How to make the: ‘best-sounding 4K OLED TV on the market’
Bowers & Wilkins reveals the audio engineering behind the Philips OLED+984
Unveiled at IFA in September, Philip’ flagship OLED+984 was voted ‘Best of Show’ TV in Berlin, partly due to its superb picture quality and outstanding European design but also thanks to its bespoke Bowers & Wilkins sound system featuring many of the proprietary technologies found in the company’s iconic home speaker range.
The most visually obvious development for the new set was – unlike with the partnership’s first TV, the OLED+903 - the sound system no longer needed to be integrated into the existing cabinet of the set.
The latest project effectively gave the Bowers & Wilkins’ engineers a clean slate and they responded by creating a much larger external mounted system but one that was still integrated into the electronics of the set – a similar approach was taken with OLED+934 sister set.
A larger external speaker enclosure allowed for both more and larger drivers as well as isolating any vibration from the set’s screen and electronics – allowing the system to be driven much harder.
Engineering principals
Bowers & Wilkins follows the same thorough engineering principles for all the products it designs. The company’s engineering philosophy is most readily apparent in the iconic 800 D3 model – often described as the World’s best loudspeaker.
Engineering principles include developing all technologies in-house and applying a continual ‘trickle’ down of core solutions from flagship products to more affordable ranges over time
For example, all drivers are designed and manufactured in-house, often featuring unique processes and materials - such as diamond and continuum - and are usually tailored or bespoke for each application in which they are used.
The drivers are mounted in dedicated, stiff and inert enclosures, with both the enclosure and the driver often being decoupled from the main cabinet of the product. The acoustically undesirable impact of any vibration is therefore minimised, and all generated energy is correctly and efficiently directed into making accurate sound.
Exactly the same proven acoustic principles have been applied to the audiophile-quality sound system in the OLED+984.
The OLED+984 features a 3.0 system divided into three separate enclosures comprising dedicated left, centre and right-channels plus a classic Bowers & Wilkins ‘tweeter-on-top’ enclosure.
Each mid-bass enclosure is constructed from thick-wall-section glass-fibre-reinforced ABS, critically braced with internal rib sections to control unwanted resonance. The 100mm (4in) mid/bass drive units in each enclosure are derived from the Bowers & Wilkins M1 loudspeaker, with anti-resonance plugs fitted to ensure a cleaner output.
The left-hand and right-hand enclosures have baffle-mounted 19mm titanium dome tweeters positioned to the extreme ends of each assembly to minimise cabinet diffraction as far as is possible and also deliver a wide, immersive soundstage. The tweeters are also decoupled inside the housing to further improve that behaviour.
The centre enclosure is different in that it has no internal tweeter: instead, this assembly is mounted to the main upright of the TV in its ‘tweeter-on-top’ housing.
Tweeter-on-top is a proven Bowers & Wilkins technology that delivers more resolution by reducing the unwanted acoustic impact of a loudspeaker cabinet.
The 19mm titanium dome tweeter is mounted in a solid metal housing for superior stiffness and utilises a variation of the Bowers & Wilkins protective grille design originally introduced for the 800 Series Diamond.
The complete HF assembly is mechanically decoupled from its housing to ensure cleaner sound and the crossover has been optimised with a high-quality 600 Series-level capacitor to ensure the cleanest possible signal path while neodymium magnets offer a more linear behaviour.
The overall aim was to create a large, spacious soundstage that tracks dialogue accurately to the centre of the screen while providing a low-distortion, room-filling sound.
In our opinion, there has never been a TV like the OLED+ 984.We believe it is the first TV to offer genuine audiophile quality sound.
Some of you will be able to decide for yourselves at the Philips TV/AVForums event.