Bowers & Wilkins 801 D5: When the Speaker Disappears and the Music Takes Over
There is a moment familiar to anyone who loves music. A favourite song begins, the room grows quiet, and for a few minutes, everything else fades into the background.
With an ordinary speaker, you hear the recording. With a truly exceptional speaker, you feel closer to the performance; the vocalist standing before you, the piano carrying its natural weight, and the space around every instrument becoming almost tangible.
That is the experience the new Bowers & Wilkins 801 D5 has been created to deliver.
Sixty Years in the Making
The 801 D5 is the flagship model of the latest 800 Series Diamond generation, developed during Bowers & Wilkins’ 60th anniversary year. It represents decades of research guided by one enduring principle: reproduce the original recording as accurately and naturally as possible.
For an audiophile, that means greater resolution, lower distortion and a more believable soundstage. For everyone else, it simply means music that sounds clearer, more open and more alive.
This is not a loudspeaker designed merely to impress with volume. It is designed to remove the barriers between the listener and the performance.
High Notes That Feel Open and Effortless
At the top of the 801 D5 sits its distinctive Diamond dome tweeter. Diamond is extremely light and rigid, allowing the tweeter to reproduce high frequencies with exceptional precision.
Its break-up frequency is pushed to 70kHz, far beyond the range of human hearing. The benefit is not that you will hear frequencies at 70kHz, but that the notes within the audible range can be reproduced with less unwanted vibration and distortion.
Cymbals shimmer without becoming harsh. Strings retain their texture. Small details such as a singer taking a breath or the gentle decay of a piano note emerge naturally rather than sounding exaggerated.
The updated, more acoustically transparent tweeter grille also helps improve clarity and performance beyond the central listening position. Bowers & Wilkins describes the Diamond dome tweeter as delivering greater clarity, precision and openness.
Voices With Presence
Music often forms its emotional connection through the midrange, where most vocals and many instruments live.
The 801 D5 uses a 150mm Continuum Cone FST midrange driver housed inside Bowers & Wilkins’ sculpted Turbine Head. The design isolates the midrange from the powerful bass drivers below it, helping voices and instruments remain clear and focused.
For the experienced listener, this means improved transparency, tonal accuracy and imaging. For someone less familiar with audio terminology, the effect is easy to understand: voices sound more human.
A singer no longer seems trapped inside a speaker cabinet. Instead, the voice appears naturally between the two loudspeakers, with a sense of height, depth and presence.
Bass You Feel Without Losing Control
Two 250mm Aerofoil bass cones give the 801 D5 its authority and scale. These large drivers allow the speaker to reach deeply into the lowest notes, reproducing the impact of drums, orchestral passages and cinematic soundtracks with remarkable confidence.
But deep bass is only part of the story. What matters just as much is control.
The upgraded motor systems reduce distortion, allowing bass notes to start and stop more precisely. A double bass retains the texture of its strings. A kick drum arrives with impact without becoming heavy or blurred. Even at lower listening levels, the music keeps its body and rhythm.
Its quoted frequency response extends from 15Hz to 28kHz within ±3dB, giving the 801 D5 the ability to reproduce an exceptionally wide musical range.
A Cabinet Designed to Remain Quiet
A loudspeaker cabinet should support the music, not add its own sound.
The 801 D5’s Reverse Wrap cabinet is formed from a continuous curve and secured by a solid aluminium spine. Inside, Enhanced Matrix bracing, aluminium Space Frame Bracing and a revised aluminium top section make the structure extremely rigid.
These engineering details reduce unwanted vibration and cabinet resonance. In everyday terms, less energy is wasted shaking the enclosure, leaving the drivers free to reproduce the recording more accurately.
The upgraded aluminium plinth also uses constrained-layer and tuned-mass damping to control low-frequency vibration. Together, these improvements help create a soundstage that feels wider, deeper and more stable almost as though the walls of the listening room have moved farther apart.
Created for the Home, Not Just the Listening Room
At 1,221mm tall and weighing 106.4kg each, the 801 D5 has an unmistakable presence. Yet its form is elegant rather than excessive. Every curve, aluminium element and separate driver enclosure exists for an acoustic purpose.
Four finishes allow it to complement different interiors:
- Stealth Black
- Warm White
- Light Walnut
- Dark Walnut
Refined metal details and matching Leather by Connolly trim give the speaker the character of a carefully crafted piece of furniture. It can become the visual centre of a dedicated music room, private cinema or sophisticated living space.
Why the 801 D5 Belongs in a Serious Music System
The reason to own the 801 D5 is not simply because it is the flagship model, nor because of the number of technologies hidden inside it.
It is for the evening when you play an album you have known for years and notice something you had never heard before. It is for sharing a film with family and feeling the scale of its soundtrack fill the room. It is for the quiet hour after a long day, when one familiar voice can change the atmosphere of the entire home.
Audiophiles will appreciate the engineering, accuracy and system-building potential. Music lovers without technical experience will appreciate something more immediate: the emotional connection.
The 801 D5 does not ask you to study sound. It invites you to experience music more fully.
801 D5 at a Glance
- Three-way vented-box floorstanding loudspeaker
- 25mm Diamond dome tweeter
- 150mm Continuum Cone FST midrange driver
- Two 250mm Aerofoil bass cones
- 90dB sensitivity
- 8-ohm nominal impedance, 3-ohm minimum
- Recommended amplifier power: 50W to 1000W into 8 ohms
- Net weight: 106.4kg each
The Bowers & Wilkins 801 D5 is not simply about hearing more detail. It is about hearing less of the loudspeaker and more of the artist, the performance and the intention behind every recording.
To experience the new 801 D5 for yourself, arrange a private listening session with Ong Radio.