Bowers & Wilkins 702 S3 3-Way Floorstanding Loudspeaker

The new 702 S3 3-Way Floor Standing Loudspeaker is one heck of a great speaker. You’ll get the new external tweeter assembly, a new 6” Continuum cone midrange driver, and a brand new configuration for the port. In this model only, the port fires downward into a very solid plinth, separated from the speaker by four stout posts. With the down firing port, room placement becomes very easy as you have to worry less about the rear wall in your room.

Very fast and articulate deep bass is provided by 3 6 ½” Aerofoil woofers. The cabinet itself is triple braced internally and weighs in at a very hefty 74 pounds!

These have a pretty decent sensitivity of 90 dB which means you could run them off a fairly modestly powered amplifier, but like any great speaker more power is going to give you better results. To our ears, they really come to life when you connect them up to a higher quality amplifier, our favorite being any of the McIntosh integrated amps or power amps.

As with any high resolution speaker, you will want a good source to feed them with. The better your turntable or music streamer is, the more musical information they will reveal.

While the downward firing port does give you some placement options, we feel they perform best if you can get them at least 18” away from any walls. Make sure you get the spikes adjusted so they are level and locked in to not rock and with their amazing sound stage, spend some time with a tape measure to get them perfectly aligned with your listening spot.

Bear in mind, when you purchase any speaker from Audio Advice, our experts are here for you to help you find the best way to place them in your room and offer tips on how to get them optimized for your space.