Loudspeakers

Buyers have come to know what to expect from the £1,000 price point. Lavishing this sort of sum buys you a physically largish box that is nicely if not luxuriously finished. It gets you a decent set of drive units, and you’d expect to be looking at three per speaker at least – and that’s precisely what you get here. Here’s a three-way, four driver floorstander that’s just over a metre tall when sitting on its plinths (not shown).

As the smallest design in Bluesound’s eco system, this updated smart speaker has plenty going for it

The Signature version of B&W’s popular 705 standmount gets put through its paces

Celebrating 25 years as the entry point to B&W’s speakers, this one has a commendable sense of occasion

How B&W has managed to finesse the original 606 quite so effectively?

Bowers & Wilkins CM9 - £1,800 This large wood-veneered floorstander with advanced driver technology looks fine value Back to the days when Bowers and Wilkins simply called itself B&W, the company had three distinct ranges of hi-fi speakers: the beer-budget 600s, the mid-market 700s and the upmarket 800s. Perhaps the 700’s external tweeters and asymmetric enclosures were a little too radical, as some time over the last few years they seem to have been quietly replaced by a rather more conventional CM series, featuring real wood veneers or a gloss black finish, but in conventional rectilinear enclosures with normal built-in tweeters. There were just two CMs to start with, but now there are four stereo pairs, of which this £1,800 per pair CM9 is the largest. And, unlike the neat little standmounts in the range, there’s no way anyone could accuse it of looking cute.