40th Anniversary BW Signature Diamond! Wow or Ow?

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Joey_V

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Here is the 40th Anniversary Edition, BW Signature Diamond speaker! It's supposed to be a killer 2-way speaker, possibly similar to the vaunted Magico Minis... and at an altogether semi-affordable price of $20,000.

So here it is, in all its glory - from the marble tweeter enclosure to the superbly cut midrange/woofer phase plug!

What do you guys think?

SignatureDiamond_09_l2_w817_h328.jpg

SignatureDiamond_02_l2_w817_h328.jpg

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It's hard to get a feel for how BIG it is...

I'm not a big fan of BW stuff, but it looks nice. $20K is a lot of coin, though... I would much rather use that money to get a pair of Summits and another Pass Labs amp!! :D
 
Its just over 3' high I think.....$18k, and it is very limited...so limited, in fact, that the memo I read today from the rep. mentioned they may pre-sell all available before the official launch. We will see. Its a nice looking speaker...a bit avant guarde, but I like it. Especially in white. I wish they would make a matching sub for it though.....you will definitely need one. Its a collectors piece...I am sure it will sound very good as well.
 
I wouldn't mind one for the bedroom though.... or a simple 2ch system. (As if I had the cash.... lol!)

To me, they look rather contemporary and rather sexy in a weird demure sort of way.. I bet they sound good, but not sure if they sound $18K good.

Joey
 
GAG ME! I am with Tom on this one, buy a pair of Summit's and a PassLabs amp and blow these BW's away! Like many here, they do NOTHING for me!

Ouch, shouldnt we listen to it before we make the assumption of blowing anything away? But in all fairness, I probably agree.:eek:
 

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I think that's a TON of money for ANY 2 way speaker. The finish looks amazing, but, having been doing a ton of research on tweeters and woofers lately for my own project, I've realized that you can get the top of the line performance wise for less than $500 a pair. The Kevlar, while fancy and exotic looking, causes breakup nodes (higher distortion points) in the midrange (similar to any particularly rigid cone material) which causes a lower ideal crossover point for the tweeter...which isn't ideal, since the transient response of a tweeter declines (as does it's output ability and distortion performance (ie distortion rises))

I'm sure there are a lot of effective 2 way designs, but using a rigid woofer like that kevlar one seems like it's better suited for a 3 way design with a dedicated midrange. But, that's just speculation without measurements of the exact drivers being used.

$20k for ANY 2 way is unimaginable to me. If it had a plasma supertweeter on it....MAYBE. :D
 
I think that's a TON of money for ANY 2 way speaker. The finish looks amazing, but, having been doing a ton of research on tweeters and woofers lately for my own project, I've realized that you can get the top of the line performance wise for less than $500 a pair. The Kevlar, while fancy and exotic looking, causes breakup nodes (higher distortion points) in the midrange (similar to any particularly rigid cone material) which causes a lower ideal crossover point for the tweeter...which isn't ideal, since the transient response of a tweeter declines (as does it's output ability and distortion performance (ie distortion rises))

Understood completely....

I think that perhaps the Diamond tweeter is the best tweeter to pair up with the kevlar since the diamond tweeter is able to reach lower before break up/distort.
 
Understood completely....

I think that perhaps the Diamond tweeter is the best tweeter to pair up with the kevlar since the diamond tweeter is able to reach lower before break up/distort.

Perhaps. It's hard to tell without measurements of the woofer and tweeter. I don't doubt it sounds good...I just doubt that it sounds as good as other, much cheaper designs could....nor do I think that it would sound as good as a 3 way using a smaller midrange and a larger woofer...but here I am speculating again.

Just looked on the website. Crossover frequency is 3.8khz! That's much higher than I would have expected to a 7" driver I would expect beaming from a 7" driver at 3.8khz would be crazy. There would also likely be breakup nodes on the kevlar driver much lower than that. Also crossing over that high requires a much faster crossover rolloff to avoid cancellation out of phase, than it would if it were crossed lower.

My understanding of the diamond tweeter is that the rigidity of the material allowed for much lower moving mass, resulting in a much more detailed presentation...as opposed to the ability to cross lower. As you cross a tweeter lower, you run out of power handling (as you reach the limits of the tweeter's excursion), but it appears it's crossed plenty high to avoid that.

Also, I think having a rounded enclosure for the tweeter like that gives you about the worst possible baffle step effect.

Don't have as much info on the Magico Minis, but would certainly be interested to know more about those as well. At first glance, they appear to be a better product to me than the B&Ws

Everything I've said comes from what I obsessively read about speaker design, but is by no means an expert opinion (ie, I could very easily be wrong about ALL of it! :D). Maybe they have really good reasons for doing everything they're doing...and maybe it has a great result. It just seems like it would take some serious fairy dust to overcome the issues they've created for themselves with that design.
 
Eh....

I dunno.... I just don't know about the B&W stuff lately. I have listened to the 803 and they sounded pretty good, but for 20,000$ lets see what I could do....

Summits 10k
Stage 3.5k
Scripts 2k

thats about 15 or so leaving me another 5k for amps and cables.


I wholeheartedly do not believe the B&W is worth it.
 
I could buy a new Rolex, a new turntable, another pair of Summits, and still have some change...
 
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Ouch, shouldnt we listen to it before we make the assumption of blowing anything away? But in all fairness, I probably agree.:eek:

Nah, I don't need to do that. It is UGLY! I'd rather have ML's, Duevel, or my fav's the MBL's!!! I am pretty sure they won't sound ANY better than those speakers anyway, so why buy something you don't like to look at. Of course YMMV, everybody like the looks of different things... I just don't like B&W (and frankly I have not heard any I liked the sound of either, but that is another story!)
 

YUP! That would be to expensive to compare to the B&W, but yea, I LOVE the Cayman! You know that Joey! You get down here to Austin w/ the Cayman and I'll get you all hooked up with the local Porsche Club and we will have some good MLO meetings here and wherever you live too!

Steve (slowgeezer) is looking at having a Cayman in 2 years!! He will be living in Austin by then! Heck, we might be able to have combined Porsche club and MLO club meetings at the same time! LOL! :rocker:
 
Ouch, shouldnt we listen to it before we make the assumption of blowing anything away? But in all fairness, I probably agree.:eek:

Ooooh....we're supposed to LISTEN to them! I see! I thought they were a piece of medical equipment of some kind.... :eek:
 

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