News

3/9/2003

Bowers & Wilkins Bows Speakers for Flat Screens

Three New Models Designed and Dimensioned for Plasma, LCD Displays

Bowers & Wilkins (B&W Loudspeakers), the British firm that ranks among the world's preeminent makers of loudspeakers for high-performance music and home theater systems, has unveiled a new range conceived to complement the plasma- and LCD-technology "flat-screen" displays increasingly found at the center of today's high-end home-theater systems. B&W's new Flat Panel Monitor (FPM) Series consists of three models carefully sized to complement the standard dimensions of large-format flat-screen TVs, with the FPM4 matching the vertical screen size of 42-inch-diagonal sets, and the FPM5 and FPM6 setting off 50- and 60-inch models, respectively.

Each new model is a three-driver design with dual mid/woofers flanking a centered tweeter, and, despite their compact sizes and minimal depth, each offers incontrovertibly B&W-grade performance packaged with all the elegance that flat-panel video-display-system owners insist upon. The new FPMs all include an elegant shelf/table-top mount as well as integral hardware for wall mounting using standard hardware (optional), and any of the three may be easily reconfigured for horizontal placement, as for center-channel use.

"B&W makes no claim of being the first to address this new market of plasma-based home theater systems, and we surely will not be the last," says B&W Loudspeakers Executive Vice President Chris Browder.

"But we do take pride in being the first to answer these owners' sonic needs with speakers that are rigorously engineered to fit the application, that deliver true musical and accurate balance, can reproduce the cinematic dynamic potential and all the detail, transparency, and quickness that every serious music and home theater fan comes to demand, regardless of their system's screen type."

To accomplish these goals, B&W turned first to its proprietary driver and enclosure technologies. All three FPM models utilize the firm's famous 1-inch alloy-dome tweeter and take advantage of the firm's equally renowned Nautilus-technology tapered-tube "enclosure." This bit of engineering innovation, borrowed from B&W's Nautilus range of reference designs, almost totally absorbs the acoustically destructive back wave, enhancing this driver's vivid transparency and extraordinary detailed treble.

For the midrange and bass frequencies, B&W developed two renditions of its long-admired woven-Kevlar(tm) cone low-frequency driver, a 4-inch version used in the FPM4 and FPM5, and a 5-inch version found in the larger FPM6. Both drivers share the B&W hallmark of unequaled freedom from internal resonance and vibration, and superb stiffness-to-mass ratio, which translate to superb bass definition and attack and to equally superb midrange detail, smoothness, and low-level resolution. The three FPMs share the "two-and-a-half-way" design B&W has long favored for many of its more compact models. One of the low-frequency drivers covers just the bass octaves, while the second operates over the full bass-midrange region, an arrangement that promotes both bass weight and impact, as well as midrange quality and transient energy. As a result, the B&W FPMs produce ample low-frequency extension and slam to "reach" the system's subwoofer with effortless dynamics and a seamless blend while retaining the "invisible" vocal and instrumental sound expected from a B&W design.

The FPM4, FPM5, and FPM6 are similarly constructed, employing extruded-aluminum enclosures (the only practicable way to achieve such remarkable slimness (4.1-inches depth for the FPM4 and 5, and 4.6-inches depth for the FPM6) while retaining adequate enclosure volume). With its integrated internal bracing and anti-resonance cross-section shape, this high-tech structure produces an extraordinarily rigid, vibration-free-and thus coloration-free-cabinet. Combined with B&W's proprietary FlowPort(tm) enclosure vent, whose dimpled surface eliminates audible turbulence, this produces clearer, more dramatically defined reproduction throughout the bass and midrange octaves.

Put it all together and you have, for the first time, a range of speakers that combines a low profile suitable for flat-screen systems with the sonic refinement and dynamic potential required by no-compromise audio and home-theater fans. And B&W's new FPM4, FPM5, and FPM6 carry this high standard to the visual side as well, being offered in three finishes calculated to complement the full range of flat-screen monitors available today: black lacquer frame and grille; anthracite frame and grille, and brushed aluminum with silver grille. In all three versions, the enclosure body, tabletop/shelf stand, and brackets are provided in brushed aluminum/silver.

www.bwspeakers.com