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Bowers & Wilkins - best club system in the world
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BJtheDJ View Drop Down
Young Croc
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    Posted: 07 April 2025 at 8:37pm
No room in the Subject to type in Discuss.

Interesting article here; should provoke some 
discussion I feel
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Points: 204 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Line Array Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 April 2025 at 8:52pm
joke of a sound system - nothing to discuss - lost all respect for B&W after seeing this.

really a shame.  i started as a DIY speaker builder by reading a book with a B&W Nautilus on the cover.  my current car has B&W audio offered as an option ( though i only have the lower tier Harman Kardon in my actual car, but of course they are the same system for the most part minus a few cosmetic B&W touches - i auditioned both of them back to back and the difference wasn't worth the $3,500 upcharge )

but reality is arrays are more than just speakers stacked on top of each other.  there are special considerations for array design that are completely ignored here.  you can't just stack dome tweeters in an array like this - it will cause comb filtering.  and you don't ground stack arrays when covering a crowd like this either.

absolute joke.  i can't believe B&W stooped to this.  will never buy anything from them ever again.

you know when i look back at old speaker designs from like the 70s and how dumb they were i start to get this feeling that 50 years from now today's designs will look equally dumb and i begin to question whether anybody really knows what they're doing or it only seems that way because nobody knows better ...

this is what gives me the courage to ignore what anybody says because i know that historically everybody was always wrong about everything and odds are that they still are ...

but this B&W system would be a joke even 20 years ago ... if they spoke to anybody from L-Acoustics when "designing" this they would be laughed out of the room ...



Edited by Line Array - 07 April 2025 at 8:59pm
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madboffin View Drop Down
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Points: 1720 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote madboffin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 April 2025 at 12:04am
I think that was posted here some years ago, when the magazine article appeared. 
Lots of marketing hype, and looks like an attempt to get on the line array lookalike bandwagon. about ten tears too late (2015).
But as I haven't heard it I won't slag it off. Probably sounds a lot better than the average Dave Disco system...




Edited by madboffin - 08 April 2025 at 12:04am
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valve head777 View Drop Down
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Points: 1846 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote valve head777 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 April 2025 at 4:33pm
I think the system referred to in the article ("you may have danced to it in the 90's") was called Inner Field, later called Blue Room. The bass section was the drivers mounted in cardboard tubes. To be fair, it was more hifi than pa or soundsystem, they did a rave in a squatted bingo Hall in Brighton and it very much struggled to fill the place even though there seemed a lot of speakers. Blue Room/Inner Field did have a decent following in the free party diy scene and brings back good memories. 
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Points: 392 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Andylaser Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 April 2025 at 4:52pm
They did a couple of parties in Southamptonn too at an old gym. Maybe held about 150 people so did pretty well in there.
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Points: 1846 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote valve head777 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 April 2025 at 7:14pm
You have absolutely no idea. 
Please don't comment on stuff you don't know about. 
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valve head777 View Drop Down
Old Croc
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Points: 1846 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote valve head777 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 April 2025 at 7:18pm
Originally posted by Line Array Line Array wrote:

joke of a sound system - nothing to discuss - lost all respect for B&W after seeing this.

really a shame.  i started as a DIY speaker builder by reading a book with a B&W Nautilus on the cover.  my current car has B&W audio offered as an option ( though i only have the lower tier Harman Kardon in my actual car, but of course they are the same system for the most part minus a few cosmetic B&W touches - i auditioned both of them back to back and the difference wasn't worth the $3,500 upcharge )

but reality is arrays are more than just speakers stacked on top of each other.  there are special considerations for array design that are completely ignored here.  you can't just stack dome tweeters in an array like this - it will cause comb filtering.  and you don't ground stack arrays when covering a crowd like this either.

absolute joke.  i can't believe B&W stooped to this.  will never buy anything from them ever again.

you know when i look back at old speaker designs from like the 70s and how dumb they were i start to get this feeling that 50 years from now today's designs will look equally dumb and i begin to question whether anybody really knows what they're doing or it only seems that way because nobody knows better ...

this is what gives me the courage to ignore what anybody says because i know that historically everybody was always wrong about everything and odds are that they still are ...

but this B&W system would be a joke even 20 years ago ... if they spoke to anybody from L-Acoustics when "designing" this they would be laughed out of the room ...


Compared to what was around ON THE PARTY SCENE AT THE TIME,  they did ok. Like I said quite a clean hifi sound.

Please don't comment as you do when you don't know what you are  talking about. 
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Points: 204 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Line Array Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 April 2025 at 8:47pm
well all the B&W speakers that i have actually heard sounded pretty good, but they also made sense

this one doesn't make sense, and my guess is that is why they decided not to commercialize it 

it seems like it was some kind of a design study / marketing exercise 

you can tell that much from the fact that they don't have any grills 

don't you think if they were serious about this they would have designed some robust grills for these speakers that were ostensibly designed to be used around drunk people ?

as for the tone of my comment i felt like this being a one-off system the odds of anybody here owning it were slim so i didn't think i would offend anybody by trashing it ...

and i also trash some JBL speakers even though i am a JBL fanboy.  reality is not every speaker a company creates reflects the best of what they have to offer.  there are different reasons why some products may exist.  not everything is meant to be bleeding edge of innovation and performance.

personally i think B&W should not have created this system.  but the same can be said of most products in general.  luckily overtime this mostly shakes out but it may be a long time.  for example electric cars were "the future" for about a decade before people finally realized they preferred gas cars and now EVs are rotting on dealer parking lots in US where you aren't forced to buy EVs though taxes.

of course i was right about EVs since before the first Tesla rolled off the assembly line but nobody ever listens to me because people just fall for the hype.

i was also right about diesel before the dieselgate.

and about hybrids.

and everything else.

but i'm not normal.

we all know that.


Edited by Line Array - 08 April 2025 at 9:11pm
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Lucasdude View Drop Down
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Points: 986 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Lucasdude Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 April 2025 at 11:27pm
Bowers & Wilkins have made some great speakers. I still have a couple of pairs in storage. I haven't heard that PA system, but I trust they know what they're doing. Blue Room was an offshoot that made some lifestyle products like the famous House Pods.

https://www.blueroomsounds.com/blue-room-loudspeakers



Edited by Lucasdude - 08 April 2025 at 11:31pm
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madboffin View Drop Down
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From all the above comments, it looks like it was a one-off / concept system aimed at creating publicity for the company, rather than an attempt to launch a real product. Like a concept car.
Good to know that it worked OK. Putting it in small venues makes sense, big hi-fi with lots of headroom...
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valve head777 View Drop Down
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Points: 1846 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote valve head777 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 April 2025 at 4:43pm
Yep, thats what it was. I was lucky enough to see its first outing in apubin Brighton. 
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Young Croc
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Points: 1352 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote JonB67 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 April 2025 at 7:20pm
Says it was first built as a hobby by some of the engineers. It's a bit of fun not a viable commercial product. Probably sounds fine for intended use. Doesn't claim to be a line array. Always the usual hysteria from somebody. 

If i was in the market for a rig to cover an arena tour.... no. Would i run some small venues for a but of fun and marketing, why not? And that's what they've done. 

I'd like to hear it. 
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