hi I'm Scott newnam the CEO of audio advice I've got the first pair of Bowers
& Wilkins 700 Signature Series speakers in the US with me here today
the signature 705 B&W Signature Series speaker releases are like a rare wine
auto or fashioned release they only come out every few years production is very
limited and they represent some of the best sound B&W knows how to create every
release usually sells out quickly and becomes somewhat of a legendary high
performance speaker B&W introduced their very first signature speaker back in
1991 to celebrate their 25th anniversary the fourth release of this signature
occurred in 2006 with a signature diamond and we're happy to announce the
fifth release 14 years later the signature 702 and signature 705 if you
don't know the history of B&W as a brand just know they are the speaker of choice
for hundreds of studios around the world including Lucas Films and many of the
top albums have been mastered with B&W most famously at Abbey Road studios since
their humble beginnings in 1966 they have grown to become one of the largest
speaker companies in the world this is what makes the Signature Series so
unique it is a result of the engineers at the R&D lab and Stenning England
being given almost carte blanche on design B&W has always been about cutting
edge testing to develop new speaker technologies and the signature 700 series
is just full of top-of-the-line materials and design I'm going to first
go over all of the tech that is shared with the two models then I'll take a
deeper dive into each one
the development of the main continuum driver took B&W over eight years and 70
different versions of materials until they came up with something that would
surpass the low distortion and breakup levels of Kevlar which they previously
used the color of the continuum driver is a rich silver but the important part
is how the new material behaves with audio signals most drivers add some
flavor of their own to the signal and how they react to the sound being fed to
them continuum holds its shape better than anything the new B&W team has ever
produced the resulting sound is incredibly effortless due to its super
low levels of distortion this lets you hear all those tiny little details of
changes in volume and tone that help these speakers sound more like real
instruments B&W developed the use of diamond dust for their tweeters in the
top-of-the-line 800 series but wanted to find something more affordable with
similar characteristics this led them to come up with their carbon double dome
technology there's an inner and outer dome they designed using laser analysis
the small outer dome which goes along the inside edge of the full dome
increases its rigidity while allowing the rest of the dome to be super
lightweight this design allows the tweeter to extend out more than double
beyond the range of human hearing I am personally a huge fan of acoustic
music I can tell you that when you hear symbols or strings played back on the
carbon double dome tweeter you would think they're in the room everything
just sounds so light and airy it's incredible the tweeter in both signature
models is mounted in a totally separate solid milled aluminum external housing
this greatly reduces cabinet diffraction allowing the speaker to present an
effortlessly three-dimensional image all right so one of the things I want to do
is really pause here and talk about the beauty of the speaker itself one of the
things B&W always focuses on in these Signature Series is making these things
like pieces of artwork so as you can see it's just a gorgeous gorgeous speaker
b&w actually sources the wood veneers from an Italian company called Alpi
that focuses on sustainable wood harvesting to really make this come out
they put nine coats of paint on this thing
in addition you'll see the silver ring around the continuum driver which is
matched with the silver on the tweeter it just looks incredible
so now let me take you to the back of the speaker the attention to detail is
just as high here you can see you get the signature name plane on it which
just adds of that extra limited-edition look for binding posts so you can bi-wire
or bi-amp this which is actually how I tested it in the audio advice system
here in addition when you unbox the speaker you'll see you get the speaker
you know obviously the manual and warranty but you also get the jumpers so
if you're not bi-wiring or bi-amping you can put the jumpers in the other thing
you get that allows you to modify the base in it is you get these foam inserts
it's actually a two-piece insert so if you've got the speaker's you know let's
say they're a little bit closer to the back wall or you want to reduce bass
slightly in the room you can put in the ring version and put it inside here and
if you want to reduce the bass even more there's actually an insert inside the
ring version so you can really play with the sound fully open ported or closing
out the port with the foam and while they just look stunning on the exterior
there's a lot of hidden technology inside the cabinet the signature 700
series uses triple bracing for a cabinet that is just solid as a rock a speaker's
crossovers often overlooked when people talk about what affects the sound of a
speaker a crossover is like the director of a symphony orchestra it takes the
incoming musical signal and decides what frequencies go where there's actually a
ton of room for errors that occur in speaker crossovers but it's not
something you can usually visually inspect to see if it looks well-made
since it's inside the speaker cabinet the crossover in the 700 Signature
Series uses their very best 800 series level components
this upgrade makes them sound even more open and effortless than the 700 s2
counterparts which already sound great the 705 signature I have here is the
bookshelf model when you put them on a great speaker stand and properly
position them they can give you an amazing three-dimensional soundstage
alright so I just want to show you the setup we did for listening we've got a
naim integrated here and actually it was really interesting Bowers & Wilkins came
out with a signature series playlist on
Qobuz so we actually used the Signature Series playlist which by the way you
should just go check out it's got some really cool songs for listening to
demos but we demoed the system in here and it was really fascinating you know I
didn't know how much difference it was going to be between the 700 series for
instance in this case the 705 s2's versus these and I will tell you the
crossovers have really made a great difference so obviously they look
beautiful in this system but we played them through here and had a handful of
people that are all B&W specialists come through and listen and we were all
really amazed at how great they sounded literally right out of the box
we think the 705 signature will be one of the best possible choices you could
make for a bookshelf speaker in the small to medium-sized room their base
performance reaches down to 50 Hertz which is pretty low for a bookshelf and
you could always augment their bass response with a fast subwoofer like
that Bowers & Wilkins DB4 if your room is larger than around 13 by 18
you'll probably want to consider adding a sub or stepping up to the 702
signature the 702 signature adds even more technology to its arsenal to
provide you with sound that can bring on the goosebumps first it's a
floorstanding speaker with a much larger cabinet than the 705 the glossy finish
just looks stunning on a model of this size one thing to be aware of is that if
you are thinking about putting these directly adjacent to a television in a
theater room setup the finish will act like a mirror reflecting light in 95
percent of setups this won't be an issue unless you watch movies in a dark room
and the speakers are close enough for reflection but just be aware in the 702
signature the continuum is use exclusively for the critical mid-range
frequencies everything about the tech used here came from the top-of-the-line
800 series first the driver has virtually no surround the material goes
all the way to the edge this reduces the mid-range coloration as there's no
surround to add Distortion the driver itself is placed in a cast aluminum
basket that was specifically designed to reduce resonances then the whole
assembly is totally isolated from the cabinet with a pretty unique approach on
the back of the magnet assembly at the rear of the basket is a tapered post
directly across from this on the backside of the cabinet is a special
bracket the post is hollow where it meets and slides over the bracket but a
spring holds it there completely decoupling it from the cabinet that is
just taking things to the nth degree but the performance result is a mid-range
that has so much more resolution to augment the mid-range driver the 702
signature has three six and a half inch aerofoil cone woofers
yes this is yet another special material developed by the engineers in Stenning
that has less distortion than their previous woofer materials due to the way
they tapered the cone and the material used the combination of three small
drivers gives you the surface area of a huge woofer but the speed advantage of
smaller drivers the bass impact you hear from the 702 signature is just super
fast and tight if you want to get the best performance from the 702 signature
position them at least 18 inches off of the back wall and just slightly tow them
in towards your listening chair be sure to use a tape measure to get them
equidistant off the rear wall and angled in the same I also recommend you install
the optional support plinth if you're putting them on a carpeted
surface while it will not look quite as sleek to some it will make them sound
better with optional spikes and prevent them from rocking on the carpet
the sound of the 702 s2 is terrific and the 702 signature with its improved
crossover steps it up even further when you take these great drivers and
cabinets and give them 800 level crossovers the sound is fabulous they're
starting to rival the 804 diamond which is almost double the price in my opinion
the 700 signature speakers are ideal for someone who wants great sound at the
same time is willing to invest more for the limited edition aesthetics feel and
upgraded sound as always if you have any questions at all feel free to reach out
to us at audioadvice.com via phone email or chat or stop by one of our
Raleigh or Charlotte showrooms if you like this video be sure to like it and
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you next time
you