English Owner's Manual - Bowers & Wilkins Signature Diamond Owner's Manual

English
Owner's manual
Dear customer,
Thank you for choosing B&W and welcome to the
Signature Diamond. There are numerous examples in
the B&W canon of speakers that have set a new
benchmark or defined a new breed. The Signature
Diamond is destined to become another such
landmark. Please read this manual fully before
unpacking and installing the product. It will help you to
optimise its performance. B&W maintains a network of
dedicated distributors in over 60 countries who will be
able to help you should you have any problems your
dealer cannot resolve.
An important motivation behind the Signature Diamond's
birth was a celebration of our 40th anniversary. Its
design glances both backwards, over our heritage, and
forwards towards future advances in speaker technology
and performance. The Signature Diamond is both a
distillation of our design lineage, and a uniquely
innovative expression of our most advanced
technologies.
It would be easy simply to list the technologies
incorporated within the Signature Diamond – almost
every one we know is represented – but one
unmistakable mark of a fine speaker is that it exceeds
the sum of its parts to perform with an indefinable
magic. In large part, the magic is a result of how a
speaker's engineering elements are arranged and
combined – how the whole is designed. Because of
this, and in light of the Signature Diamond's
celebratory nature, we invited our long-term design
collaborator Kenneth Grange to work with our
in-house team on its conception and development.
The "architecture", aesthetic and material choices of
the Signature Diamond are his and as such he can
take much credit for its magic.
Kenneth Grange CBE RDI is without doubt one of the
most eminent in the field of consultant industrial
designers. More than that, he was one of the first. His
work crosses product sectors from transport (he was
responsible for the latest iteration of the classic
London taxi cab and that long-lived icon of British Rail,
the Inter City 125 train), through to consumer
electronics where, in addition to B&W, he has
contributed to products from Kodak, Kenwood, Parker
Pens and many others. Most of us will at some time
have used a product on which Kenneth made a mark.
He was the first industrial designer ever to be
honoured with a one-man exhibition at London's
Victoria and Albert Museum and he holds five
University Honorary Doctorates, including one from the
Royal College of Art, London, where he is currently a
Visiting Professor.
Kenneth's design brief from us for the Signature
Diamond was one of the most liberating, yet
challenging, a designer can receive. We asked him to
follow his instincts and design the speaker he'd always
wanted. Designers rarely design for themselves; they
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are conditioned to change the World from others'
perspective, so for Kenneth, a brief that put him in the
position of "customer" was an unusual experience.
The path he followed has two strands. First, he
developed an enclosure aesthetic – intersecting tubular
forms – that he'd been drawn to previously, but had
never had an opportunity to pursue. Second, he chose
an emphasis on fine materials and finishes to be an
inherent aspect of the Signature Diamond's personality.
What better material, for example, than solid Italian
marble to enclose a diamond dome tweeter?
The Signature Diamond is then both a personal
statement and a genuinely exciting example of the
industrial designers' and speaker engineers' craft. We
hope you will enjoy listening to it as much as Kenneth
and we enjoyed creating it.
Environmental Information
B&W products are designed to comply with
international directives on the Restriction of
Hazardous Substances (RoHS) in electrical and
electronic equipment and the disposal of Waste
Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). The
crossed wheelie bin symbol indicates compliance and
that the products must be appropriately recycled or
processed in accordance with these directives.
Consult your local area waste disposal organisation for
guidance on how to dispose of this equipment in a
proper manner.
Unpacking and Handling
Signature Diamonds are both heavy and relatively
delicate and must be unpacked from their cartons
carefully. Figure 1 illustrates the unpacking procedure.
Due to the weight and relatively delicate nature of the
Signature Diamond we recommend that unpacking be
carried out by two people working together. It is
preferable to unpack the speakers close to the
position in which they are to be used. Never carry or
hold a speaker by its tweeter enclosure. Try to avoid
touching any part of either drive unit.
Spike (or rubber) foot fitting and speaker cable
connecting may be carried out during the unpacking
procedure when the still part-packed speaker is first
laid on its side. See Figure 1 to identify the appropriate
stage in the unpacking procedure. The protective bag
around the speaker must be cut to gain access to its
underside.
Carton Contents
Check in the carton for:
1 Accessory pack containing:
5 Spike feet
5 Rubber feet
5 lock nuts (10mm across flats)
1 Allen key
Speaker Installation
Due to the weight and relatively delicate nature of the
Signature Diamond we recommend that installation be
carried out by two people working together.