Bowers & Wilkins 600 Series 5.1 Speaker Package Review & Comments

A timely review - thanks! I heard a pair of 606s in Sevenoaks last weekend and was mightily impressed with the neutral midrange.
Also thinking of spending around £1000-£1200 on a receiver and was looking at a NAD, do you think this would partner well with these?
 
I've been waiting for ages for a review like this to come out. Pretty sold on them after listening to the 607s. I'll be partnering with a Denon AVR-4400 and I'm debating whether I can afford the 603s. Whilst my house is slightly too small now i move around fairly regularly with work. The plan I think is to get 606s and the centre first (keeping my current rears or even getting 607s) and then in time upgrade to the 603s and put the 606s at the rear.

Thanks very much for a great review and if you see any holes in the plan please let me know.
 
I've been waiting for ages for a review like this to come out. Pretty sold on them after listening to the 607s. I'll be partnering with a Denon AVR-4400 and I'm debating whether I can afford the 603s. Whilst my house is slightly too small now i move around fairly regularly with work. The plan I think is to get 606s and the centre first (keeping my current rears or even getting 607s) and then in time upgrade to the 603s and put the 606s at the rear.

Thanks very much for a great review and if you see any holes in the plan please let me know.
Sounds like a good plan to me.
 
They look so nice in white even with vinyl wrapped! Growing up listening many B&Ws i always have soft spot for them. Always regretted selling my 600 S3 serie speakers. Big and rather fugly, but they had something special... Shame B&W doesn`t offer 3-way center channel like they did with the earlier 600 serie to match with the large 603 (3-way) floorstanders!

Subwoofers are the same as ~11years ago, cosmetic changes only. There is clearly better options for lower cost or as Steve mentioned larger subs (for same 500£) which would push this system to another level with blockbuster movies.

@warm18 get the 606s rather than 607s if you can choose. They will keep your upgrade hunger at bay for longer! I would assume there is clear difference with those two as was the case with the last serie. And pick subwoofer wisely!


SoundandVision mentioned;

If I were to get nitpicky—and hey, that’s my job—I’d say that the HTM6 center channel speaker didn’t quite keep up with the 603s either tonally or dynamically. Edward Norton’s dialog heard through the HTM6 had a very slight cupped hands coloration. On the other hand, the 606 speakers in the surround positions matched the tonality of the 603 towers pretty much perfectly.
Bowers & Wilkins 603 Speaker System Review
 
@Gasp3621 Thanks. I think the 606's would def be wiser you're right. As for the subwoofer i'm leaning towards the BK XXLS400 after borrowing a friends. Going back to my old sub has just emphasised how good it really is.
 
Great review.
I have a set of set of Series 1 600's for my main 5 speakers consisting of 684 floor standers, 686 surrounds and HTM62 centre.
The AWS10 Sub I found a little lacking with the 684's so I swapped for a BK XXLS400 which was quite a step up in performance.

I also have a B&W 17 speaker, 1200W surround sound system in my car and a pair of B&W P7 Wireless headphones.

You could say I like the B&W sound. :)

Lee
 
Hi Steve
Nice review but I'm confused, in the main body of the review you state
"The composition of Continuum may be a closely guarded secret, but the addition of the new driver has completely changed the signature sound for which B&W is famous"
But in the final summing up you say "in a precise, transparent and hugely entertaining performance that still retains B&W's signature sound" :confused:
 
My friend has just bought a new house, and he wanted to make one of his good size rooms into a Home Cinema room. He asked for my help in deciding which speakers and TV to get. He was more into size for the TV. I tried to steer him toward the LG 77" C9, but he wanted the largest screen he could get for his budget, so ended up getting the LG NANO90/91 86". Okay, thats the screen sorted.

We then looked at the Paradigm Premier speakers, but we were not impressed with the owner/salesman, who didn't offer to demo the speakers for us.

I then read Steve's review of the B&W 600 series, so we went to the only other dedicated Hi-Fi store here in Christchurch NZ, who just so happens to be the B&W rep for this area. The salesman was brilliant, and he offered to set up their theatre area with the 600 series. We had decided on the 603 floorstanders for the front, the HTM6 for centre, 606 for rears, CCM683 ceiling speakers, and also wanted to listen how the ASW610 handled the low frequencies.

The demo was the Dolby Atmos encoded Unbroken. Yes that first 10 minutes of absolutely demo quality audio completely blew my friend away. We thought that the ASW610 did a pretty good job, and he decided to get two of them for the system.

It will be two weeks while we wait for the 603's in black (they only had white in stock) then we will be setting up this excellent set of speakers.

The salesman gave us a large discount for buying the full set, and threw in a Denon AVR-X4500 for less than half the RRP. My friend is a VERY happy new addition to our Home Cinema community.
 
. We thought that the ASW610 did a pretty good job, and he decided to get two of them for the system.

I

Congrats on the system.

I had dual ASW610's. Very punchy for music and good for Movies but didn't really plunge to the depths I wanted.

I didn't want to loose the punch of a sealed sub so swapped for 2x BK Elec XXLS400's.
 
My friend is happy with the subs. I don’t think he is worried about getting super low depths, I would prefer to go deeper though. In fact I’m probably gonna upgrade my Velodyne 8” sub later this year.
 
600 serie is now on sale as the new anniversary range comes soon!

 
I know home theatre is the kind of hobby where you can spend basically unlimited money if you choose to, but I struggle with the idea of describing £1800+ as "entry-level"

It might be the entry point to the B&W range, but it sure as hell isn't competing in the same ballpark as the Wharfedale DX-2, which is less than 20% of the price
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom