As pinnacle products within Bowers & Wilkins’ stable, Signature variants of its 800 models may be out of reach for many, but they are in fact relevant to anyone with an interest in the brand’s loudspeakers.
That’s because with Signature, Bowers isn’t one of those companies that just makes a few style tweaks to a product to raise its status and justify a price hike. What it also focuses on is refining a chosen speaker’s tech to squeeze that bit more performance from it. And what you get is a window into the future, as Signature advancements may then start to trickle further down Bowers’ speaker ranges in generations to come. It’s a sound business model, which gives Bowers a platform to continually push the envelope in a way that allows its wider (and cheaper) ranges to benefit over time.
Bowers & Wilkins 805 D4 Signature in ‘midnight’ metallic blue paint, lifted from the iconic Nautilus. ‘California Burl gloss wood’ is also available and equally as visually arresting
Of course even within the 800 Series Diamond, not all models get the Signature treatment, instead Bowers selects a standmount and floorstander only (from both its 800 and 700 Series). And for the former this means the mighty 801 D4 Signature at £47,500 (an £11.5k increase over the standard 801 D4), while the 805 D4 Signature on test here costs £11,750. This positions it at £3k more than the standard 805 D4 and only a couple of grand shy of the 804 D4 floorstander, making it squarely aimed at someone who may be tight on space, but not on expectations.
Being based on the standard 805 D4 (if indeed an 800 Series from Bowers & Wilkins can ever be really considered ‘standard’) you get all the top flight tech that comes on the original. So this means a compact cabinet that’s crafted using Bowers & Wilkins’ unique ‘reverse-wrap’ approach, with a curved front baffle for stiffness, while minimising front baffle reflections.
Added to this for Signature are new bespoke aluminium top plate designs for each model, with the 805 D4 Signature’s benefitting from two additional fixings.
800 Signature Series’s new mesh grille is the end result of 25 iterations that went into its development
A good grilling
A flagship ultra-stiff, 25mm diamond dome tweeter is there for high frequency duties, which Bowers describes as one of its ‘most significant accomplishments over the past two decades’, and is arguably at the core of the brand’s reputation for sonic accuracy.
This lives in its own solid aluminium bodied ‘tweeter-on-top’ elongated fluted housing, that’s decoupled from the main cabinet to minimise unwanted resonance – an approach Bowers has been finessing for some years.
What’s new though for the Signature model is its FEA (finite element analysis) optimised grille mesh – which highlights the levels Bowers has gone to, to ensure every aspect is optimised for sound quality. And this makes complete sense, as that grille is the closest element to the tweeter, being their to protect it, making it by default, the first external element that will influence its sound as those high frequencies leave the tweeter’s surface. Compared to the one found on the 805 D4 Diamond that’s been around since 2021, its mesh pattern is more open for a more ‘spacial’ sound with greater resolution.
Bowers & Wilkins’ Continuum cone’s origins go way back to its work in finding a material that improved on the Kevlar drivers that came before
For midrange and bass duties the speaker gets a 165mm (6.5″) version of the brand’s renowned and longstanding ‘Continuum’ cone, formed from a woven composite of Bowers’ own design, that now gets an improved motor system. This if further aided by a front facing bass ‘flowport’ for low frequency help (down to a claimed -34Hz (-6dB).
Of course any speaker can only sound as good as its crossover and how its implemented. For this improved version it’s still located within its own enclosure at the speaker’s rear (to isolate it from the effects of air pressure inside the cabinet) and now comes mounted on a stiff aluminium spine with uprated bypass capacitors that have also doubled in quantity vs the standard 805 D4.
Bowers’ front-firing bass flow ports, with their acoustically optimised texture
Leather rebel
And then there’s the two new Signaure level finishes – which are simply sublime. The real wood veneers of the standard 800 Diamond Series are by no means compromised or bland by any stretch, but the ‘California Burl’ gloss and ‘Midnight Blue’ metallic finishes of these models simply scream hifi exotica at its finest, so much so they may show up the rest of your home furniture by comparison if you’re not careful.
The Blue option we opted for gets eleven coats of paint and lacquer that’s machine polished (the paint application process alone takes over 18 hours of graft), which is finished off beautifully with blue leather trim (by Connolly) on its top plate.
Luxurious Conolly leather trim is colour matched to the Signature model’s cabinet
The final piece of the picture is the dedicated stands, which come in black or silver and cost £1,350 per pair with chunky spikes and rubber tipped studs, to accommodate hard or soft floor surfaces.
Standing to attention – the optional FS-805 D4 stands offer a stable support, aided by their thick baseplates
Being custom matched means their top plate is sized to the 805 D4 Signature’s base, complete with counter sunk bolts that align with threaded holes in each speaker’s underside for a solid and secure mating.
Whether spikes or studs, Bowers has you covered. Note the drilled holes to pass a supplied winding rod through for levelling the stands
Perfomance
There’s something about hi-end standmounts that’s hard to match with a big speaker, be it timing, a sense of composed recovery or eagerness for the music that larger boxes seem to lag behind.
And the 805 D4 Signature has this by the bucket load…and then some.
On the receiving end of AVID’s recently reviewed Accent integrated fed by Primare digital gear and SME/Avid tonearm with Nordost cables throughout, these speakers sound show-stopingly good. Arrestingly so.
Hearing A-Ha’s MTV Unplugged version of their seminal hit Take On Me at a lowly 16-bit/44kHz from our Bristol Show playlist shows what these speakers can really do with detail for a serious hairs on the back of the neck experience. Those delicate opening notes, that long floating vocal that somehow manages to be ethereal and direct all at once and the almost transcendental imaging tells you this speaker is something special that can do things few others in this product bracket can.
And it’s the devil in the detail that gets you. Take the third verse for example when the torn Levi’d Morton Harket starts to push his vocal that bit more. On many speakers he simply sounds that big louder, that bit firmer in the midrange, but what the 804 D5 Signature does is to somehow capture his vocal intent, affording it more presence and therefore, more realism.
Top-flight speaker terminals offer single, bi-wire and bi-amping options
And these qualities also shine through in the lower frequencies. With them positioned around 60cm and 1.2m from my rear and side walls in my dedicated listening room, Billie Eilish’s When The Party’s Over’s (at 24-bit/44k) lower registers are reassuringly forceful to drive my room with gusto, which is nothing short of impressive given its 30sqm footprint. Sure they’re not as pile driving as some multi-drivered monsters at this price, but that’s not really the point, as what the Bowers focus on is precision. Hear the way those lower notes come in, build and then pull back with total control is where their hat is firmly hung.
I could wax on about edge of the seat pinpoint notes, exceptional focus and almost supernatural timing to underline all of the above but it’s what these attributes do in combination where the real result of this speaker’s achievement lies.
A spin through Sam Fender’s epic Seventeen Going Under LP sums up just how enjoyable these speakers are, with the title track’s energy, clarity and visceral emotion shining through so much I’m hankering for a 125 on L plates, twenty Benson and a night on the tiles – so much so that many rivals’ offerings sound frankly boring in comparison.
In summary
Having lived with these speakers for some weeks, they’re a hard hifi partner to give up. In many ways they’re serious, they’re hi-end accurate, yet, perhaps surprisingly, they’re also bags of fun – because against my own preconceptions they’re not out to be ruthlessly revealing of a given system or recording’s flaws, instead they’re ruthlessly good at revealing the music and taking you closer to it. For those that can aspire to the creme of Bowers 800 crop, you’re in for a treat.
