Bowers & Wilkins CMC 2 wenge

Aluminum Tweeters

Most Bowers & Wilkins speakers feature aluminum dome tweeters. The combination of lightness and stiffness that characterizes them allows them to reproduce the subtleties of music with astonishing precision, like delicate brushstrokes on the surface of a cymbal. Our latest tweeters have a “crowned” voice coil and a silver-plated pole base, extending the bandwidth by more than an octave beyond the limits of human hearing, making a separate “super tweeter” unnecessary.

Kevlar

Kevlar has been the material of choice for Bowers & Wilkins speaker cones since 1974, and for good reason. Not only does it deliver more transparent sound, but it also covers a wider range. Today, almost all Bowers & Wilkins speakers are equipped with this distinctive yellow cone.

FST

The FST midrange driver optimizes the effects of Kevlar by improving the cone’s temporal response and the overall integrity of the sound transmission. Since a midrange driver’s cone does not have large excursions, Bowers & Wilkins was able to make the shape of this surround almost “invisible”. This midrange driver produces the purest sound a driver of this type is capable of today.

Tapered Nautilus Tube

Not all sounds emitted by a speaker are good to hear. The sound created at the rear of a functioning speaker, in a conventional enclosure, can even become so invasive that it degrades the sound emitted from the front of the cone. The pioneering Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus speaker definitively solved the problem of “boxes”. Progressively tapered rear-loading tubes filled with absorbent wadding gradually attenuate the energy of this rear wave, virtually eliminating any undesirable resonance.

Crossover

We conduct numerous listening tests, rigorously evaluating the performance of each component until we find the optimal component for each position in the circuit. Tuning by ear is only possible if the crossover is simple and the section of it, which perhaps benefits from our learning-by-listening policy, is the part processing the signal for the tweeter. In most Bowers & Wilkins speakers, it is handled by a single component, chosen by listening, which preserves the most precise details.

Speakers

• Aluminum dome tweeter with Nautilus tube loading
• Diameter: 25 mm
• 2 Kevlar woven cone midrange/bass drivers
• Diameter: 100 mm
• Magnetic shielding

Measurements

• Crossover frequency: 4 kHz
• Nominal impedance: 8 Ω
• Frequency range: 45 Hz to 50 kHz
• Frequency response: 55 Hz - 22 kHz (± 3 dB)
• Recommended amplifier power: 30 W - 120 W into 8 Ω
• Sensitivity: 85 dB (2.83V, 1m)
• Dispersion within 2 dB of reference response
  • Horizontal: over 20º arc
  • Vertical: over 60º arc
• 2nd and 3rd harmonic distortion (90 dB, 1m)
  • <1% 100 Hz - 22 kHz
  • <0.5% 120 Hz - 20 kHz

General

• Dimensions (W x H x D): 590 x 218 x 280 mm
• Weight: 18.70 kg