B&W 803 D3 Floorstanding Speakers - Clear Lacquered Walnut

For some people, it’s enough just to hear music. But some of us want more. We want to experience it - in its purest, most unadulterated form. To savour every nuance and detail. To feel as close to a musical performance as if we were there, with the artist at the moment it was recorded. At Bowers & Wilkins, we’ve been pursuing this dream for half a century. And now we’ve made our biggest leap forward yet. Welcome to the 800 Series Diamond.
Our approach to acoustic design and engineering has always been driven by relentless innovation - by questioning what went before, in order to make things better. With the 800 Series Diamond, our approach was no different. But this time, we’ve gone further than ever before. And the result is something truly radical.
The 800 Series isn’t just another speaker range. For decades, it’s served as the benchmark for high-end audio performance. So how do you improve on the best? Answer: you start from the beginning. So when we set out to create the new 800 Series Diamond, we went back to the drawing board, embarking on one of the most ambitious research and development projects we have ever undertaken. We’ve introduced a few changes. Eight hundred and sixty-eight of them, to be exact.
Using new computer modelling techniques, we examined every single element of the speaker, searching for the smallest weaknesses so we could understand how to overcome them. As a result, almost every component of every speaker has been reimagined from the ground up, from drive unit materials all the way to the position of screw fixings. The new 800 Series Diamond isn’t an evolution. It’s a revolution.
The 803 D3 is the first of its kind: a full-range, studio-quality speaker built for the home, and the most compact headed unit we’ve ever produced. While this elegant speaker comes in a living room-friendly size, it shares the same revolutionary technologies and design features as its larger sibling, including our Turbine head and reverse-wrap cabinet.

Features

Diamond Tweeter
Continuum Cone FST
Turbine head
Aerofoil cone bass units
Flowport
Optimised Matrix
Solid body tweeter
Anti-Resonance plug
Tweeter on top

WELCOME TO THE FUTURE The 800 Series Diamond is a game-changer in terms of technological innovation. From drive units to cabinet geometry, every major component has been rethought and reinvented. And the rulebook for loudspeaker design has been ripped up and rewritten in the process. The future of loudspeaker technology starts here.
TURBINE HEAD Hear the sound, not the cabinet. That’s the principle behind our separate head units - a feature we introduced when we launched the first 800 Series speaker in 1979. Now, thanks to a radical redesign, the 800 Series Diamond head unit performs better than ever. Constructed from a single piece of aluminium, braced with internal radial fins and with a raised, slimmer profile, the Turbine head is almost totally inert, producing a sound that’s free from cabinet coloration.
SOLID BODY TWEETER Vibration is the enemy of good sound. To minimise vibrations, you need components that are as stiff as possible. For the 800 Series Diamond, we created our stiffest tweeter enclosure yet. The tweeter assembly for the new range is housed in a solid piece of aluminium, while an improved gel decoupling system isolates the tweeter from the effects of cabinet resonance. The result? Pin-sharp acoustic detail, and new levels of insight into a musical performance.
CONTINUUM CONE For decades, we thought that nothing could beat Kevlar® as a midrange cone material. But now, following eight years of intensive development, we’ve finally come up with something even better. 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. And a giant leap forward for loudspeaker design.
AEROFOIL CONE Sometimes, new technologies allow us to achieve things in engineering that wouldn’t have been possible a few years ago. The Aerofoil bass cone is a perfect example. By using advanced computer modelling and a syntactic core material, we’ve been able to produce a cone of varying thickness, with maximum stiffness where it’s needed most. This optimised shape means the cone displays pistonic behaviour further up the audible range, producing bass that’s precise, controlled and utterly lifelike.
REVERSE WRAP CABINET When it came to designing the ideal shape for the 800 Series Diamond cabinet, we did a U-turn. Quite literally. Instead of a flat-fronted speaker with a curving back, we produced a cabinet with a front and sides formed of one continuous curve, held together with a spine of solid aluminium. Fewer joins make for a stiffer, more inert structure, and a curved front means less baffling around the drive units. So sound dispersion is improved, and cabinet reflection is reduced.
MATRIX™ Matrix provides the backbone for our speakers. It’s an internal structure that works like the bracing of a ship’s hull, with criss-crossed interlocking panels keeping our cabinets rigid and inert. For the 800 Series Diamond, we’ve introduced our most radical rethink of the Matrix concept yet. The internal panels are thicker, solid plywood has replaced MDF, and metal components have been added to reinforce key stress points. All together it’s the most solid Matrix system we’ve ever built.
PLINTH A great speaker needs a rock-solid foundation. By moving the crossover from the plinth to the main body of the speaker, we’ve been able to create a base for the 800 Series Diamond that’s more stable and resonance-resistant than ever. Replacing the original
open-box design, the new plinth is constructed from a solid piece of aluminium weighing in at a mighty 17 kg. This improves stability by lowering the centre of mass and counter-balancing the weight of the Turbine head.
DIAMOND DOMES Some things don’t change. While almost every component of the 800 Series Diamond has been reinvented, the element that gave the range its name remains unchanged: the speaker’s diamond tweeter domes. Our diamond domes remain the ultimate in tweeter technology, capable of unrivalled acoustic detail, naturalism and spaciousness.

Description: 3-way vented-box system
Drive Units:
1 × ø 25 mm diamond dome high-frequency
1 × ø 130 mm Continuum cone FST midrange
2 × ø 180 mm Aerofoil cone bass units
Frequency Range: 16 Hz to 35 kHz
Frequency Response: 19 Hz to 28 kHz (± 3 dB from reference axis)
Sensitivity: 90 dB (1 m on axis at 2.83 Vrms)
Harmonic Distortion: 2nd and 3rd harmonics (90 dB, 1 m on axis),
< 1% 70 Hz - 20 kHz; < 0.3% 100 Hz - 20 kHz
Impedance: 8.0 Ω (nominal); 3.0 Ω (min)
Recommended Amplifier Power: 50 W - 500 W into 8 V on unclipped programme
Max. Recommended Cable Impedance: 0.1 Ω
Dimensions: 1160 (H) x 334 (W) x 498 (D) mm
Weight: 65.5 kg

Turnaround

Orders will usually dispatched within 2 working days of receiving cleared payment.

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Carriers

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