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My dad is a general contractor, so I been around tools all my life, however, there is one tool I’m really fond of — the diamond blade. It can be used to cut solid stone like butter. In a grinding form, it can be used to grid and polish hard materials to a mirror like surface. It’s really an amazing tool. Up until recently, you couldn’t buy a diamond blade for a very low price. I think I bought a cheap Imported 10″ wet cut blade for around $15. How do they do this? Do they use real diamonds? Depends who you ask…

Most, if not all blades use industrial diamonds. The invention of this chemical
vapour deposition (CVD) technique for “growing” industrial diamonds was introduced way back in the 1980’s.

You are probably wondering why I’m writing about this on my blog… well, industrial diamonds are making their way into our home theaters. Yup, that’s right! B&W announced at CES that they are updating their Nautalus 800 line to included the “D”. The “800D” model line will feature a diamond dome tweater.

The diamond is deposited directly onto a tungsten, molybdenum or silicon, so it can be removed later, leaving the freestanding diamond layer (or diamond done). The diamond itself is polycrystalline and of high purity (maybe your lady might be o.k. with your buying diamond tweater speakers rather than an engagement ring?). Because the properties are tightly controlled, the diamond materials grown by the CVD process can actually outperform natural diamond in many applications.

B&W worked closely with Element 6, based in Ascot, UK to develop this special diamond tweater. This is the first time such a profile has been manufactured in diamond and the design was patented. Kudos to B&W (they have always been my favorite speaker company) for doing something that is both a technology first and just flat out cool. I probably won’t be able to audition a pair in my media room, but I try to go to my local high-end B&W retailer for a listen. The 803D will retail for about $4k ea.

– B&W