The Sound of Silver

RATING

PERFORMANCE

BUILD QUALITY

VALUE

THERE ARE quite literally hundreds of small, two-way loudspeakers you can buy priced from under $100 to well north of $10,000 per pair. To this throng British stalwart speaker manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins now adds the 607 S2 Anniversary Edition (the anniversary commemorated is the company’s launch of its first 600 Series designs 25 years ago). Whether or not the world desperately needs another small two-way may be up for debate, but B&W’s authority to add one is not: the ranks of fine speakers emerging from the UK's south coast over the past half-century has been illustrious.

The 607 S2, then, is the latest of a familiar pattern: 5-inch woofer, 1-inch tweeter, vented enclosure; the simplest expression of the loudspeakerdesigner’s art. Or science.