Bowers & Wilkins 803 D4 Speakers

The most compact Turbine™ headed model brings all the technical advantages of a dedicated midrange enclosure – the Turbine™ Head, with its decoupled midrange cone – to a smaller footprint that’s easily accommodated in any home.

Small wonder

803 D4 may be notably more compact than the 801 D4 or 802 D4, but it still bristles with the same technical innovation, most obviously in its use of a three-box construction. Its 130mm (5-in) midrange cone is carefully isolated from the impact of its bass cones thanks to its Turbine Head enclosure.

Enhanced Matrix™

Matrix bracing uses interlocking panels to reinforce loudspeaker cabinet walls in all directions internally, reducing resonance and creating a more believable soundstage. The Matrix assembly in 803 D4 is our best yet, ensuring optimum scale, power and intelligibility.

Aluminium bass pods

803 D4 mounts two Aerofoil™ bass cones in twin solid aluminium bass pods, each of which is clamped into an aluminium plate fixed to the stiffest part of its curved cabinet. Formed as single pieces of metal, these stiff structures provide the perfect mechanical location for those powerful bass cones.

Diamond DomeTweeter

The Solid Body Tweeter-on-Top has been revised in every new 800 Series Diamond loudspeaker, including both models with and without the Turbine Head. The new design is longer – approaching 30cm (12-in) long – and its longer tube length has notable benefits for the resonant frequency (f/s) of the diamond dome tweeter, essentially meaning that the dome can now ‘breathe’ more easily than before. Alongside a revised two-point decoupling mechanism that ensures better-than-ever isolation of the sensitive assembly from its surrounding enclosure, the result is an even-more-believable sense of sounds floating in free space rather than being restricted to the confines of a loudspeaker cabinet.

Aluminium top-plate

Every stereo model in the new 800 Series Diamond range has a significantly upgraded cabinet with an all-new aluminium top-plate. This also provides a perfect mounting point for all-new Leather by Connolly trim, with luxurious black leather for dark cabinets and light grey for lighter finishes.

Reverse Wrap cabinet

Instead of a conventional loudspeaker box, the cabinet in 803 D4 is made from a continuous curved section of wood, with the drive units mounted at the heart of the curvature. This stiffer, more inert structure resists mechanical resonances far better and also ensures better dispersion of sound.

All of this work has gone into just acoustic and mechanical properties of each loudspeaker – we haven’t even scratched the surface of transducer design or crossover componentry. But even with ‘just’ this area covered, it should be clear that the results are radically transformed loudspeakers that sound even more believable – and even less like loudspeakers – than ever.

Step up for more power

803 D4 features all the most iconic ingredients in the 800 Series Diamond range including, of course, that famous headed enclosure. It is, however, smaller than its other siblings. Step up to the 802 D4, and you’ll get both larger 200mm (8-in) bass cones and a larger 150mm (6-in) midrange driver.

Specifications