Bowers & Wilkins CM5

Bowers and Wilkins CM5 review

The request from the Bowers and Wilkins marketing team to the engineering department responsible for the CM5 loudspeaker, probably went along the lines of "make us something small, simple, beautiful and affordable". So it did! At £800, it doesn't come cheap, but it is unquestionably delightfully designed and beautifully finished and a vast improvement over the 685 model, which incorporates many ostensibly similar core ingredients at around half the price, yet which is dressed in clothes that even its friends would call nondescript. And that's certainly not the description one would apply to the CM5. But its virtues aren't entirely superficial. Compare the specifications of the CM5 with those of the 685 and you'll notice that although the latter is somewhat larger, it's also significantly lighter in total weight, indicating that that the CM5 benefits from rather more substantial build. Impressive build Indeed, one soon becomes aware that the CM5 is significantly heavier than expected from the moment that you lift it from the carton. Clearly then, there's rather more to this speaker's engineering than is apparent on the surface. A surface that is, mind you, very attractively decorated.