Top end Bowers & Wilkins limited edition Hi-Fi speaker sets

Made from diamonds, marble, Kevlar … and seaweed?

9 May 2007 18:10 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Diamonds and marble are the materials at the heart of a new, limited-edition Hi-Fi speaker from British speaker specialist Bowers & Wilkins. Coupled with a bespoke look and feel from Kenneth Grange, one of the leading British designers of his generation, the Signature Diamond is a "unique symbol of all that is best in UK design and engineering".

Each pair takes the equivalent of jaw-dropping 6 months of man-hours to make. The Signature Diamond is finished in either white or a Japanese-inspired Wakame (isn't that seaweed?) veneer while on top of the enclosure, the tweeter pod is carved from Italian Grigio Carmica or Belgian Black marble – a material not only beautiful but perfectly suited to the acoustic demands of its role.

According to B&W, this is the first time marble has been used in this way in a speaker and means that, due to natural differences in the marble, no two speakers will ever be exactly the same (although we say you would want a bit of individuality for what they cost).

Now, here comes the science - the Signature Diamond uses the latest innovations in sound reproduction materials from Bowers & Wilkins. It has a pure Diamond Dome Nautilus tube-loaded 25mm tweeter in the decoupled top-mounted marble pod; a new Kevlar cone 180mm bass/midrange driver featuring an innovative new noiseless phase-plug; an ear-tuned first-order crossover network made possible by the extraordinary wide linear bandwidth of the drivers; and a Flowport equipped downward-firing reflex port. The Diamond Dome Nautilus tweeter uses diamond crystals to strengthen the tweeter dome to produce a cleaner, purer sound.

The limited-edition of 1000 individually-numbered Signature Diamond speaker sets will be available through Bowers & Wilkins stockists worldwide from July, retailing at £11,000 (including VAT, you'll be glad to know).

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Audio, Speakers, Bowers and Wilkins