Bowers & Wilkins 607 S2 Anniversary Edition Review

[Xulonn]

Such blasphemy! Surely the audiophile gods will soon send a bolt of lightning to prevent the...

 

[respice finem]

And, even the "ancient" B&W CDM7 I'm still using in my 5.1.2 setup are better made (rounded edges etc.)... Seems not to be the old B&W any more.

 

[Koeitje]

Not surprised one bit. All measurements published out there about B&W speakers (600s and 700s) always showed terrible performance.

This is just confirming what we already knew.

Yep, it seems they literally don't give a shit about sound quality and just want to ride their brandname. But the worst part is that when you recommend people not to get B&W speakers and look for something better they just think you are trolling.

 

[Sonny1]

Sad but not surprising. Junk speaker from a company that could easily produce a much better offering. Steve Guttenberg exposed as a fraud.

 

[restorer-john]

@amirm I think if you are going to call out a speaker's country of manufacture (China), you should do it for all speakers you review, including all the Revels. Otherwise you could be accused of possible bias...

We need to have a few more B&Ws reviewed to see if this HF "zing" is indeed part of their deliberate "house sound". I have a pair of their larger and older 602 S2s (Made in the UK before the Sound United buyout) here and they are very well behaved in the HF.

 

[Lotus97]

Sad day for anyone that owns these.

 

[MrPeabody]

Unstinking believable.

 

[DSJR]

The original 601 was a little bit 'boom and tizz,' but not excessive and after ten yeares, the tweeter tamed for whatever reason. the V2 bit my ears off I remember, the slightly undamped 'glossy' quality replaced by a razor sharp sizzle. I've only listened briefly to the odd subsequent model but it seems a presence dip followed by the tweeter taking off has become the family sound, even in the N800 series. Obviously intentional I reckon and PMC's domestic models seem to copy that balance - their fans seem to lap it up.

 

[DSJR]

@amirm I think if you are going to call out a speaker's country of manufacture (China), you should do it for all speakers you review, including all the Revels. Otherwise you could be accused of possible bias...

We need to have a few more B&Ws reviewed to see if this HF "zing" is indeed part of their deliberate "house sound". I have a pair of their larger and older 602 S2s (Made in the UK before the Sound United buyout) here and they are very well behaved in the HF.

I think age has mellowed them, 'cos they weren't too polite when new - the bass was a bit 'woofy' as well... Oh damn, maybe I'm thinking of the V3 model which tautened the bass I seem to recall. The competing cheaper KEF Q models went from a restrained hf to a 5dB or so lift as well.

 

[VintageFlanker]

But the worst part is that when you recommend people not to get B&W speakers and look for something better they just think you are trolling.

#TrueStory

 

[MZKM]

@amirm I think if you are going to call out a speaker's country of manufacture (China), you should do it for all speakers you review, including all the Revels. Otherwise you could be accused of possible bias...

We need to have a few more B&Ws reviewed to see if this HF "zing" is indeed part of their deliberate "house sound". I have a pair of their larger and older 602 S2s (Made in the UK before the Sound United buyout) here and they are very well behaved in the HF.

See post #3

 

[thewas]

We need to have a few more B&Ws reviewed to see if this HF "zing" is indeed part of their deliberate "house sound". I have a pair of their larger and older 602 S2s (Made in the UK before the Sound United buyout) here and they are very well behaved in the HF.

Those 602 S2 belong to the older B&W era which has high order crossovers and a more neutral tuning than their current models, for example the 20 year old 603 S3

(source: https://www.stereophile.com/content/bowers-wilkins-702-s2-loudspeaker-measurements )

vs the current more expensive 705 S2

(source: https://www.stereophile.com/content/bw-dm603-s3-loudspeaker-measurements)

B&W changed completely their tuning strategy at some time for whichever reasons but they are not less successful in the market, so I don't think it is not they cannot do better if they would want to, but rather an intentional choice.

 

[hardisj]

Vertical directivity shows a hole in response so best to stay slightly above tweeter axis:

Shallow crossover slopes? Sure looks it from this graphic.

 

[DSJR]

That 10kHz spike really is or was audible and not nice I remember... Don't they use first order slopes?

 

[restorer-john]

That 10kHz spike really is or was audible and not nice I remember... Don't they use first order slopes?

I can't remember what the X/over is. I'll unscrew it and post a pic of the 602 S2.

 

[digitalfrost]

B&W changed completely their tuning strategy at some time for whichever reasons but they are not less successful in the market, so I don't think it is not they cannot do better if they would want to, but rather an intentional choice.

We auditioned the B&W 684 and the 684 S2. We all agreed that the older model sounded better. Model change was ~ 2014.

 

[sarakyel]

Over the last 15 years I spent quite some time working in recording studios, both in the UK and US. I've always been surprised to find those huge B&W speakers in control rooms (Diamond... 800 I think?). Regardless of how massive and crazy expensive these boxes are, they have such a distinctive shrill sound signature... Sitting down for a whole day in front of these things - even 3+ meters away - is super exhausting. Feels like the sound is drilling through your brain. I even remember a VO recording session where those speakers clearly affected the voice tone of an actress, almost as if she was being pitch-shifted in real time. Switching the the small nearfield Mackie speakers we had on the mixing desk magically fixed the issue.

Now whenever I hear B&W speakers, I can't help but frown. How can people genuinely enjoy that?

 

[KarVi71]

I attended a speaker demo in the local hifi shop, where the listeners were asked to compare these B&W's and a set of Dali Oberon 1's.

After which we could fill out a questionaire as to which speaker we preferred.

The comparison was with many different music types, and at various listening levels. They even took requests
While not exactly scientific in nature, we did compare the speakers with the same music, driven by the same amp, while attempting to hit the same volume on each.

At this event I found the B&W's to be revealing, but also "sharp", and a little bit "thin" to their sound.
The Dali's were also revealing, but much more pleasant with more "body". Much more balanced, I thought.

The event was actually quite entertaining, and there was a lot of discussion about music and music genres.

A few days later I visited the shop to learn the results of the questionaires. To my surprise about 30% of the listeners liked the B&W's the most.
The Dali's won by a large %, but I was very surprised that so many preferred the B&W's. I did not like these B&W's very much.

Just goes to show that tastes are really very different

 

[thewas]

Now whenever I hear B&W speakers, I can't help but frown. How can people genuinely enjoy that?

Guess often older audiophiles that listen at lower levels and stuff like 60s vinyl, also their presence dips makes shrill recordings sound less shouty.

 

[digicidal]

Sad day for anyone that owns these.

I'm not sure I would go that far... the flaws (and they are many) of this speaker should be clearly audible.
So there's only two possibilities:

1. You like them - either because you want "sizzle and bang" without EQ, or because you are more interested in brand and aesthetics.
2. You hated them already - in which case you likely already returned them after an audition.

In either case, a bad review shouldn't matter to you all that much. Now if you said "it's a sad day for B&W"... that would be true - it's just that they clearly intended much of what's wrong here objectively. Many of their other speakers exhibit similar characteristics.