Bowers and Wilkins is a global phenomenon. From humble beginnings, the company has become a world leader in acoustics.
Bowers & Wilkins started in 1965 with John Bowers assembling speaker systems by hand for local clients in the back of the electrical store that he ran with his friend Roy Wilkins. An elderly lady, called Miss Knight, was so impressed with John Bowers’ knowledge of classical music, and so pleased with the loudspeakers that he had made for her, that she left him £10,000 in her will to develop a business.
In 1966, John Bowers founded B&W Electronics Ltd. in Worthing on the South Coast of England. From the outset, their philosophy was to live modestly and put all profits back into the business to further research in their quest for the “perfect” loudspeaker. That same year saw the development of the first Bowers & Wilkins loudspeaker, the P1. The cabinet and filter were Bowers & Wilkins’ own, but the drivers came from elsewhere. The profit from these loudspeakers allowed John Bowers to invest in calibration equipment; and in 1968, Bowers & Wilkins introduced Domestic Monitors in the form of the DM1 and DM3, launched to provide a more affordable option for potential customers. The idea of the Domestic Monitor lived on for many generations of superb loudspeakers, right down to the current award-winning Bowers & Wilkins 600 Series.
For over 50 years, Bowers and Wilkins has been innovating and producing the highest quality audio equipment. Today, as the company updates its signature technologies and continues to enter new markets, the diamond tweeter technology is included on more and more loudspeakers, while Bowers and Wilkins followed up with its first headphones and other acoustical equipment to serve the mobile music community.