Bowers & Wilkins 600 Series 3 brochure Driven by invention

Driven by invention

B&W is a rarity among loudspeaker manufactur- ers. Our products meet the needs of all parts of the market, from high street customers to the world’s most demanding recording studios. When we accomplish something extraordinary at the top end – such as Nautilus™ – there is

a‘trickle-down’ of knowledge, insight and technological innovation into the development of our mainstream products, which ultimately means they rise above their more ordinary rivals.

The same challenges of acoustic control arise wherever the reproduction of sound takes place. And those challenges can only be solved by ingenuity and intelligence. The same team of engineering perfectionists involved in the five-year development of Nautilus™ and its spin-off Nautilus™ 800 Series is behind the

600 Series 3. The range continues the evolution of B&W’s leading-edge drive unit technologies into popular applications.

Our latest set of drive unit refinements includes an improved tweeter response at very high frequencies, reduced distortion from the midrange drivers and a crisper ‘slam’ from the bass units. All round, it’s a sound that’s hard to beat.

Nautilus™

Nautilus™ emerged from B&W’s University of Sound R&D facility after five years’ painstaking development. Briefed to stop at nothing in the quest for a perfect loudspeaker, our engineers arrived at a set of drive units whose tapering, tubular forms spirited away every trace of internal resonance.

For the bass unit, the natural form of

a seashell – a coiled tube – delivered the most natural and untainted sound. A host of advanced audio technologies lay inside the speaker, which was selected by the Design Council as a Millennium Product and hailed by reviewers as ‘possibly the best loudspeaker that money can buy’.

Tweeter

Within every 600 Series 3 cabinet is one of these: a Nautilus™-derived, tube-loaded tweeter. One of many breakthroughs made by Nautilus™, it soaks up unwanted sonic radiation from the back of the diaphragm by trapping it in a tube until its energy has been absorbed. What emerges from the front is the purest high frequency output.

To push the unit’s response even higher, the 600 Series 3 features a stiffened bond between the tweeter dome and the voice coil bobbin. The strengthened assembly allows the ultrasonic frequencies of new digital formats such as DVD-A and SACD to be delivered with diamond precision.

Chassis

Controlling the movement of air and transfer of energy behind the bass driver is a science in itself. The object is to reduce the volume of solid material in the supporting structure while trying to maintain or improve its rigidity.

Following the example of the FST™ midrange driver of the Nautilus™ 800 Series, our new bass/midrange drivers reduce coloration by adopting a more ‘open’ chassis structure, with slender ‘legs’ that are contoured to a rounded, aerofoil-like profile. Reducing the reflective area reduces echo from behind the cone which would otherwise time-smear the sound. The two-layer baffle, designed to add stiffness to the cabinet, is also cut away around the rear of the driver, allowing air to move freely from the back of the cone. The result? The cone reacts more to the music, and less to what’s inside the speaker.

Kevlar®

It’s round... but it’s square. B&W patented its distinctive yellow woven Kevlar® cones in the seventies when it was noticed how the fabric

–used in bulletproof vests – reduced sound coloration. Using lasers to detect the tiniest of cone vibrations, our engineers revealed how the tight, square weave of the material dissipates the concentric standing waves that build up in conventional homogeneous materials. Of course, Kevlar® itself is only part of the story – as subsequent imitators have discovered – and our years of experience have enabled us to refine what is still unique to B&W: that optimum blend of Kevlar® with selected resins, damping materials and cone geometry.

In the 600 Series 3 midrange and bass/midrange drivers, we have improved their response in the upper frequencies by better matching the stiffness of the voice coil bobbin to the neck of the cone. A minor refinement perhaps, but it gives a smoother transition to the tweeter and improves the sense of openness.

Aluminium

It’s definitely not heavy metal. Even so, the new lightweight aluminium bass driver (on the 21⁄2-way DM603 and 3-way DM604 loudspeakers) helps to deliver the high quality ‘slam’ that is so vital to music with fast, tight bass lines and drum kicks. Aluminium is relatively stiff compared to alternative materials, and allows the cone to withstand deformation from the high internal air pressures generated behind it as bass frequencies are pumped out.