Reviews for Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air Speakers

Finally managed to get my hands on the Zeppelin Air today, after almost 2 months of waiting and it does not disappoint!

In terms of sound quality, the difference over the original is not huge in my opinion. The Zeppelin Air delivers subtly more clarity in the high and mid frequencies and packs a more refined bass. Although I would like to note that any equaliser setting that favours an increase in high frequencies can make the sound a little too 'bright', so a flat setting seems ideal.

I am a huge fan of the original Zeppelin and consider it to be worth every penny of the asking price of £400. Used alongside an Airport Express with Airplay from iTunes, it was fantastic.

More people will question whether the Air is a whole £100 more than the original and I would say that it's hard to justify on sound alone. However, considering the built in Airplay; anyone intending to use it primarily for streaming (like me) will find this neat and beautiful package just edges out the original. If you want it for docked or 'Aux In' audio only, I would recommend you save your £100 as the sound quality alone isn't worth it!

WiFi setup is a pain in the behind. Apparently you are "not allowed" to have any "special characters" like an ampersand, in your wireless name, or password. Why B&W think they can dictate my network settings is beyond me, even my 50 quid IP camera can handle an ampersand. Now you know, but I wasted 2 days finding this out. Hope it helps someone else.

I've had the Zeppelin Air for a week and initially only used it for the playback of music from my I-pod. It worked flawlessly until last night when I attempted to connect it to my network. Despite many attempts it would not establish a wireless connection. A friend who is an IT consultant also helped, but we could not resolve the issue. In addition, the Zeppelin Air would no longer work properly with my I-Pod. After 5 minutes of playing music it would stop and display the flashing red light. Today I decided give it one more try before I returned the unit. I followed exactly the same sequence as before, but this time added a number to my password. The Zeppelin connected to my network instantly and the playback problem with the I-Pod also disappeared. I will test it for the next few days, but so far so good. Four stars because apart from the problem of connection I would agree with the positive reviews about the Zeppelin Air.

Fabulous product , sounds very very good either via airplay or with an ipod or iphone docked.
Bit fiddly at first setting up airplay , used the dedicated Zeppelin airplay setup app on my ipad in the end and worked without a hitch.
For some reason using the quickstart guide provided and connecting the Zeppelin directly to my macbook via ethernet as directed , I couldn't get the Zeppelin to see my wireless network.

I am lost for words, the speakers arived in 2 days And ever since I got this it blasted the sound through my flat it was phenomenal never go a day without music a must buy! It's worth every penny!

The sound from such a small compact unit is sublime blows my Bose dock out of the water, the odd issues of the wifi dropping out occasionally but we live in a converted barn with very thick walls that aside it's worth every penny.

Had and loved the 1st zeppelin but fancied the air play option. Happily bought the new Zeppelin Air after seeing that nothing else came close to it on the market for all around class! Absolutely simple to set up it really was child's play! Can't understand how people have slated it on setting up! Maybe they have old useless wifi! Ready in minutes for playing music via my iPhone and iPad. Faultless sound and easy of use! Very happy!!

Like many of you reading these reviews, I too had been here lusting after a Zeppelin Air. The downside for me was the price. However, on Black Friday, Apple knocked £101 off the price which made it too good to resist, so I bought one!

The network setup was a little tricky and I had to rename my wireless network as the Zeppelin wouldn't connect. Managed to sort it out and since then the Zeppelin wireless connection has been rock solid. I'm using an Airport Extreme as my wireless router.

The sound is incredible provided you feed the Zeppelin quality music. Music at lower bit rates sound a bit tinny and empty. To get the best sound, I re-ripped my entire CD collection to Apple Loseless format, and the sound is so amazing. rich, and full of life, you can hear everything in perfect clarity.

Definitely worth buying if you want the ultimate in acoustic perfection, but be prepared to re-rip to get the best sound :)

Today I went to buy my wife a new iPod dock and intended to spend around £300, but on comparing many docks (high end docks actually playing from my iPod) we ended up with only one choice the B&W Zeppelin Air. If that’s not enough to convince you, we already own the original Zeppelin and a Zeppelin mini. The sound quality of this device is even better than the original. The looks and quality of this device raise the bar in every way.
The functionality of airplay is brilliant and very easy to use using the "remote app" and will play from shared iTunes libraries and what’s even better it wakes from standby when iTunes asks it to. When playing via airplay the volume seems to need to bet set slightly higher than having the iPod docked but this very minor and only noticed because I look for faults in any new piece of kit.
My wife's 8Gb Nano does not support airplay so I bought her an iPod touch 32Gb as well.
Simple conclusion, for me to go from a budget of £300 to spending about £730 (iPod + Zeppelin Air) the kit has to be good and that is why I’m writing this review.

I bought the Zeppelin Air for my other half as a prezzy, and then proceeded to spend quite some time enabling it at home on our iTunes account and then infuriatingly hours connecting it to our router (Virgin Super Hub)!!
I hope this short note saves someone the frustration.

Background: I was using a PC with Windows 7 and a Windows ie explorer.

Assuming of course that you have followed the Airplay set up instructions to the letter, I would suggest the following:
1. Wireless connection problem:
To perform Step 5 - 10 of the setup, (the point when you are teaching the Zeppelin which wireless network and which password to use) Don’t use Windows ie!! This will really waste your time. You need a Firefox internet explorer. Quite simply you have a compatibility issue. You will find when using Windows ie, that once you have set the Zeppelin up, and disconnected the Ethernet cable, the purple light will just keep flashing at you and you will never connect to the router.
2. iTunes compatibility issue:
Firstly do check that your iTunes version is up to date. Assuming that this is the case, I found that the solution lay with updating the ‘Firmware’ version on the Zeppelin to that of V1.3.1 (or more recent). I found the poorly written guide to this laborious experience on the B&W website.

On a final note. The speaker quality is great and I’m very happy to currently be sharing my tunes with the neighbours! So do persevere with the setup procedure. I just wish the IT team used in the development had been as qualified as the speakers team!