B&W 707 Prestige Edition

Instructions for Use

As with all speakers, these 707 S3 Prestige models need to be set up to perform at their best—something that many people all too often overlook with any speaker. The positioning I found to be best was to place them at a height where the tweeter was about thirty centimeters above ear level, slightly converging but not perfectly aligned with the listening position—in other words, slightly open and, if possible, angled slightly downward. This way, the speakers completely disappeared from the mix, with sound coming from all directions but never directly from the two drivers, resulting in what I’d call a remarkable sense of soundstage, both in terms of size and precision. It should be made clear right away that the 707s are not very efficient, with a rated sensitivity of 84 dB/m (and to the ear, even slightly less), and they can’t handle more than about 80 watts under musical load without inaudible distortion, so don’t expect them to shake your knickknacks or produce fully realistic listening levels.

The tweeter dome is made of carbon, which allows the speaker to significantly extend its frequency response

A solid-state amplifier delivering a good 100 watts per channel will work fine, but personally, I’d drive them with a good 50-watt push-pull tube amp—provided it’s high-quality, since the impedance load approaches 4 ohms in the low-midrange. If you insist on not using bi-wiring (which is a mistake), I definitely recommend replacing the metal jumpers with a few centimeters of good, stripped wire. Break-in is crucial, as always, since the midwoofer needs time to open up—during the first 30–40 hours, it struggles to modulate and sounds too dry—just as the tweeter gains fluidity and loses a bit of the graininess present at the start. Otherwise, there are no musical genres it favors over others, bearing in mind that its inevitable dynamic limitations—which are, however, far more modest than expected—make it perfectly suited for modern and jazz genres, though less so for complex classical scores. This is, therefore, a highly commendable speaker, first and foremost for its meticulous construction and undeniable aesthetic beauty, but also—and above all—for its remarkable acoustic qualities, particularly when considering its price tag of around 1,600 euros. Yet another flagship model from B&W, which—thanks in part to its industrial synergies and high production volumes—manages to be as competitive as few others, offering a value for money that smaller manufacturers would find very difficult to match.

Technical characteristics: