Bowers & Wilkins 702 S3 floorstanding speaker

It must be tough working in the Bowers & Wilkins R&D department; the rate at which they produce new product lines is blistering. It only seems like yesterday that the 800 D4 series came to market (apparently it was a couple of years ago) and the last S2 range of 700 series models are not a lot older but market demand never sleeps it seems and you have to wonder whether Bowers’ engineers do as well.

The 702 S3 is the largest model in Bowers & Wilkins penultimate range and harbours more bass drivers than any other loudspeaker that the company makes, there are larger drivers in the 802 and 801 but not three of them. It benefits from a great deal of the tech developed for that range and in fact has the same midrange driver as the 802. The driver in that model has the advantage of its own machined aluminium ‘head’ enclosure but it’s fundamentally the same chassis, motor system and cone. Which given that it’s about a quarter of the price makes the 702 S3 look like rather good value. I’m here to tell you that for this and many other reasons it is.

Trickle down 

This speaker is tall but not very imposing thanks to a slim sub eight-inch front baffle that is only slightly wider than the four drive units that it supports, you don’t often see drivers that nearly reach the edge of a cabinet like this. At a glance the front baffle looks flat but it is in fact curved in section with the driver trims inset into it. This gives a pleasing contrast between the flat of the surround against the baffle. The drivers are where Bowers’ 800 series developments are to be found, especially in the midrange which has a woven Continuum cone. This cone is made in the company’s Worthing, West Sussex facility in order to protect their IP (intellectual property) and while it superficially resembles the yellow Kevlar cones of earlier generations, the weave is clearly finer when the two are contrasted, this and the process by which the cones are produced is Bowers & Wilkins’ secret sauce.

The other key development that appears in this midrange unit is invisible, it’s the so-called spider that holds the voice coil former centrally within the magnet. Bowers calls this biomimetic suspension, suggesting that it imitates nature, which given that it’s so efficient in the way that the minimum of material is used to achieve the desired result has some credence. Essentially it’s a six-spoked plastic ring that is considerably lighter and thus less mechanically noisy than the fabric spirals found on most other drivers. At present, you only get this suspension on midrange drivers, which means three-way designs (or bigger) such as the 702 S3. 

Pure carbon

The three bass drivers on this model are described as 165mm types, thus larger than the 150mm mid that appears to be the same size, go figure. These have Aerofoil profile cones which while they look conventional have a sandwich construction with a foam core that is thicker in the middle and thinner at the inner and outer edges in order to maximise stiffness without excess mass. Again this is found in the 800 series models albeit at a larger scale. At the top of the box is the distinctive Solid Body tweeter housing with a permanent grille protecting the driver. The machined aluminium pod is longer than in previous generations in order to give the rearward energy from the driver more space to dissipate in, and it’s mounted on two points which allow for a greater degree of compliance and thus isolation from energy coming off the cabinet.

The tweeter dome is a decoupled carbon dome. This is made up of a layer of carbon coating (by way of Physical Vapour Deposition) over an aluminium dome, with an additional carbon ring is used to reinforce the dome around its base and thus increase stiffness, which in turn raises the break up point.

The cabinet differs from the 702 S2 by virtue of a downward firing reflex port that is raised about an inch above an integral plinth by four aluminium legs. This gets around the tilt test issues addressed by a separate and seemingly enormous plinth in previous versions without looking so big, the plinth is 290mm wide by 410mm deep but the black version below a black loudspeaker doesn’t look out of scale. The bi-wire cable terminals are arranged in a horizontal line near the base and look swanky in a shiny, maybe stainless, finish.

Position, position, position

Loudspeaker positioning is as critical as location is to retail and with this and other models in the new 700 series it seems to be more so than usual. When the guys from Bowers brought these speakers round they spent half an hour setting them up with toe in ending up almost directly toward the listening seat and with about 40cm to the rear wall. It clearly sounded good to them, so I lived with them that way for a few days, however, while extremely detailed and resolute the balance was so lean that they lacked charm and musicality. Eventually I gave up with minor system tweaks and put them closer to the rear wall and turned them so that there was very little toe in, only then did things start to become inspiring. This positioning had also proved to be beneficial with the 705 S3s when they were in the system, I really should have thought of it earlier.

I suspect that an engineer’s idea of a good sound will not always line up with a music lover’s, they are probably looking for the minimum of room interaction to keep tonal balance linear while I want some warmth and heart in my music and cannot survive on detail alone. Once this was sorted however I was blown away by the sheer quantity and coherence of musical detail that the 702 S3s managed to deliver, that midrange driver is in a class of its own at this price point and the bass and high frequency drivers are superbly aligned with it. The transparency to vocals is remarkable, I got to understand lyrics that I’ve heard many times over without comprehending them, and I realised that the singer in the ostensibly American band The God in Hackney is definitely a Brit. This clarity applies to instruments as well of course, Esbjörn Svensson’s piano playing is so expressive, the recording on his solo album Home. S-sounds are a little hard edged but the timing with these speakers is so good that it’s not an issue. Also, the instrument has the weight and body you’d expect.

Despite the quantity of bass drivers this is not a heavy or fat sounding speaker, shove it into a corner and it might become that way but when placed optimally you get just the right amount of low end weight and energy to balance out the rest of the band. What it does do exceptionally well is stop and start, play heavy dub through it and the degree of articulation of bass lines is top notch, they have mass and energy but absolutely no bloom unless it’s on the record. The better the recording the better the sound of course, Rumer’s version of ‘Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow’ is plush and open with oodles of fine detail that the 702 S3s resolve with ease, digging into the reverb and pushing back the wall behind them. An older recording in Andy Bey’s soulful ‘Celestial Blues’ (Experience and Judgement, Speakers Corner) is revealed to have more energy and vitality than it usually gives up, thanks largely to the low noise of these speakers. All the work that went into reducing coloration and keeping drivers isolated is audible in the quieter sounds that are usually masked. 

It’s interesting to note that Bowers’ engineers are working on reducing noise in loudspeakers in a different way but with the same aim as electronics specialists are trying to stop noise from undermining the quality of digital streams. The source may differ but the end result is the same, lower noise equals more signal being revealed and higher fidelity being achieved. 

High def

The Bowers & Wilkins 702 S3 makes life very difficult for other loudspeaker manufacturers. It delivers extremely high definition with very low coloration at a price that few can begin to compete with. You need a reasonably powerful amplifier to get the best out of this model, probably a minimum of 75 good quality Watts, but nonetheless this is an impressive achievement in a professionally executed package. Just remember to set it up carefully. 

Technical specifications

• Type: Three-way, five-driver, floorstanding loudspeaker with bass reflex enclosure
• Driver complement: One 25mm (1 in) Decoupled Carbon Dome tweeter; one 150mm (6 in) Continuum cone FST midrange; three 165mm (6.5 in) Aerofoil Profile bass drivers
• Frequency response: 46Hz–28kHz +/-3dB
• Impedance: 8 Ohms (minimum 3.1 Ohms)
• Sensitivity: 90dB/2.83v RMS/1m
• Dimensions (H×W×D): 1138 inc tweeter & plinth × 192 × 354mm
• Weight: 33.5kg/each
• Finishes: Satin white, Gloss black, Mocha
• Price: £5,500/pair

Manufacturer

Bowers & Wilkins

www.bowerswilkins.com

+44 (0)1903 946173

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