Bowers & Wilkins – 702 S3 – Floor Standing Loudspeakers

Description

Overview

The 702 S3 is the Bowers & Wilkins 700 Series floorstander we reach for when a room needs proper full-range presence without stepping up to the 800 Series. In a dedicated music room, an open-plan living space or a cinema where the front left and right must do more than flank a screen, it gives the scale and composure to build a system around. As a three-way loudspeaker it is a serious full-range design.

Design & build

The tweeter sits in a Solid Body Tweeter-on-Top assembly milled from a single block of aluminium, decoupled to resist resonance and produce an open, unforced top end. Below it, three Aerofoil Profile bass cones of variable-thickness, foam-cored construction load a downward-firing reflex port. Setup is not a formality: the port arrangement needs sensible distance from boundaries, and toe-in and subwoofer integration are best judged by measurement.

Sound & performance

Compared with the smaller 703 S3, the 702 S3 is the choice for larger rooms, higher listening levels and listeners who want their stereo pair to remain genuinely satisfying with the screen off. Quoted frequency range is 28Hz–33kHz, with a sensitivity of 90dB, giving the scale, dynamics and articulate bass a bigger room demands.

Key features

The driver complement pairs a 25 mm Decoupled Carbon Dome tweeter with a 150 mm Continuum cone FST midrange and three 165 mm Aerofoil Profile bass drivers. In a home cinema the 702 S3 partners well with a matching Bowers & Wilkins centre and surrounds where dialogue consistency matters, and with discreet architectural speakers at the sides, provided the front three are voiced and levelled carefully.

Technology

The Carbon Dome tweeter raises the first break-up mode to 47kHz for pinpoint imaging, while the Continuum midrange avoids the abrupt transitions of conventional cones for a neutral, transparent midband. Biomimetic Suspension and midrange decoupling isolate it from the bass drivers, and the Aerofoil cones maximise stiffness without excess mass for deep, controlled low frequencies.

Specifications

Type: three-way reflex-loaded floorstanding loudspeaker. Tweeter: 25 mm Decoupled Carbon Dome, Solid Body Tweeter-on-Top. Midrange: 150 mm Continuum cone FST. Bass: 3 × 165 mm Aerofoil Profile, downward-firing port. Frequency range: 28Hz–33kHz (-6dB). Sensitivity: 90dB (2.83Vrms, 1m).

Who it’s for

The 702 S3 suits the listener with a larger music room, open-plan space or cinema who wants full-range scale and articulate bass from the front pair, and the composure to hold up at higher levels. The smaller 703 S3 is the neater choice where space and budget are tighter.

Why buy from Hidden Home Technology

We can demonstrate the 702 S3 in our Basingstoke showroom so you can judge whether it is right for your room, then handle placement, amplification, boundary spacing and subwoofer integration by measurement rather than assumption. Speak to our team to arrange a listen or to plan the installation across the South.