800 Series Diamond Speakers
Client
Bowers & Wilkins
Year
2021
Type of Work
Design development
CMF development
Design for manufacture
What do you do when entrusted to continue the evolution of an icon? Our approach was to show respectful creativity and refine only when necessary. John Bowers, the co-founder of B&W, initiated the development of the 800 Series back in the late 1970s to create the most advanced loudspeaker ever made. Since then, they’ve evolved through a range of forms: from the 1980’s cuboidal form (loved so much by Luciano Pavarotti that he even sent B&W his drawing of them) to the 1990s and 2000s with their flat baffles and rear curving cabinets, through to the current curvaceous ‘reverse wrap’. Whatever the design, the fundamentals of the form have always remained the same: large bass cabinet, isolated mid-range ‘head’ and tweeter on top.
In 2019, B&W asked Goodwin Hartshorn to develop the latest manifestation, the 800D4 range. Building on the iconic form of previous incarnations, our role encompassed every aspect of their industrial design, from the all-new 804 and 805 models to the evolution in forms, details and CMF for the iconic 801, 802, 803 and centre channels. These extraordinary speakers are the embodiment of decades of technical development at Bowers & Wilkins and we are hugely honoured to have been entrusted with their design.
Like a Savile Row suit, the quality and elegance of these products speak for themselves – there is no need for conspicuous branding. Instead, we placed a very subtle logo on B&W’s iconic ‘tweeter-on-top’.
The cabinets are now capped with a die-casting to stiffen the cabinet and improve acoustics. This is covered with luxurious Connolly leather that complements the cabinet CMF.
