This is a review and detailed measurements of the B&W 607 S2 Anniversary Edition. It was kindly sent to me by a member and costs US $700 through their various dealers.
The 607 S2 comes in different color. My same was in black:
Disappointing to see no attempt at directivity control with a waveguide. The corners are pretty sharp which at this price point, would have expected to have had some rounding over. Back panel binding posts surprisingly are not gold plated which is the norm in this era:
I love the masculine and nicely textured port. Cleverly it is molded and tooled with the binding post, helping save cost in manufacturing and assembly (which is in China).
I only found two reviews of this speakers, one from WhatHifi in UK which gave it perfect score of 5 out of 5. And one by Steve Guttenberg which gave it speaker of the year award for 2020.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I performed over 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate below 1% for most of the except around 2 kHz where it crept up to 2% error. Sound field got quite complex there suggesting multiple sources than just the two drivers (diffraction, etc.).
Testing temperature was around 60 degrees F.
Reference axis for measurements was the center of the tweeter. Grill was not used in either measurements or listening tests.
Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.
B&W 607 S2 Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
And flaws we have! Hard to know where to start. We can go from right to left with that peaking tweeter response to give that "showroom zing." This is then followed by a dip in 2 to 3 kHz, courtesy of poor crossover design. This then goes into peaking and some resonances around 1 to 1.7 kHz and again around 200 to 400 Hz.
Bass and mid-range level is around 83 dB which is very low efficiency. Thankfully the company is honest and rates the speaker at 84 dB efficiency. You better have lots of amplification power to drive this speaker.
Early window reflections don't paint a pretty picture either:
So combined we have the problems we could predict:
Near-field measurements of the drivers confirm some of the problems we have seen:
Impedance graph shows a resonance and reasonable impedance:
CSD/waterfall response shows more of these resonances:
Horizontal beam width is rather uneven as is directivity:
Vertical directivity shows a hole in response so best to stay slightly above tweeter axis:
It is not all bad news. Tweeter distortion is quite low as is the woofer if levels are kept reasonable:
Company marketing video talks a lot about advanced 3-D modeling and reduction of aberrations in both drivers. Seems like they got there on the tweeter and almost so with woofer until it breaks up.
B&W 607 S2 Anniversary Edition Listening Tests
First impressions are of elevated highs but they are extremely clean in nature as predicted by the low distortion level. As such, they don't rip your face off as some other speakers with such treble elevation do. Alas, you quickly realize that the bass response is just not there and all you hear is that elevated highs. There is also slight tubbiness that comes from resonances in lower mid-range upper bass.
I brought out the equalization panel in my Roon player and tried to make quick corrections. Alas, much more help was needed before what I considered to be "reasonable" tonality and sound:
While I am usually good at eyeballing the EQ values, way too many were needed here than what I could do. So I suspect a more mechanically generated EQ would do better.
Conclusions
Video marketing material only talks about improvements in drivers. That, seems to be there. Alas, decades of research into what makes a good sounding speaker was ignored with poor integration of drivers, multiple resonances and poor directivity which result in "proper showroom" sound but nothing you would want to live with. I don't mind throwing a filter or two at a speaker to make it sound good. But this design needs way more than that. You have to become a speaker designer, doing the work that the company was supposed to do. And that ain't right.
I can see how some subjectivist reviewer would fall in love with the clean and low distortion highs and call it an audiophile experience with micro detail, imagine and usual buzzwords. But that is not a good diet for an audiophile. You want a speaker that gets out of the way and reproduces what is in your source faithfully.
Just to make sure I was not in a "bad audio mood," I swapped the 607 S2 for a Revel M105. Wow, what an improvement in overall tonality, feel of the speaker and quality all around. Yes, it costs twice as much. But it shows you what proper sound is like. It does justice to your music whereas the 607 S2 doesn't. It latter spits on your music and says, I am going to tell you how it should sound.
Is the 607 S2 the worse speaker I have heard? No. There is some good engineering in the driver. I hope some of that rubs off to whoever did the system design of the speaker.
The marketing material said they have sold one or two million 600 series speakers since inception. So I suspect the management if it sees this review is going to be flippant and continue to ship subpar speakers to their customers. It is a bit depressing that what sells is dominant factor in speaker business and design.
Needless to say, I can't recommend the B&W 607 S2 Anniversary Edition. There are plenty of speakers at low prices that do better.
Edit: video review posted: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...07-s2-anniversary-edition-review-video.21608/
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The 607 S2 comes in different color. My same was in black:
Disappointing to see no attempt at directivity control with a waveguide. The corners are pretty sharp which at this price point, would have expected to have had some rounding over. Back panel binding posts surprisingly are not gold plated which is the norm in this era:
I love the masculine and nicely textured port. Cleverly it is molded and tooled with the binding post, helping save cost in manufacturing and assembly (which is in China).
I only found two reviews of this speakers, one from WhatHifi in UK which gave it perfect score of 5 out of 5. And one by Steve Guttenberg which gave it speaker of the year award for 2020.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I performed over 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate below 1% for most of the except around 2 kHz where it crept up to 2% error. Sound field got quite complex there suggesting multiple sources than just the two drivers (diffraction, etc.).
Testing temperature was around 60 degrees F.
Reference axis for measurements was the center of the tweeter. Grill was not used in either measurements or listening tests.
Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.
B&W 607 S2 Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
And flaws we have! Hard to know where to start. We can go from right to left with that peaking tweeter response to give that "showroom zing." This is then followed by a dip in 2 to 3 kHz, courtesy of poor crossover design. This then goes into peaking and some resonances around 1 to 1.7 kHz and again around 200 to 400 Hz.
Bass and mid-range level is around 83 dB which is very low efficiency. Thankfully the company is honest and rates the speaker at 84 dB efficiency. You better have lots of amplification power to drive this speaker.
Early window reflections don't paint a pretty picture either:
So combined we have the problems we could predict:
Near-field measurements of the drivers confirm some of the problems we have seen:
Impedance graph shows a resonance and reasonable impedance:
CSD/waterfall response shows more of these resonances:
Horizontal beam width is rather uneven as is directivity:
Vertical directivity shows a hole in response so best to stay slightly above tweeter axis:
It is not all bad news. Tweeter distortion is quite low as is the woofer if levels are kept reasonable:
Company marketing video talks a lot about advanced 3-D modeling and reduction of aberrations in both drivers. Seems like they got there on the tweeter and almost so with woofer until it breaks up.
B&W 607 S2 Anniversary Edition Listening Tests
First impressions are of elevated highs but they are extremely clean in nature as predicted by the low distortion level. As such, they don't rip your face off as some other speakers with such treble elevation do. Alas, you quickly realize that the bass response is just not there and all you hear is that elevated highs. There is also slight tubbiness that comes from resonances in lower mid-range upper bass.
I brought out the equalization panel in my Roon player and tried to make quick corrections. Alas, much more help was needed before what I considered to be "reasonable" tonality and sound:
While I am usually good at eyeballing the EQ values, way too many were needed here than what I could do. So I suspect a more mechanically generated EQ would do better.
Conclusions
Video marketing material only talks about improvements in drivers. That, seems to be there. Alas, decades of research into what makes a good sounding speaker was ignored with poor integration of drivers, multiple resonances and poor directivity which result in "proper showroom" sound but nothing you would want to live with. I don't mind throwing a filter or two at a speaker to make it sound good. But this design needs way more than that. You have to become a speaker designer, doing the work that the company was supposed to do. And that ain't right.
I can see how some subjectivist reviewer would fall in love with the clean and low distortion highs and call it an audiophile experience with micro detail, imagine and usual buzzwords. But that is not a good diet for an audiophile. You want a speaker that gets out of the way and reproduces what is in your source faithfully.
Just to make sure I was not in a "bad audio mood," I swapped the 607 S2 for a Revel M105. Wow, what an improvement in overall tonality, feel of the speaker and quality all around. Yes, it costs twice as much. But it shows you what proper sound is like. It does justice to your music whereas the 607 S2 doesn't. It latter spits on your music and says, I am going to tell you how it should sound.
Is the 607 S2 the worse speaker I have heard? No. There is some good engineering in the driver. I hope some of that rubs off to whoever did the system design of the speaker.
The marketing material said they have sold one or two million 600 series speakers since inception. So I suspect the management if it sees this review is going to be flippant and continue to ship subpar speakers to their customers. It is a bit depressing that what sells is dominant factor in speaker business and design.
Needless to say, I can't recommend the B&W 607 S2 Anniversary Edition. There are plenty of speakers at low prices that do better.
Edit: video review posted: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...07-s2-anniversary-edition-review-video.21608/
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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