Bowers & Wilkins 705 S3

2-Way Stand Mount Bookshelf Loudspeakers

Bowers & Wilkins 705 S3

2-Way Stand Mount Bookshelf Loudspeakers
$3,399.00
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Overview

705 S3 is Bowers & Wilkins' ultimate 700 Series standmount speaker, a no-holds-barred celebration of excellence able to highlight all the subtle nuances in your music that other speakers miss. Its Carbon Dome tweeter is housed in a Solid Body Tweeter-on-Top enclosure evolved from the latest generation of 800 Series Diamond. That joins a new and subtly curved baffle endowed with an all-new ‘pod’ housing for its Continuum Cone bass/ midrange driver, ensuring that you hear less of the speaker’s cabinet, and more of the music you love.
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The High Notes
Carbon Tweeter In Solid Aluminum External Housing

Carbon Tweeter In Solid Aluminum External Housing

The specially designed Carbon tweeter reproduces sound way beyond the range of human hearing giving it a super effortless quality. We love the external housing that comes from the top of the line 800 series. This makes the sound even more open and creates an amazing three dimensional soundstage
Dedicated Continuum Midrange Driver with Biomimetic Suspension

Dedicated Continuum Midrange Driver with Biomimetic Suspension

B&W's Continuum midrange driver came from the top of the line 800 series and now features their incredible Biomimetic suspension that was also developed for the 800 models. We think its incredible to get this tech from the 800 series in these 700 models. Together they combine to give you a super pure midrange that makes you feel like the singer is in the room with you.
Beautiful New Curved Cabinet Design

Beautiful New Curved Cabinet Design

For decades B&W has been all about improving their cabinets for less resonance and the new 700S3 series now has curved cabinets like the 800 models for not only a very cool look, but better antiresonance properties.

The top of the line bookshelf model 705 S3 2-Way Stand Mount Loudspeaker uses the exact same solid body external tweeter you get on the 702 S3 and 703 S3 models. It has a 6 ½” Continuum cone midbass driver with the curved cabinet. If you are into great bookshelf speakers, like we are here at Audio Advice, you know they can produce an outstanding 3 dimensional sound stage. The external tweeter takes that even further.

If you put these on a pair of the new stands, which also are improved, place them a bit out into your room, you will find they totally disappear and give you a wonderful image where you can almost reach out and touch the instruments. These get you pretty close to the great sound of the famous Diamond 805 for far less money.

Bowers & Wilkins 705 S3

These actually reach down pretty far into the low bass region, rolling off around 50 Hz so for medium to small rooms you should get plenty of impact. But if you pair them up with a fast subwoofer like the B&W DB4, you will have a setup that has a huge soundstage, effortless top end, the fast, deep bass.

We do recommend for best performance to position these on a pair of stands out in your room. If you need to put a speaker inside a bookcase, we would suggest you look at the 706 S3 as it will cost less and being inside of a bookcase will negate some of the advantages of the separate tweeter housing.

One question we are sure will come up is, which is a better choice, the 704 S3 or the 705 S3 since the 705 S3 has the better tweeter. The S2 versions were closer together, but for the new S3 series, we have to give the nod to the tower. It has the Continuum midrange with the new Biomimetic suspension which to our ears produces a much better midrange and a lot of the musical spectrum is in the midrange band.

Details & Specs

Solid Body Tweeter

The 700 Series features the latest generation of Bowers & Wilkins' iconic Solid Body Tweeter-on-Top housing. Its new, more elongated form incorporates a longer tubeloading system to produce an even more free and open sound with high frequencies. The carefully decoupled housing is milled from a single solid block of aluminium to better resist resonance.

Carbon dome tweeters

Carbon Dome tweeters are purpose-built for the 700 Series. Delivering a dramatic improvement on the aluminium double dome tweeter, they raise the breakup threshold to 47kHz, for pinpoint imaging accuracy and detail.

Biomimetic Suspension

The new Biomimetic Suspension, first seen on the 800 Series Diamond, revolutionises midrange cone performance by greatly reducing the unwanted air pressure and coloration that a conventional fabric spider can generate. The result? Midrange transparency you wouldn’t believe possible.

Continuum™ Cone

Thanks to its composite construction, the Continuum™ cone avoids the abrupt transitions in behaviour that can impair the performance of a conventional drive unit. The result is a more open, neutral performance that delivers voices and instruments with precision and transparency.

Decoupled Midrange Assembly

Every three-way loudspeaker in the new 700 Series has a dedicated midrange cone using four key Bowers & Wilkins technologies: the Continuum cone, FST™, Biomimetic Suspension and midrange decoupling, the latter ensuring minimal interference from the operation of the loudspeaker’s bass drivers.

Aerofoil™ Profile bass cone

Developed using advanced computer modeling techniques, the Aerofoil Profile bass cone has variable thickness, providing stiffness and rigidity where it’s needed most. The result: deep and dynamic bass.

Curved Baffle

The new 700 Series features a curved front baffle for the first time. This allows the midrange and bass drivers to be located in individual pod-type housings that sit proud of the speaker baffle. When combined with the curvature of the structure, this new approach – derived from the 800 Series Diamond – reduces the audible impact of the cabinet, creating a cleaner, more open and more immersive sound.

Technical Features:

  • Decoupled Carbon Dome tweeter
  • Solid Body Tweeter-on-Top
  • Continuum™ cone bass / midrange
  • Flowport™

Description: 2-way vented-box system

Drive Units:

  • 1x ø25mm (1in) Decoupled Carbon Dome high-frequency
  • 1x ø165mm (6.5in) Continuum cone bass / midrange

Frequency Range: 45Hz to 33kHz

Frequency Response: (+/-3dB from reference axis) 50Hz - 28kHz

Sensitivity: (on axis at 2.83Vrms at 1m) 88dB

Harmonic Distortion:

  • 2nd and 3rd harmonics (90dB, 1m on axis)
  • <1% 100Hz - 22kHz
  • <0.5% 150Hz - 20kHz

Nominal Impedance:  8Ω (minimum 3.7Ω)

Recommended Amplifier Power: 30W - 120W into 8Ω on unclipped programme

Dimensions:

  • Height: 345mm (13.6in) cabinet only, 413mm (16.3in) including tweeter
  • Width: 192mm (7.6in) cabinet only
  • Depth: 297mm (11.7in) cabinet only, 337mm (13.3in) including grille and terminals

Net Weight: 9.6kg (21.1lbs


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