B&W's new CM series holds within technological achievements akin to the 800 series products of the 1990s yet they look every bit the glamourous movie star with little else to show for it. Along with David Tubby of B&W's Australian distributor, Convoy International, we casually popped-apart a CM7 to see what lurks below the surface.

The CM7 is the first of two 3-way speakers in the CM series. At $2,999 it sports a 1" alloy tweeter, 5" Kevlar  Midrange driver and a 6" Kevlar and Paper cone bass driver. The sound is smooth and clean, lively, open and expansive and without any obvious 'grain' or 'glare' rising through the midrange into the high frequencies. With the drivers out and on the counter, we can begin to see why this new speaker series is such an impressive performer.

To begin with, the now famous Nautilus tweeter has evolved to control resonance within of the tweeter tube. An elaborate network of braces and neoprene foam at once seal, strengthen and decouple the nautilus tube from the vibration of the cabinet front baffle. An important step, given that air movements that the nautilus tube is designed to reduce can be smaller than physical movement of a vibrating/resonating tube. The CM series tweeter is B&W's most accurate at this price category - ever.

Midrange frequencies are handled superbly by a massive FST midrange unit. In a B&W FST midrange, sounds generated by the voice-coil motor system itself are horn-loaded by a carefully shaped cone and pole-piece. The result is a midrange with the ability to capture the transient impact of live music rivalling the clarity of other direct motor systems such as ribbon and electrostatic speakers.

A paper cone bass unit has high internal loss (soft paper doesn't ring when you flick it) but lacks the strength required for efficiency. B&W's solution utilises the enormous strength of Kevlar to reinforce its cone for an ideal combination of strength and damping. The massive magnet is held rigid by an aerodynamic cast frame basket. An extended voice coil allows for air-cooling and, more importantly, air pressure equalisation that allows the cone to move more freely and accurately. Think electrostatic speakers and open-backed headphones. Combined with Flowport technology, the object of the design is to allow the amplifier signal to be reproduced by the speaker cone unimpeded by heavy cones, imposed resonance or resistive air pressure.

The ported cabinets benefit from B&W's flow-port technology. Ports regulate air flow to speaker cabinets. Pockets of air trapped in the dimples of the B&W Flowport reduces friction which would otherwise reduce speed and result in distortion (sometimes called 'chuffing').  

The cabinet itself uses no less than 3 internal braces matrixed together to form an extremely strong platform for the drive units. A ladder brace vertically locks the top, bottom and sides of the box together, whilst the front, back and sides are braced together in 2 more places. So far as resonance is concerned the cabinet, as a whole, behaves more like 6 tiny cabinets than one large unit.

Attention to detail doesn't end with the drive units and cabinet. All internal cable looms are sheathed with foam to reduce the effects of vibration and resonance. Luxury timber veneers are all engineered from Poplar wood in Italy and Cameron by Alpi in Italy. Engineered veneers are formed by a highly technical process of staning and shaving and cutting to create an ideally uniform grain and an immaculate finish.

All in all, we don't believe that any other speaker manufacturer would so much attention to detail to their mid-priced speaker. The CM-7 speaker is representative of the care that Bowers and Wilkins take thorughtout their impressive new speaker range.