Bowers & Wilkins 800D3 & New B&W Formation Music Evening At Audio T Bristol

Join us on Thursday 24th October at 7pm at Audio T Bristol and hear Bowers & Wilkins legendary 800 D3 Series, one of the most iconic and revered loudspeakers in the world today!

The sleepy coastal town of Worthing might not seem to be a hot bed of Hi-Fi innovation, but in the 1960s one man lead the way - John Bowers. For over half a century Bowers and Wilkins has been at the forefront of music experience - to savour every nuance and detail in its purest form as the artists' intended. Then again Worthing defined from the Old English personal name Worth (meaning "valiant one, one who is noble", so maybe destiny was at work…

The iconic 800s series is the flagship class that stretches back to the late 1990s beginning with incorporating nautilus technologies, the separate top mounted tweeter housing and the synonymous yellow Kevlar woven speaker cone.

Change, evolution and relentless innovation in acoustic design and engineering are the cornerstones of B&W and today's 800 series diamond have gone further than before with B&W embarking on one of their most ambitious R&D projects ever undertaken - to re-imagine an icon from the ground up, while expanding the range and maintaining the musicality. Starting with the 805’s two way bookshelf, 804’s three way floorstanders, with material quality, cabinet finish, driver size, frequency response and overall sound stage performance rising through 803’s, 802’s & the top of the range 800’s

B&W product range continues to grow, with their audio expertise finding it's way into BMW, Maserati and McLaren cars, headphones and their Formation range, a whole home audio meshing solution.

At the Bowers & Wilkins 800 D3 Music evening at Audio T Bristol you will also be able to experience the new Formation wireless speaker range from B&W, bringing high level speaker innovation, seamless synchonisation with allowing to play your music from whatever source you have digital or analogue. The product line that began with the award winning Zeppelin has now evolved into an array of wireless solutions providing minimalist multi-room musical bliss.

For some people it's enough to hear music, but for some it's a life long journey an all encompassing hobby, others have just never heard the difference. Join us on THURSDAY 24TH OCTOBER FROM 7:30PM at Audio T Bristol with Matt from B&W as he guides us through the Formation series and 800 range and enjoy an evening experience new levels of music performance.

Click here to reserve your place at this not to be missed event or come along on the day.

We look forward to seeing you. Max, James & Justin.

Bowers & Wilkins 800 D3 Series Update!

We are thrilled to announce that our B&W 800 D3 speaker range is now complete!

Here is 803 D3 in our demonstration room looking ravishing in rosenut and sounding equally magnificent powered by the PMC Cor amplifier.

And now for the icing on the cake…..

The totally stunning 802 D3 looking glorious in their flawless deep gloss black finish. Despite their substantial stature we have been amazed and delighted with the sheer clarity and scale of sound achieved in our modest demonstration room. The PMC Cor has proven itself more than capable of taking full control of 802 D3 to create a totally convincing and beguiling musical experience. Many’s the time we have had to drag ourselves away from extended listening sessions to deal with more mundane duties!

Give your ears a treat and give us a call to book a demonstration in store. All of the 800 D3 speakers are brilliant so don’t forget we also have 805 and 804 in store.

See you soon!

Alan, John and Wayne - Audio T Southampton.

Bowers & Wilkins 800 loudspeakers are available from the following branches of Audio T: Bristol, Southampton.

All other B&W ranges are available the following branches: Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Enfield, Manchester, Oxford, Portsmouth, Preston, Southampton, Swansea, Swindon

Diamond News! B&W 800 Series Arrives At Audio T Southampton!

We are thrilled to announce that we have been appointed stockists of B&W’s legendary 800 series speakers! It is a great honour to be one of the elite retailers entrusted with this flagship range, which are quite rightly lauded as amongst the finest speakers in the world.

800 D3 is the latest incarnation of these no compromise speakers, taking everything B&W learned from previous generations, and further refining to achieve even higher levels of transparency and musical performance. Nothing is left to chance. B&W’s fifty years of design development and engineering has resulted in a truly outstanding range of speakers, each capable of bringing music to life like no other.

In store, we already have the Prestige version of 805 D3, finished in simply stunning Santos Rosewood.

We also have the magnificent 804 D3 available for demo immediately.

They will soon be joined by 803 D3 and 802 D3. We can’t wait, having been bowled over by the remarkable effortless musicality of their smaller siblings in our dem room!

Watch this space for further updates. In the meantime, do call us to book a demo. You won’t be disappointed!

Alan, John and Wayne

Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series loudspeakers are available from the following branches of Audio T: Bristol, Southampton

Bowers & Wilkins other speaker ranges are available from the following branches: Brentwood, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Enfield, Manchester, Oxford, Portsmouth, Preston, Southampton, Swansea, Swindon

Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series Now Available At Audio T Bristol

We are very proud to take our love of Bowers and Wilkins speakers to the next level, and welcome the 800 Diamond series to the Bristol shop. We have all models from the 800 range on demonstration and boy do they sound good!

The range starts with the 805; a classic standmount and an excellent entry into the 800 series.

We move swiftly on to the floor standers, starting with the 804 then onwards and upwards with the 803, 802 and the unbelievably good 800.

The Bowers and Wilkins 800 D3 loudspeaker. Perfect fit for our dem room.

We all went to the factory in Worthing, a couple of weekends ago, to get trained up on the range and be introduced to the amazing manufacturing techniques developed by Bowers to make these fabulous speakers.

All lined up and ready to bring a smile to many peoples faces.

The factory is now dedicated to the production of the 800 Diamond series and watching the staff do their work was an experience in itself. They are all obviously passionate about what they do and the standards are so high that you can pretty much guarantee, all the products leave the factory perfect. It is even in the employees contracts that they are not allowed to drink alcohol the night before they have work to ensure a steady hand.

The matrix. This is what allows you to here the music and not the cabinet.

We all came back to Bristol having thoroughly enjoyed the trip. A bus mans holiday it certainly wasn’t and we couldn’t wait to get back to the shop and listen to our 800’s. They are here if you want to indulge.

We will be doing in depth reviews as well as dedicated listening events in the very near future.

Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series are available from the following branches of Audio T:

Audio T Brentwood, Audio T Bristol

Bowers & Wilkins loudspeakers are available from the following branches of Audio T:

Brentwood, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Enfield, Manchester, Oxford, Portsmouth, Preston, Southampton, Swansea, Swindon

Seeing How They Are Made: The Bowers and Wilkins 800 Series Loudspeakers

We recently had the opportunity to visit the Worthing based production facility for Bowers and Wilkins 800 series speakers to see first hand how their flagship range are made.

We were greeted at the door by the iconic Nautilus loudspeaker, this one resplendent in its Union Flag livery.

Our guide to the process and factory was Peter, who has been working for Bowers and Wilkins for more than 25 years. He took us around the complete production facility explaining processes and technologies along the way in a very informative, and entertaining, way.

One example of this was the machine used for forming the cabinet for 800 series. This is created from multiple layers of wood and glue which are formed at high pressure and temperature by folding down across a folder like this:

The tour was like the audiophile version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with a huge array of machines and people finishing, sanding, painting etc etc.

We saw the famous Bowers and Wilkins Matrix being inserted into one of the 800 series floorstanders.

The Matrix is assembled separately

With the cabinet prised apart by metal jaws the matrix is positioned and glued into place. When the jaws are released the natural spring of the cabinet form will add compression to the matrix

Peter was full of interesting information most of which highlighted the amount of time and care which goes into making these speakers. They are not just built, they are truly hand crafted!

From paint which is applied in up to 13 layers with a four day drying time for each layer, to creating, forming, and metalising the Continuum cones for the drivers everything is done with so much care and attention to detail. The people who work at this production facility are justifiably proud of the products they create!

The factory also produces the iconic Nautilus speakers and the Custom Theatre range which includes beasts like this:

it’s big!!

Also some funky special edition colours.

All in all we were incredibly impressed with the dedication of the people on site and the pride and care which was taken over every aspect of the production of these phenomenal 800 D3 speakers.

Part of the production floor

Alien anyone?

The finished article

We came away with a new found admiration and respect for the Bowers and Wilkins 800 D3 series

We already knew they sounded stunning, now we have a better understanding of why due to the care and attention to detail that goes into creating them,

Last but not least these two poor cabinets were marked “no partner” maybe they need a dating app? I’m thinking Timbr possibly!

The Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series are available for demonstration at the following branches of Audio T:

Brentwood, Bristol

Bowers & Wilkins 800 D3 Series Event a Resounding Success!

Last Wednesday evening we held a fantastic Bowers & Wilkins 800 D3 Series listening event at the Norwegian Church in Cardiff. Colleagues from both Cardiff and Swansea branches were in attendance as well as representatives from Bowers & Wilkins, Chord Electronics and The Chord Company. Over 50 guests attended to hear some fantastic sounds from some of the best Hi-Fi in the world.

The evening began with a presentation from B&W representatives of the progression of the 800 series. Attendees were treated to music played on the 805 D3, 804 D3, 803 D3, and 800 D3 in turn. While the whole range sounded fantastic it was brilliant to able to hear more and more of the music come to life as we moved up the series the jump between the more traditional looking 804 D3 to the more unique shaped 803 D3 was particuly stunning. You could see the amazement all around the room.

As we were taken up through the range the representatives from B&W took us through the technology and build processes that make these speakers so great, we have a few recent blogs on this as well such as our B&W factory tour and reviews on the 800 D3 series so make sure to have a read of those. The Norwegian Chuch is admittedly not the best space acousticly but the further up the series we went the more the sound filled the room and the immersion of the music was fantastic.

Worth the drive!

The B&W 800 D3 series certainly needs plenty of power to be driven at their best,  especially in the large room of the Norwegion Church, luckily we had Chord Electronics involved and their system provided that power in spades.

We were treated to some top tier electronics and streamed music to the outstanding DAVE DAC which we also used as a pre-amplifier and played CD's from the BLU MK. 2. These sources then were routed through a pair of the Immense SPM1400 Mk.II Mono power amplifiers, providing a whopping 480 watts to each channel! We had a facsinating overview of the equipment from a representative from Chord and then listening to more music with a focus on the electronics.

We were very pleased to welcome Rob Watts to the event, Rob is the man who designed, amongst many others, the DAVE DAC and he gave an insightful talk on his design process and about the inner workings of the DAVE.

All of the staff from Audio T Cardiff and Swansea would like to thank everyone who attended the event and especially the reprsentatives form the manufacturers who give very enlightning and intresting talks on their products. The whole B&W 800 D3 series is currently on demonstration at the Cardiff shop so please get in touch for a one on one demonstration.

The B&W 800 D3 series is only available in the Cardiff store.

All other Bowers & Wilkins Hi-Fi products are available from the following branches of Audio T:
Brentwood, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Enfield, Manchester, Oxford, Portsmouth, Preston, Reading, Southampton, Swansea, Swindon