B&W 602 S2 Loudspeakers Reviewed
- By: Ken Kessler
- - Reviewer's System
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- January 11, 2009
Sampling this budget beauty is an education. The last B&Ws I reviewed were the decidedly high-end Nautilus 805s, which I pretty much expected to be something yummy. Hell, anyone can make a small two-way speaker which sounds dandy at around £1400 per pair. But using the same basic topology for a model at £299? This was probably gonna be a session involving the uncovering of compromises. Especially as the company has boasted/hinted that the DM602 S2 benefits from trickle-down technology.
But let's not jump the gun in either direction. The '602 is no Nautilus-twice-removed, however much you and B&W might want it to be. It may boast such B&W signature details as a metal dome tweeter and a woven Kevlar woofer, its cod-cherry vinyl finish might fool even the most epicurean termite for a few seconds, the baffle may be sculpted and the enclosure's weight and solidity may suggest fine furniture and high-end aspirations. It has the right badge, a luxurious grille, bi-wiring via some serious, gilded terminals, even a flow-port. But is it an escargot to the 805's, er, nautilus? No tweeter in a module, no Italianate curves to the enclosure...what gives?
First of all, looks
So, too, is the woofer a beneficiary of B&W's all-in-house manufacturing capability. Because the company is not buying in woofers, an extra margin disappears, and '602 owners are treated to costly woofers not expected at this price point: 180mm's worth of woven Kevlar cone, a bullet-like dust cap and a -6dB point of 43Hz. Nice. It crosses over at 4kHz to a beautifully-made board fitted with plastic film capacitors and air-core inductors, terminating in substantial, gold-plated, multi-way binding posts a far cry from the cheap plastic stuff expected at this price level.
Remove the substantial black cloth grille, with a moulded frame providing its shape, and you expose a baffle textured and shaped to eliminate refraction problems. The front-mounted flow port features the aerodynamic curves seen on this in the dearer models, and it is therefore immune to breathing, whooshing or pumping. Its dimensions tell you that the 602s will benefit from stand-mounting, which is how I used them, but the front-firing port allows you to shelf-mount without compromising the bass, if not the imaging.
Clearly designed to be less demanding that its posh siblings, the DM602 S2 is sensitive enough at 90dB/1W to work with pretty much every amp one the market, though single-ended triode users might feel constrained. Tough titty: Let them use horns. And with a nominal impedance of 8 ohms, this speaker will scare no amp I can name. OK, maybe a Futterman. Whatever way you slice it, B&W feels secure in recommending an amplifier range of 25-120W, which covers probably every mid-priced amp - i.e. the type of amplifier likely to be partnered to a £299-per-pair speaker - while nearly every mass-market A/V receiver also falls into that category. Smart thinking.
Behaving responsibly, I used the B&Ws with the Roksan Caspian integrated amp and CD player and Linn's Genki CD player, as well as with the Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista pre-amp and Nu-Vista 300 power amp fed by the Marantz CD-12 - just to test its high-end mettle. Wires were Kimber throughout. Musical diet? Some Seventies disco (Real Thing, Donna Summer), new Britpop from Supergrass and Ocean Colour Scene, a load of Dino to test finesse and the sublime remastering of
This is not to say that B&W is overpriced or unreasonable in its pricing policy. And the company has always had some form of budget product, like the Solids. But bargain mongers? Who'd believe me? The primary virtue which
Tonally? There's more than a hint of the
However much thicker and less delicate the '605 sounds when played alongside speakers five times its price, this little wonder proves to be a contender for class leader. It hasn't the punch of the latest small Tannoys (or ALRs for that matter), but what it loses in terms of kick-ass-ness it makes up for in
Stone me: that's two B&W models I've coveted in one year. Truly the ghost of Trunz has vanished.
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