Miss listening to your banging B&W system when you’re stuck at home?
JOHANNESBURG - If you drive a high-end BMW like the M8 Competition, or a Maserati Ghibli Hybrid, or a McLaren 720S or a Volvo XC60, you might have ticked that options box for the luxurious Bowers & Wilkins audio package in your car. However, now that we’re spending so much more time at home, you might not be able to enjoy your in-car entertainment as much as you’d expected. The good news is that you can now have a high-end Bowers & Wilkins audio system installed in your home to ensure your inner audiophile is satisfied on the road and at home.
A SHORT HISTORY LESSON
Founded in 1966, B&W as Bowers & Wilkins is commonly referred to, considers itself a research and development company that so happens to work in the audio space. The design of B&W loudspeaker cabinets has been done by industrial designer Kenneth Grange since 1975 and Morten Villiers Warren became manager of design in the late 1990s when designing the new 800 series of speakers.
Noteworthy loudspeaker innovations by B&W include use of Kevlar fibres, impregnated with a stiffening resin, resulting in B&W's distinctive yellow speaker cones started in 1974. This composite material proved to provide controlled rigidity and internal damping, minimising distortion.
In recent years, as more carmakers looked to improve the luxury feel in vehicles, audio companies became a go-to way of discerning one’s interior packaging for discerning customers. You’ll know the popular names such as Harman/Kardon (which BMW still uses in some of its mid-size luxury cars) and Burmester (which is Mercedes-Benz’ and Porsche’s weapon of choice), and of course Audi’s Bang & Olufsen systems. Now B&W joins these brands in collaboration with each other to ensure audio reproduction is arguably the best it’s ever in been vehicles.
HOW TO LEARN MORE ABOUT B&W
Homemation has announced that it is now the official and exclusive distributor of Bowers & Wilkins (for your home or office or garage or gallery) in South Africa. “Acquiring the distribution rights for Bowers & Wilkins in Southern Africa is a real feather in our cap with this new stallion in our stable creating a natural synergy between our current proud stock of premium brands. We are now able to offer discerning South Africans prime opportunities to expand their audio/visual and home theatre horizons – all the better for immersive rides into virtual sunsets”, says Nicholas Gliksman, co-Founder of Homemation.