BOWERS & WILKINS 802 Diamond

From outside there are only minor visual changes between the old D range and the new Diamond range of the 800’s and 802’s. There is a new logo (Bowers & Wilkins vs B&W), magnetically hold cloth grilles for a cleaner appearance, shiny metal rings around woofers and popular piano gloss as a new finish option. The woofers also have smaller dustcaps due to the internal changes of the driver motor assembly. More important innovations were done internally.

The new 800 series Nautilus tweeters are more thoroughly decoupled – apart from the internal isolation the padding that connects the tapered tube to the Marlan head was modified. The tweeters also feature 4 magnets in the motor to increase their sensitivity by 2dB and decrease the power needs by 40%, the enhanced dynamics and purity to be the consequence. The crossover was reworked using top of the line Mundorf’s silver/gold/oil capacitors. And finally the most relevant are the sonic changes.

The seamlessness of their 3-way design is where the new Diamonds made a leap forward. They still do not reach the point-source radiation pattern of the best speakers I have heard, yet the drivers are better integrated and dynamically aligned than any previous B&W’s model. Comparing the new 802 Diamond to 802D I also felt that the new model could perform with less stress and more ease - where the 802D was too much forward or started to be dynamically limited, the Diamond keeps its poise. When it comes to bass, the Diamonds‘ lows are more resolved, texturally more truthful and dynamic swings are faster. As the result they seem to be less full and not that much extended, but this is purely due to the new improved quality of the bass and has nothing to do with the frequency response. The 802D, in a sense, may have been more audiophile speakers thanks to their higher level of exposure of music details – though the new Diamonds do transfer even more detail clues to our ears, the detail is now better blended in and becomes the part of music.

There is bad news common for both the D range and the Diamond range: do not assume that the 802 is sonically identical to the 800 with just a smaller footprint. As far as the mids and highs are concerned, both are like twins in case of the new Diamond series (there were audible yet small differences with the D’s). Other than that the 800 Diamond’s internal volume and the way it is decoupled from the floor lends to the speaker a different level of authority and scale that significantly contributes to the realism of the listening experience.

As the 800 and 802 speakers are mostly identical in design, the details can be checked in the Bowers & Wilkins 800 Diamond review.