Even the packaging is of high quality. The unit is heavy and you're not really sure how to pick it up, and mindful of the expense you carefully lift it to the table. There is a very well written step-by-step instruction guide and I didn't plug the Air in until I read this guide. I followed the directions carefully and in 5-10 mins I was streaming iTunes from my MacBook Pro.
At first there was some disappointment at the quality of the sound. The sound was rather cramped, at higher volume it seemed to struggle. There was a slightly tinny uncomfortable sound, we had to turn the volume down so it was not unpleasant. The wife and I had an argument, she was adamant that the thing was not as good as numerous other ones she had heard. I was in denial, unable to accept that it was as poor as it seemed. We left it on and carried on with household chores for a couple of hours, me feeling a heavy dose of buyer's remorse.
Then it happened. We came back into the room and somebody had stolen the first pretend one and replaced it with the real McCoy. The sound had opened up, filling the room with rich, creamy, glorious music. all the cramped tinniness had gone. At high volume there was pure clarity, no distortion, sheer pleasure to listen to. The spine started tingling. Goose bumps appeared on the skin.
The unit needs to run in for a few hours so give it a while. Once it has warmed up, you will find it compares favorably with all but the poshest HiFi systems. It is an iPod dock, and perhaps I should not compare it with HiFi. The limitation is the proximity of the speakers; there is little stereo separation unless you are close to the unit compared with having separate loud speakers set 10 feet apart. However, there is no other iPod dock that can touch it for sound quality. The looks of it are a personal thing but I love it so much I keep the dust cover on it (unless folks are visiting) and it looks like an old vacuum cleaner bag full of dust on the table. Sounds great though.
Reviews with images
Bottom Line - Designed and Built for People w/Low Expectations
Bowers & Wilkins, known for its solid sounding bookshelf and floor standing speakers falls short on all fronts with this Wi-Fi Airplay enabled speaker.Why?Simply put, for the price, it just does not perform as it should. I had particular difficulty in the setup phase (I run a software company that actually develops connectivity software for USB and Bluetooth enabled devices) as a result of published documentation that differed from the actual setup of the device on my desktop (perhaps due to a firmware update?), but more disappointingly once the device connected to my Wi-Fi the sound would cut-off every several seconds and once it would reconnect, would play for several more seconds before "skipping" ahead, presumably to re-sync with the actual playback time on the iPad I was using to stream the supposed, lossless content. I actually purchased a Wi-Fi extender and connected this device directly to that and had the iPad connected on the same Wi-Fi AP and the problem did not improve at all. I can see about 5 other wireless SSID's in my suburban neighborhood (in other words, not an crowded apartment, condo or dorm).The sounds - just average for such an expensive product. Just a single and rather wimpy bass driver to take care of the low's. B&W literature claims it is a high excursion driver, but when cranked up to about 90% and testing all sorts of USAC SPL tracks, the bass driver did not seem exert any more excursion than my inexpensive Creative Labs computer speakers, and the whole impression overall was that the driver was "fighting" to keep up with my music without much "oomph" being experienced at all.Perhaps it is a bit unfair, especially coming from a bass junkie, but deep low's are what's needed to help reinforce a quality sound experience - otherwise, how is this any different from your battery powered portable Bluetooth speaker? And to add insult to injury, the bass is muddied by that small driver that's just trying too hard - and this coming from someone that is not even really that keen on tight bass quality.Now it is one thing for someone to pinch pennies and invest in such an expensive product and come out disappointed, but for someone accustomed to spending this sort of money on electronic products on a regular basis, I feel terribly cheated. It's not all that different from the feeling I got when listening to that well known speaker brand that packages small cube speakers as a HT setup with a bandpass subwoofer (for you non audiophiles - a sub that has the speaker mounted completely inside a box to use the box itself as a sound filter to exaggerate the bass), but I digress.I won't get rid of it, quite simply because I think it looks stunning. It sits in my rather pretentious home office overlooking the Hollywood sign along with a bunch of other overpriced, underdelivering products. I seem to have a knack for spending money on good looking gadgets that are powered by a tad bit of brand reinforced snake oil.To B&W's credit, there is still some real audio engineering going on here (my father's an audio engineer and I used to build speakers with him as a kid) with decent standalone DAC's and a rather novel use of the design to increase the perceived volume by way of an extended port (the aforementioned product uses the same tricks). And the highs/mids and mid-bass are all decent and not overly bright and tinny sounding despite using dome tweeter.The inconsistency in Airplay connection leaves you with a dock that really needs to rely on a physical connection between an Apple device (or other) - so you've paid for the technology, only you don't really get to use it reliably. Perhaps it is a fundamental flaw in Airplay itself? I just tested my Apple TV and I can stream music pretty neatly to my TV speakers - so the flaw has to be in the implementation of the Zeppelin itself (although it could just as well be placement since the Zeppelin and TV are about 20' apart).In the end, this product is made for people with rather low expectations - I've read 5 star reviews from many a happy owner raving about the bass and sound quality. I'm just being honest - the iPod dock market is not the same folks who will spend twice as much for unpowered bookshelf speakers of the same brand and B&W does not hesitate to throw its brand pedigree at your face with this product that is more circuit board and plastic than quality sound drivers in a good cabinet.Oh well. If you're like me, you've come to the conclusion that there's not much else in the way of an iPod dock and compact speaker system - if I had to choose between moving my hand signed Starck ashtray and Flos lamp and getting a real speaker system over this compact one, well then, you guessed it, I'll suffer with the rest and keep this in the corner.
