Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series Diamond D5 speakers: a legend updated

(Above) Bowers & Wilkins 801 D5 speakers

One of the pre-eminent speaker designs of modern times, the Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series has been given a complete overhaul

BY JONATHAN BELL

Bowers & Wilkins has announced an upgraded version of its legendary 800 Series Diamond loudspeakers. Eschewing the clean rectangular box, the 800 Series Diamond are all about bulbous, expressive forms that reveal the shape and configuration of the drivers within.

The D5 version of the 800 Series incorporates a host of upgrades, both physical and mechanical, to reassert the speaker’s role at the pinnacle of the B&W line-up. The updates cover the entire 800 Series Diamond range, a total of seven different models that run from the 805 D5 stand-mount speaker to the HTM81 D5 and HTM82 D5 home theatre speakers with an additional centre channel driver.

Bowers & Wilkins 801 D5 in Stealth Black

The principal models in the range are the three-way floorstanding units, the 804 D5, 803 D5, 802 D5 and the flagship 801 D5. The last debuted back in 1979 as the 801, and while today’s curvaceous 801 D5 feels a thousand miles from the usual arrow-straight 1970s aesthetic, the original definitely bucked the trend.

With its faceted cabinet, the 801 introduced B&W’s signature ‘stacked’ placement of the high-range drivers, with separate enclosures for the 27cm woofer, 10cm midrange driver and the 26mm tweeter on top.

That configuration has been preserved down the years, and the D5 wears this distinction with pride. The new speaker includes four new finishes, Stealth Black, Warm White, Light Walnut and Dark Walnut, all of which are paired with internal and external aluminium components.

The latter pair with the four different finishes, from the Dark Walnut finish with its dark metal detailing and black Connolly leather trim to the Warm White, which uses champagne colour aluminium components. The same metal is used for the Light Walnut, while lovers of 1980s minimalism will probably plump for the sleek Stealth Black model.

Inside, the D5 features new aluminium space-frame bracing to give the cabinet more rigidity than ever before, banishing vibrations from the interior of the speaker. Each speaker is crafted at Bowers & Wilkins’ factory in Worthing, on the south coast of England.