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Bowers & Wilkins 801 Signature

Bowers & Wilkins 801 Signature

If you compare the way that smaller hi-fi companies regularly upgrade and tweak their products with the almost regimented way that the bigger ones release a new version every few years you will realise that both types of organisation make discoveries about improving their products on a regular basis. But those that are tied to large scale manufacturing do not have the option to make what are called running changes. Bowers & Wilkins are very much in the latter camp, once a loudspeaker is in production very little will be changed if anything, and such changes that there are will be made for manufacturing efficiency rather than sonic improvement.

The current 800 D4 series of Bowers & Wilkins loudspeakers, its flagship range, were released in 2021 and will not change until the next iteration comes along in 2026 or thereabouts. But in the two years or so between finalising that range and the release of two Signature versions last summer, the Bowers & Wilkins research and development team made some interesting discoveries that have fed into the Signature models. Not least among these is a new tweeter mesh which first saw the light of production at the opposite end of the cost spectrum in the 600 series models.

The tweeter uses a more open mesh with enhanced dispersion characteristics that costs no more than the one seen on 800 D4, yet a demonstration of the 805 D4 against the 805 Signature revealed a significantly more open presentation. It’s a small thing but not an insignificant one. The Signature models are typically based on iterative changes like this, things that on their own don’t seem very important but which offer a tangible sonic upgrade which becomes more significant when combined with others.

Head rest

Another change for Signature relates to the collar that surrounds the ‘Turbine Head’ that holds the midrange driver on the 801, this is still in Connolly leather as per the standard model but the moulding which the leather is upholstered onto has been damped with a material called Tecsound. This former has lattice work underneath it to provide stiffness and Bowers & Wilkins engineers found that by adding Tecsound to this they could eliminate vibration in the plastic. This is something that you wouldn’t expect to be audible given the padded leather above it but apparently it brought benefits in the listening room. Likewise the structural aluminium collar that supports the substantial ‘head’ has had holes machined into it to reduce its mass without compromising rigidity, this pushes the frequency at which this piece of metal wants to vibrate up higher and further away from the resonant frequency of the cabinet to which it is bonded. This is another thing that you wouldn’t expect to make an audible difference and yet it does. This is especially true if you use these speakers at the balls out volume levels that I recall from the days when the company would demonstrate its wares in the R&D test facility.

Bowers & Wilkins 801 D4 Signature

The drivers in the tweeter and midrange remain as per an 801 D4 with a diamond dome covering the highest frequencies and a Continuum cone in Bowers & Wilkins’ ultra slim FST surround covering the range between tweeter and bass drivers. The latter using the biomimetic suspension in place of a regular spider that is now found on the majority of Bowers & Wilkins’ midrange drivers. The substantial aluminium Turbine Head is also damped with Tecsound and braces the midrange in such a way that it’s highly unlikely that anything else will vibrate apart from the cone itself. The tweeter is housed in a long aluminium ‘solid body’ enclosure that damps rearward energy from the dome and which is capped by the aforementioned super open mesh cover to protect the fragile diamond from reviewers and children alike.

Heavy metal

The final and rather less visible change to the 801 Signature is in the reflex port which is in the base of the substantial bent ply cabinet. The base itself is a thick aluminium plate and in the standard 801 this houses a flared plastic reflex vent, one that looks similar to the dimpled examples you can see on the back of smaller models. The engineering department decided to see if the extra rigidity that a metal vent would add to this part of the cabinet would effect performance, the fact that the Signature version has a metal casting here indicates that it does. Given the large 100mm diameter of this opening it’s not surprising that this is the case, the only question is how loud would you need to be playing to hear it.

Bowers & Wilkins 801 Signature California Burl Gloss

Finish has always been a key indicator of Signature status, these models have always had a luxurious feel to them and that is very much the case with the 801 Signature. It is available in a Midnight Blue metallic paint or California Burl wood veneer, both of which have a deep gloss coating that means that they are even more plush than the piano black of a regular 801. In the Midnight Blue option the Turbine Head and tweeter body has the same finish while in the veneered version these are a contrasting black that is equally glossy. All of this costs money of course, the 801 Signature comes in £10,000 above the 801 Diamond but you are getting the very best that Bowers & Wilkins can do. This is quite probably the largest high-end loudspeaker company on the globe and it has advantages of scale that few can compete with in this sector. All of the 800 Diamond models are made in the Worthing, West Sussex factory, and that includes cabinet construction from raw laminate all the way to the lengthy and class leading finishing process. A product of this build and finish would cost significantly more if built in the sort of numbers usually associated with high end manufacturing.

Roll up

Setting up this 100 kilo plus beast would be very difficult if it was conventionally shod. One of the benefits of the sizable metal plinth on the 801 is that it hides not only a set of substantial spikes but when these are retracted there are four rollers that mean you can move the speaker around with relative ease. Bringing the spikes down and levelling is a bit more of a palaver and strictly speaking a two man job but it can just about be done by a reviewer and a suitable lump of wood so long as the wind is in the right direction. I used the magnetic spike pucks so that my floor wasn’t punctured and joined up the bi-wire terminals with supplied jumper leads for a single wire connection using Townshend F1 Fractal cable.

Given their not insubstantial girth the 801 Signatures have an uncanny ability to disappear in an acoustic sense, all that work on eliminating vibration pays off when you play a half decent recording and close your eyes. All you can hear is the music in the room, there is no sense of where it’s emanating from. This is recording dependent of course, anything with a voice or instrument recorded in a single channel will be fixed in that channel. Fortunately voices rarely are recorded this way and get proper stereo treatment which means that they exist in the air between the speakers, and when those speakers are as good as this the sense of a living, breathing three dimensional person singing in front of you is powerful, sometimes very much so. My listening seat is only three metres from each speaker so less than ideal for such a substantial design yet the imaging had a depth and solidity that was palpable on a wide range of material.

Blur

This quality is produced by the absence of cabinet and driver colorations that allow the 801 Signature to reveal the finest details, the quietest reverb tails that when combined with the fundamentals form a much more complete reproduction of the original sound. The reverb on the snare on John Martyn’s beautiful version of ‘Glory Box’ is a good example, this is usually masked by louder sounds on other speakers but these Bowers & Wilkins not only add little if anything of their own to the sound but also stop and start when each note does, with no blur or overhang. It’s this ability to reveal the spaces between the notes as well as the full notes themselves that makes this speaker so good. It lets the music do the talking in a way that even high-end alternatives struggle to compete with.

Bowers & Wilkins 801 Signature Midnight Blue Metallic

The bass is also interesting, as it is as fast and agile as the mid and treble. Bass is often thickened in a not unattractive way by cabinet vibrations and colourations from drive units, so we don’t necessarily pick up on problems at this end of the spectrum. But when a speaker comes along that’s this clean in the bass it delivers more in all sorts of ways, in Laura Marling’s ‘Soothing’ (Semper Femina) it means you can hear the way that the bass riff moves from one channel to the other, it is accompanied by a drum and played so fluently that many speakers do not make this clear but there was no missing it here. Most of my listening was with a streamer and DAC but things got more interesting still with a Rega Planar 10 turntable which has a clear edge over the digital alternative. Here that edge was made even more plain, and even with an ancient mono release from Charles Mingus (The Clown) the climax of ‘Haitian Fight Song’ is delivered like a cry of ecstasy and packs a powerful emotional punch thanks to the degree of clarity and coherence on offer with these Bowers & Wilkins.

On Little Feat’s ‘Cold Cold Cold’ (Feats Don’t Fail Me Now) the separation of guitars, drums and vocal is stark with only the voice in full stereo and very natural reverb on the instruments, the beauty of the backing vocals from Bonnie Raitt and Emmylou Harris pushing the performance into the stratosphere and fully clarified by these speakers.

The B factor

About half my listening was done with a Moor Amps Angel 6 power amplifier but when B audio delivered a pair of B mono amps (issue 225) it became clear that the 801 Signatures had more to give. Amp/speaker matching is always critical and when the speaker is as revealing as this it’s even more so and this combination really hit it off, both components are capable of resolving the finest details and the amp has the power reserves to keep the Bowers & Wilkins under control without imposing a sense of unnatural grip. Now the bass seemed to extend further and have more character, more of the bass detail in each piece of music was clear and the sense of speed was enhanced. This made for maximum light entertainment with a wide variety of music, the piano on Joe Chamber’s ‘Dance Kobina’ from an album of the same name has never stood out so well before. Drum sounds were also now in the top league, with power and dynamics that sounded so real that it was easy to feel that you were there in the control room or the audience. There’s absolutely no thickener but neither is the sound lean, it’s just clean, tight and fast.

801 Signature Midnight Blue Metallic Rear

It’s not just about power and control however, voices are frequently arresting because the 801 Signatures are so clean and revealing. You might expect that this degree of analysis and neutrality would lead to a cold and emotionally dry result but nothing could be further from the fact. This speaker is all about veracity, it delivers the truth about every recording and when those contain an emotionally charged vocal it hits you like a freight train. All that work, all those small refinements combine in this loudspeaker to reveal the beauty and glory of the music you love in a way that few can match even at this exalted price. The 801 Signature may be the results of small refinements but those changes build upon a very well sorted foundation, the result is pretty damn spectacular.

Technical specifications

  • Type Three-way, four-driver, floorstanding speaker with reflex loaded enclosure
  • Driver complement One 25mm diamond dome tweeter; one 150mm (6 inch) Continuum cone FST midrange driver; two 250mm (10 inch) Aerofoil cone bass drivers
  • Crossover frequencies Not specified
  • Frequency response 15 Hz–28 kHz (+/-3dB from reference axis)
  • Impedance 8 Ohms (minimum 3 Ohms)
  • Sensitivity 90dB at 2.83Vrms at 1m
  • Dimensions (H×W×D) 1221 × 451 × 600mm
  • Weight 100.6kg/each
  • Finishes Midnight Blue, California Burl.
  • Price £45,000/$50,000 per pair

Manufacturer

Bowers & Wilkins

www.bowers-wilkins.co.uk

0800 232 1513 (UK only)

Read more Bowers & Wilkins reviews here

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Tags: BOWERS & WILKINS 801 SIGNATURE FLOORSTANDING LOUDSPEAKER

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