When Less is More

MY EXPERIENCE with Bowers & Wilkins dates back over thirty years to my high school days, when I first admired the 801 Matrix in Stereophile magazine.

- Mark Henninger

My longstanding interest in the brand has led me to review products, visit their factory in Worthing, England, and witness their speakers at Abbey Road Studios. Naturally, I was eager to review the 703 S3 towers, both on their own and as part of a 5.4 (four subwoofer) surround-sound system.

This review is a bit of a mea culpa. Each year since 2012-when Dolby Atmos was introduced-I have favored the benefits of more speakers. Suddenly it was not just 5.1 or 7.1, more speakers were more immersive, right? Just a few months ago I reviewed a 9.4.4 system to get a taste of what it's like to go all-out with both a Denon A1H AVR and a Marantz AV10 processor. But for these 703 S3 speakers, I decided to go all the back to a simple 5.1-channel system for movies and also focus on their capabilities when handling 2-channel music playback. The goal, to hear what fewer but better speakers offer versus spending a similar sum on a huge Atmos system.

FEATURES

The new 700 S3 Series from Bowers & Wilkins encompasses a total of eight models. The 703 S3 is the smaller of the two tower models, it has two 6.5-inch bass drivers and a rear-firing port, versus the 702 S3's three bass drivers and down-firing port. A premium high-performance floors-standing loudspeaker, it is equally suitable for a 2-channel stereo system and for multichannel home theater use.

This speaker is notable for its distinctive 3-way, 4-driver design. At its core, the 703 S3 features a 1" decoupled carbon dome tweeter. The tweeter is isolated in its own compartment that rests on top of the cabinet, a concept pioneered with the 801 matrix that the company refers to as "Tweeter-on-Top."