Signature 800 Series Marks B&W Loudspeakers' 35th Anniversary

Improved Flagship Redefines ""State Of The Art""

29-Jun-01

Some three years after the introduction of its Nautilus Series loudspeakers set new standards of performance for audio reproduction, Britain's B&W Loudspeakers has chosen its thirty-fifth anniversary to unveil an important advancement further along the same path. Just as the original Nautilus 801 flagship model brought the dynamic realism, timbral accuracy, and clarity of detail of reproduced sound to new heights, the Signature 800, kingpin of B&W's latest Signature Series delivers further gains in these key areas and more. At the same time, the Signature 800 and its supporting cast of Signature HTM center and Signature SCM surround models, commemorate the 35th anniversary of the firm's founding with stunningly refined design and unexcelled quality of woodworking, and finish. ""Somewhere 'up there,' [company founder] John Bowers is smiling,"" says B&W Loudspeakers Executive Vice President Chris Browder, ""because the Signature 800 is far from just a change in form-factor or a cosmetic upgrade, or the most lavishly formed and finished speaker ever: It incorporates everything we've learned, over more than a third of a century, about superior acoustic design,"" continues Browder, ""The Signature 800 is also a wonderful illustration of a classic B&W scenario: once a development project begins, its ultimate form and outcome is a bit unpredictable. Mike Gough, our Senior Product Manager at the Steyning [U.K.] Research Center, probably said it best when he observed that even though he had originally expected only incremental improvements from the Signature 800, the end result was far different. Mike said, 'Ötime after time, I was struck by the Signature's improvements in dynamism and detail-retrieval - improvements that were anything but subtle.'""The Signature 800, accompanied by the upgraded Signature HTM and Signature SCM center - and surround channel models, includes both improved components and all-new elements. In place of the original Nautilus 801's single 15-inch bass driver, the Signature 800 employs twin 10-inch units - but each one is driven by the identical ""motor"" structure from the earlier design's single woofer. This doubling of drive capacity, with the same effective piston-area, yields improved bass dynamics for even more natural, lifelike attack, and also delivers more forgiving in-room acoustical interaction. Equally important, the new bass system also promotes a significantly narrower, more elegantly formed cabinet that proves a good deal more livable cabinet for real-world interiors.In the midrange, the Signature 800 retains the familiar, spherical head enclosure crafted of B&W's proprietary, acoustically optimized Marlanô man-made material, housing an improved version of its trademark 6-inch FST Kevlarô driver. However, the Signature's evolution now exploits a more powerful Neodymium-Iron-Boron magnet structure - combined with a thicker top-plate, this high-tech magnet's smaller diameter both lowers harmonic distortion and reduces time-domain ""smearing"" distortions, for still clearer, more defined vocal and instrumental timbres. The acclaimed Nautilus high-frequency driver also came in for incremental development, raising its useful top-end limit to an unprecedented 50 kHz. This achievement is very much in step with the new generation of ultra-wideband SACD and DVD-Audio recordings, for which the original Nautilus 800 has already been widely accepted as the production monitoring reference standard.Recognizing that multichannel music playback as well as home theatre reproduction are important features of the current audio landscape, B&W has simultaneously introduced Signature Series editions of its top-line center and surround channel models, the Signature HTM and SCM. Each enjoys the enhanced performance of the newly-refined midrange and tweeter transducers, for elevated timbral accuracy and detail retrieval, maintaining a cohesive surround reproduction whole with the Signature 800.Entirely in the tradition of earlier B&W Signature Series, the Signature 800, HTM, and SCM feature remarkable craftsmanship and finish. The 800's enclosure's elegantly curved back and side paneling, of hand-selected Tiger's Eye veneers, is luxuriously finished in piano-gloss lacquer while the speaker's top and front surfaces are upholstered with the finest, unblemished black Connolly leathers - the same found in Rolls-Royce, Bentley, and Aston-Martin automobiles. The Signature HTM and SCM are produced in matching Tiger's Eye veneers, with matching piano-gloss finish.The Signature 800's cabinet redesign provided an opportunity for more than just an aesthetic makeover. Supporting the new model both physically and electro-acoustically is a massive, non-resonant aluminum ""plinth"" base. This also houses improved crossover circuitry where it is entirely free from the signal-modulating influences of large ferrous metal masses and moving magnetic fields. The Signature 800's crossover exploits prodigious, custom-engineered polypropylene capacitors and air-core inductors throughout, and makes its connections via all-new, WBT type 0702 palladium-plated terminals for ultimate signal transfer and longevity.The B&W Signature 800, HTM, and SCM will be available in July, 2001, with the following manufacturer suggested retail prices: Signature 800: $20,000 per pairSignature HTM: $3,000 eachSignature SCM: $3,000 per pairFor more information about B&W Loudspeakers, visit www.bwspeakers.com.

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