B&W 686 S2 User Manual

600 Series

Performance, power, price The 600 Series continues
the award-winning promise of its predecessors
– the audio performance you demand from Bowers &
Wilkins, power to fill any room, yet at a budget that
allows everyone access to true, audiophile sound. It
adopts technologies from our premium speakers plus
innovations and engineering solutions unique to the
range. Bowers & Wilkins believes everyone should be
able to experience truly great sound. With the new
600 Series, everyone can.

How does the new 600 Series raise the bar for
entry-level audiophile speakers? By bringing in
hard-learnt technologies from Bowers & Wilkins
high-end speakers. Double dome tweeters, found
only in the CM10 until now, join FSTTM midrange
drive units used in all our premium models plus
energy-absorbing foam Anti-Resonance Plugs
derived from the PM1. And the new 600 Series
doesn’t just incorporate existing technologies.
It adds some new ones of its own, including
– for the first time in a cabinet loudspeaker –
the use of decoupled tweeters that float in a gel
cushion, separate from the cabinet around them.
Bass drivers are improved too, stiffened with an
extra bracing ring of aluminium to deliver a higher
break-up frequency. Technologies purpose­designed to deliver maximum performance for
minimum cost meet existing technologies brought
in from high-end speakers; the result is amazing
performance and power at an even more amazing
price. The new 600 Series: the high-end speakers
for everyone.

For the love of music It doesn’t matter where your
music comes from. You might personally prefer classic
vinyl, lossless FLAC files or Spotify streams. What really
matters is how good the music sounds to you. And in
a world of streaming, wireless and cloud-based audio,
in a world where music has to compete with everything
else happening in your life, it matters more than ever that
music sounds brilliant. After all, what else can soothe
you to sleep, excite and invigorate you, or clear and
calm your head to let you think and feel? Cut through
the chatter, sit back and really listen... and you’ll see.

683 The largest speaker in the new 600 Series delivers
outstanding power, accuracy and musicality. The
floorstander features the new Decoupled Double Dome
tweeter, an FST midrange driver and new Dual Layer
aluminium bass drivers. The result is a loudspeaker
ideal for both high-performance stereo and surround
sound applications even in larger rooms, delivering
serious performance and amazing value.

Serious and accurate bass performance is
vital to such a room-filling speaker. That’s why
the 683 features an all-new bass drive unit
technology: its Dual Layer aluminium drive
units are reinforced around their periphery with
a second layer of aluminium. The result is a
more effectively damped cone with a higher
break-up frequency for a richer, distortion­free bass response. The 683 also boasts a
Decoupled Double Dome tweeter and an FST
Kevlar® midrange unit. Serious technology,
serious performance, but seriously affordable
for a speaker of this calibre.

684 Room-filling sound without a room-filling speaker
cabinet. Slimmer than ever, the 684 offers an amazing
combination of serious floorstander power, spectacular
audio performance and unbeatable value thanks to
its new and vastly improved bass/midrange drivers
and the Decoupled Double Dome tweeter.

Switching to 5-inch drivers from the previous

6.5-inch designs means the new 684 is
significantly slimmer than its predecessor, yet
Bowers & Wilkins engineers have still improved
its audio performance. The two Kevlar-cone
drivers now feature smaller voice coils to
increase sensitivity. The 5-inch drivers now
also feature Anti-Resonance Plugs that improve
the behaviour of the voice coil and smooth
response, a technology taken from our
high-end PM1 speakers. The result is a
breathtaking performance from a modestly
proportioned loudspeaker.