I have been a fan of B&W speakers for a long time, in fact before I had my current setup I had an older set of B&W speakers. But like most audio and videophiles I always want to upgrade. A few years ago I heard that B&W was coming out with a new line of speakers, the 700 series. I had to go check them out as I had been contemplating an upgrade for awhile. One day I dragged my wife down to my local audio store that covers B&W and we had a listen. We were both immediately impressed with the sound, we ended up spending several hours at the store listening and comparing speakers. We ended up narrowing it down to Paradigm (the reference line) and B&W. We liked both the Paradigms and the B&W a lot. My wife liked the sound of both about equally but preferred the looks of the B&W, I preferred the B&W sound. We went home that night and sat down and figured out our financing and pondering the purchase, we finally decided that we were going to do it. We figured we’d be able to sell the old speakers for a decent amount which would help offset the purchase price (we were right to, we sold the speakers to a neighbor of ours and he is very happy with them). We went back the next day and picked up our new speakers.

We ended up with B&W 704’s for the fronts. A single B&W HTM7 center channel which we have installed on a small stand right below our screen. and finally we got a pair of B&W DS7 for surround sound duties.

The B&W 704’s have been fantastic in our theater. They look beautiful flanking the screen and sound even better. I was really surprised at how much better they sounded than my old speakers, it was definitely worth the upgrade. While our theater is used for mostly movies does get used for music on occasion and the 704’s sound great no matter what were are playing through them.

The B&W HTM7 makes for a great center channel. It is a bit finicky on positioning but once you have it setup in the right place you have no more worries so it’s really nothing to worry about. Dialog is always crisp and clear and paired with the 704’s it makes for a nearly seamless front sound stage.

The B&W DS7 surround speakers were my first foray into dipole speakers. If you aren’t familiar with dipole speakers it means that the speakers actually have speakers on the sides to create a wide sound field. Traditional speakers are called monopole have the speakers mounted on the front firing directly at the listener. The B&W DS7s are actually both type in one. They have speakers on both sides as well as on the front and you can pick which ones you’d like to use by a small switch on the speaker. I liked this a lot because I wasn’t sure which style I was going to like. I tend to use the dipole setting when watching movies, I like the dispersed surround sound better. But when I am listening to a DVD Audio disc on my Panasonic RP-91 I use the monopole setting. I really like having this option and I think it’s a great feature to the DS7’s.

For the first couple years of their lives these B&W speakers were powered off my old amp and I was thrilled with the way they sounded. When I got my McIntosh preamp and amp they really came alive. I absolutely love the sound of my B&W’s, I can’t see myself upgrading again for a long time unless I happen to come into a bunch of money miraculously and can afford a pair of B&W Nautilus speakers. If you are looking to get some speakers give the B&W line a good listen to, they make great speakers.