Loudspeakers

The history of Bowers & Wilkins is well-known, from its birth in 1966 through its relationship with Abbey Road Studios, its flagship Nautilus loudspeakers, and its expansion into headphones and in-car systems. Yet even B&W’s diehard fans may have struggled to keep up with the company’s ownership changes in the last decade. In 2016, B&W was bought by EVA Automation, a Silicon Valley startup led by investor Gideon Yu. EVA’s stated goal was ‘making products that will change how people interact and think about the home’. A new range of B&W wireless active speakers, the Formation Suite, duly launched in 2019, but only a year later the brand was on the move again, acquired by Sound United, also the parent company of Denon, Marantz, Polk and Definitive Technology.

Next, in 2022, Sound United was itself acquired by Masimo, a California-based medical tech company hoping to ‘transform and enrich the consumer healthcare experience’. Yet in late 2025 Masimo divested the Sound United portfolio, leading to B&W being brought under the wing of Harman International, also the home of Arcam, JBL and Mark Levinson. Throughout these changes B&W has remained headquartered in Worthing, Sussex – its home for 60 years.