Stand Loudspeaker Reviews

The "Bowers" in the name of British manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) refers to founder John Bowers, whom I got to know fairly well before he passed in 1987. In recent years, I've reviewed two Bowers & Wilkins loudspeakers: the 705 Signature two-way standmount in the December 2020 issue and the Diamond Series 804 D4 three-way floorstander in the January 2022 issue. More recently, Tom Fine reviewed the three-way, floor-standing Signature Series 801 D4 in March 2024.

Currently there are two models in the Signature Series, which was launched in 2023 to pay tribute to the company's groundbreaking John Bowers Silver Signature from the early 1990s: the 801 D4 and the subject of this review, the two-way 805 D4 standmount, which B&W describes as its "highest performance standmount ever."

The Signature Series 805 D4
While the standard-quality Diamond 805 D4, which remains in production, costs $9500/pair, the Signature model costs $13,500/pair. (Matching FS-805 D4 stands cost $1600/pair.) Superficially, the two speakers look identical except for the finish—see below—but there are significant differences.

The drive units are the 1" Diamond Series tweeter, with its 40µm-thick, vapor-deposited diamond dome, housed in its own rear-vented, tapered aluminum tube on top of the elliptical-plan woofer enclosure, and a 6.5" woofer with a cone formed from B&W's silver-colored, woven-composite material, which it calls Continuum. Continuum is said to have very high self-damping, and the cone is terminated with a large-diameter rubber roll surround. The woofer enclosure's internal Matrix construction is reinforced with aluminum bracing. The woofer is reflex loaded with a large, flared, dimpled port on the curved front baffle. Its motor has an upgraded pole on the magnet and a larger vent hole. B&W says that these changes offer improved current distortion, a cleaner delivery through the midrange, and more extended low frequencies. The grille covering the tweeter has had its acoustical transparency optimized (while retaining stiffness) with Finite Element Analysis (FEA); another way of putting it is, the holes are bigger. The claimed benefit s enhanced resolution and spaciousness.

Electrical connection is made with two pairs of high-quality binding posts at the base of the vertically ribbed aluminum rear panel, just as with the standard 805. The crossover has been upgraded with new, doubled bypass capacitors, and the structure of the aluminum plate at the top of the woofer enclosure has been modified to reduce unwanted noise and vibration from the structure. Specifically, holes are carved out of the top plate at strategic points, which Andy Kerr, B&W's director of product marketing & communications, said "narrows the resonances in band and pushes them upwards in frequency," making them easier to damp. The top plate is covered with a bespoke Leather by Connolly trim.

Like the 801 D4 Signature, the 805 D4 Signature is available in two exclusive finishes. My review samples had the Midnight Blue Metallic finish, which features 11 machine-polished coats of paint and lacquer. The alternative finish is a California Burl Gloss wood veneer, sustainably sourced from Italian specialist ALPI and featuring 14 coats of lacquer.

I don't usually express an opinion on how a loudspeaker looks—just on how it sounds—but the Midnight Blue Metallic–finished 805 D4 Signature is drop-dead gorgeous!

Setting up
I used 24"-high, single-pillar Celestion stands with the 805 D4 Signatures. These placed the tweeters 40" from the floor, which is 4" above the height of my ears in my listening chair. (The custom B&W stands are approximately the same height.) I experimented with the positions to optimize the blend between the upper bass and lower midrange. The speakers ended up with their front baffles 70" from the wall behind the speakers and 142" from my listening chair. The low frequencies were somewhat lightweight, but I couldn't move the speakers closer to the front wall to get the benefit of boundary reinforcement due to the two stairs to the vestibule behind the right-hand speaker. My room is also somewhat asymmetrical, so the drive units of the left-hand speaker were 34" from the LPs that line the nearest sidewall, those of the right-hand speaker 55" from the books that line its sidewall. As always I started with the speakers aimed at my listening position, but I ended up toeing them in slightly more, so that their axes crossed a foot in front of me. This gave the optimal top-octave balance.

For my critical listening sessions, I used a pair of Parasound JCA100 Tribute monoblocks to drive the B&Ws, biwiring the speakers with AudioQuest Robin Hood Combo speaker cables. Source was the MBL N31 processor fed network data from my Roon Nucleus+ and connected directly to the Parasound amplifiers. For everyday listening on the hot July days that I had the 805 D4 Signatures in my system, I used my cool-running NAD M10 integrated amplifier, which has a class-D output stage. The M10 was also fed network data from the Nucleus+.

Listening to test tones
I started my critical listening with the diagnostic test tones on the Stereophile Editor's Choice CD (Stereophile STPH016-2; no longer available). The 1/3-octave warble tones extended cleanly and evenly from 200 to 125Hz, with then the 100Hz and 80Hz bands a little quieter. The 63Hz band was slightly higher in level than the 80Hz, and the 50Hz and 40Hz bands were successively quieter. Boosted by the lowest-frequency mode in my room, the 32Hz tone was louder, and the 25Hz and 20Hz tones were inaudible at my normal listening level. I heard no wind noise "chuffing" from the ports. The half-step–spaced tonebursts on Editor's Choice were reproduced evenly, and I didn't hear any high-level resonant modes when

I listened to the sidewalls with a stethoscope while I played these tones. I did hear some liveliness between 800Hz and 1kHz on the ribbed-metal back panel, but this will be inconsequential.

The dual-mono pink-noise track on Editor's Choice was reproduced as a narrow central image, with no splashing to the sides. My ears were only level with the tweeters if I sat up straight, but the sonic signature didn't change appreciably when I slumped to my usual position. When I stood up, the balance acquired a hollow character.

Listening to music
Enough test tones! To avoid the "Circle of Confusion"—the notion that the sound quality of an audio component can't be judged using a recording with unknown sound quality—the first music recording I played was from Molto Molto (24/96 WAV, Stereophile STPH-023; also available from Qobuz and Tidal), an album of three classical-themed works that Sasha Matson had composed for a jazz big band. I produced Molto Molto, the final album released on the Stereophile label, so I am intimately familiar with its sound quality.

Listening to the third movement of Sasha's Concerto for Piano & Jazz Orchestra—the album's title track—I was struck by how natural the recording sounded. Flutes, clarinets, saxophones, trumpets, and trombones were all reproduced with the correct tonalities, double bass had an excellent combination of articulation and midbass weight, and every instrument was stably and accurately placed in the soundstage. The piano, played by the incomparable Adam Birnbaum, had been close-miked by Ryan Streber, who placed it in the mix in front of the band. Because it was close-miked, the piano sounds more percussive than was strictly accurate. The B&W 805 D4 Signatures didn't exaggerate this characteristic, although when I listened again to this piece with the NAD M10 replacing the Parasound monoblocks, the sound hardened somewhat as I turned up the volume. (See the Measurements sidebar for the possible reason.)