Sixth sense
Hi-Fi Choice|May 2021
It might not be supernatural, but David Vivian can’t help but wonder just how B&W has managed to finesse the original 606 quite so effectively
David Vivian
Sixth sense

DETAILS

PRODUCT Bowers & Wilkins 606 S2 Anniversary Edition

ORIGIN UK/China

TYPE 2-way standmount loudspeaker

WEIGHT 6.9kg

DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 190 x 345 x 300mm

FEATURES

25mm aluminium dome tweeter

165mm Continuum cone mid/bass driver

Quoted sensitivity: 88dB/1W/1m (8ohm)

DISTRIBUTOR B&W Group Ltd.

TELEPHONE 0800 2321513

WEBSITE bowers-wilkins.co.uk

One infamously ungrammatical piece of advice the fast-moving, fiercely competitive world of hi-fi hasn’t exactly taken to heart is: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. A much snugger fit could be former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s extra-pithy aphorism: “If you’re not moving forward, you’re going backwards”. In other words, if there’s a good excuse to tweak the performance of a component to steal a march on the opposition, you should grab it while you can.

A fine example is B&W’s new 606 S2 Anniversary Edition standmount. If ever there was a product that didn’t need fixing, the 606 was surely it. I reviewed it soon after its introduction at the tail end of 2018 and came to the conclusion that it was a knockout, noting: “Right now, I can’t think of a better way to spend around £550 on a standmount speaker”.

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