New Bowers & Wilkins showroom in PJ

The high-end gear

Bowers & Wilkins, more commonly known as B&W, has opened its showroom at Jaya One, Jalan Universiti, Petaling Jaya. It had its soft launch at the end of last month.


Located a floor above Cold Storage supermarket, the showroom - which still looks a bit like a WIP - has two listening areas.

To the right of the door is an open area with a Samsung LCD TV, lower-range B&W speakers and Arcam FMJ components.
The other listening room is an enclosed area and that is where the serious gear is - the piece de resistance is the limited edition B&W Signature Diamond in white, which costs RM100,000 a pair.

Steve Chan, supervisor of the showroom, explained that it comes in two colours - the other being wakame or seaweed green. Only 500 pairs of each colour are available worldwide.

The B&W Signature Diamond speaker

The B&W Signature Diamond and the 803D

Beside the B&W Signature Diamond is a pair of 803D ('D' is for 'diamond' which is the material used to make the tweeter).


These speakers are driven by Classe components and connected with Audioquest and Abbey Road cables. The Classe components in the room are the CDP502 DVD/CD player, CP500 integrated, SSP-600 surround sound processor and CA5200 five-channel home theatre amplifier.

The Classe components

Steve said the full range of the B&W 600 and CM series speakers are in the showroom, while from the B&W 800 series, only the 803D, 804S and 805S are available.
From Arcam are the FMJ CD37 CD player, the A38 integrated 100-watter, the AVR 600 receiver and Solo Movie 5.1 home cinema system.

Steve Chan adjusting the Arcam-based HT system

The Arcam components

Also on display are the B&W XT home theatre system, the Zeppelin (RM3,000) and the Zeppelin Mini iPod docking stations-cum-music systems. A range of B&W sub-woofers and Abbey Road cables complete the line-up of products at the showroom.

The Zeppelin (right) and Zeppelin Mini

B&W Malaysia is actually the Malaysian branch of Singapore's The Experts Group Pte Ltd, which is the Sole Distributor for B&W, Classe, Arcam and Xantech in Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei. It is also the Sole Distributor for Audioquest in Singapore and master reseller for Abbey Road cables.

Steve Chan said that this weekend, B&W Malaysia will have a special offer for audiophiles.

"The B&W Signature Diamond, which costs RM100,000, will be sold at RM80,000 and the buyer will get a Classe CA2200 200-watter amp, which costs RM23,000, free. Therefore the buyer will save RM43,000," he said.

Other offers will be announced later.