakers, giving you a black or white choice there as well.
