Bowers & Wilkins for Aston Martin DBX S (2026) review

If we asked you to think of two brands from the worlds of hi-fi and automotive that you thought should work together, the names Bowers & Wilkins and Aston Martin would probably crop up more than a couple of times.

It might surprise you to know, though, that these two officially tied the knot only in 2023, when Bowers & Wilkins was announced as Aston Martin’s audio partner.

The first project was a 15-speaker system for the then all-new Aston Martin DB12 – but we are here to talk about one of B&W’s more recent systems, the 23-speaker set-up for its DBX S SUV.

Price

As you would probably expect from a performance SUV with an Aston Martin badge on board, the Bowers & Wilkins system for DBX S isn’t cheap. The car itself starts from £210,000, and the speaker package is a meaty option which comes in at around £8500.

That, though, is roughly what we’d expect a set-up at this level to cost – especially when it comes to top-tier automotive brands. It’s a similar story when talking about the Naim for Mulliner audio option for Bentley’s Bentayga SUV.

In the grand scheme of the actual cars themselves and the other options you can pay for, the step-up audio systems can actually make a lot of sense.

System

As standard, the Aston Martin DBX S comes with the 790 watt, 14-channel Premium audio system, which features 13 speakers and a subwoofer.

Tick the Bowers & Wilkins option, and power more than doubles to 1600 watts, while the speaker count increases to 23 with 21 channels of amplification.

The speaker count breaks down as follows:

4 x 17cm paper-cone woofers split between the front and rear doors

7 x 25mm aluminium tweeters spread through the dashboard, front/rear doors and roof lining

4 x 40mm full-range speakers in the front and rear ceiling

7 x 10cm midrange speakers split between the dashboard, front and rear doors and the roof

1 x 19cm x 13.3cm subwoofer in the boot

Those midrange speakers all use Bowers & Wilkins’ proprietary Continuum cone material, which you can find on all the brand's domestic loudspeaker ranges.

The double dome aluminium tweeters can be found in the likes of B&W’s 600 Series speakers – behind each one you'll find special spiral diffusion channels to help absorb reflected sound and reduce vibrations.

The DBX S system also uses Bowers & Wilkins’ tweeter-on-top speaker configuration, which places the tweeter in a separate enclosure to isolate it from vibrations caused by other drivers in the same cabinet. The result is a more open, transparent sound.

In the Aston Martin, each tweeter is hidden behind an intricately designed grille, which looks distinctive and premium, and this grille design is used to cover larger drivers elsewhere in the cabin.

Audio processing for the system is controlled using a combination of QuantumLogic Immersion and Dirac Unison.

The former crunches the numbers and separates your stereo track into individual elements before it then decides where to send them within the system for the best listening experience.

The latter optimises loudspeaker performance and includes bass-management tech to get all the speakers working together in unison.

Sound modes

As is the case with most premium car audio systems of this type, the user has a range of different sound modes at their disposal.

First, you have a choice between ‘studio’ and ‘stage’. Studio is designed to be the most authentic and purest sound mode, while stage is designed to replicate the feeling of being in the middle of a live performance, with extra processing that makes the mode feel more immersive.

Once you’ve picked your flavour (we prefer the studio mode for a more accurate sound), you also have the option of switching the focus of the system between an ‘all seats’ listening mode, a more specific ‘driver’ mode or a ‘rear’ mode biased towards your back-seat passengers.

In our experience of other systems on the market, choosing between these modes tends to come down to personal preference. And the same rings true here. During testing, we edge towards the all seats mode because it delivers a nice blend of immersion, detail and focus.

The driver mode is a bit more intense and the effect more obvious than in other systems we’ve tested. Vocals in particular are brought right into focus in front of the driver, and they sound quite pronounced. This isn’t in a negative way; we just find the effect more noticeable, and during testing it took us a bit longer to get used to.

As you might expect, this driver-specific setting gives you a greater sense of your own personal stereo image when you’re behind the wheel – there’s greater precision within what feels like a tighter soundfield. You are also aware of a greater sense of verticality and height with the stereo image compared with the all seats setting.

We see the appeal of the driver-focused mode, but in this instance we think you sacrifice a bit too much of the free-flowing nature of the sound – we prefer the greater spread and feeling of immersion encouraged by the all seats mode.

In addition to these modes, you also have traditional tone controls at your fingertips for bass, midrange and treble, none of which we feel we need to tinker with during our time with the system.

Sound

The better-sounding premium systems we have tested all deliver a more mature, refined and sophisticated performance than entry-level set-ups, and this Bowers & Wilkins set-up definitely fits into this category.

It’s an expressive and exciting listen, with one particular highlight being the level of refinement and detail you can hear at the very top end.

The system does a great job of extracting detail and pushing high frequencies without overstepping the mark. You get crisp, sharply drawn lines from the tweeters, but they don’t sound stressed or harsh when pushed.

It’s sometimes difficult to convey subtlety and low-level dynamics of a track when you have external factors such as road and engine noise to contend with, but the DBX S’s interior does a great job of isolating you from outside interference.

This allows the system to peel more layers away from the music and delve impressively deep into the fine detail. Spin a couple of minutes of Nothing Arrived by Villagers and you soon get the drift.

The speakers do a great job of communicating the intimate nature of the track. The system captures and surgically extracts the intricate plucking of the acoustic guitar extremely accurately but delivers it with a sense of life and expression too.

You get a real feel for each note; a mixture of intensity, delicacy and authenticity hooks you in.

The system does an excellent job communicating the dynamic shifts in the track’s vocals and the guitar strings, as the pace slows and the dynamics quieten before everything shifts back up through the gears.

Play something with a bit more power and drive, such as Macklemore & Lewis’s Downtown, and Bowers’ system hits with intensity and power. The track marches along in a lively and energetic fashion.

As the different vocals rotate around each other from verse to chorus, the system paints each element with impressive texture and tonality. Here, the studio mode really delivers refinement and sophistication in spades.

However, although there is an impressive amount of bass weight and power on display and the system can drop to impressive depths, the lows don’t gel quite as smoothly with the rest of the frequency range, in our opinion.

They have a tendency to stick out from the rest of the presentation, and we’d also like a greater level of definition.

It’s not a question of dialling down bass weight in the tone controls; the quantity isn’t really the problem. It’s more that the system doesn’t differentiate between bass notes quite as clearly and obviously as the very best systems we’ve heard.

Verdict

It can be tricky getting in-car systems to deliver like proper hi-fi, but the Bowers & Wilkins for Aston Martin DBX S system succeeds in many ways. The package delivers a large-scale, dynamic and refined sound with the midrange and treble being particular highlights.

In our opinion, it doesn’t quite have the quality of bass needed to secure that fifth star, but if it was our money, we still wouldn’t hesitate ticking the options box.

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