Bowers & Wilkins Formation Duo

Although passive speakers make up about 80 percent of B&W’s business, there’s no doubt that it places much importance on its newer concepts such as the Formation Duo. Effectively the company’s best wireless offering, it’s a platform upon which future products may be based.

Two aspects are key to this design: first, the drivers and cabinets use trickle-down technology from B&W’s high-end passive speakers. Second, it runs the company’s own wireless transmission protocol, based on a mesh network – where everything on the network dynamically chooses the optimal path to route audio data.

Each sealed cabinet is made from Formi, B&W’s damped polypropylene/ wood fibre composite. Inside is matrix bracing and two 125W Class D power amplifiers. These drive a carbon dome tweeter and Continuum mid/bass unit. The cabinet feels quite dead if you knock it with your knuckle.