Reviews for Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air

I was a little hesitant because of the $599 price tag, but it was worth every single dollar spent!!... just the best sound dock i have ever owned!!...

Being an owner of the original zeppelin, I had a hard time believing how much better the zeppelin Air could sound. After purchasing the new Air play version, I immediately put the new one to the test. Right out of the box I would say that the initial sound did not seem to be better considering all the internal upgrades. I have to say I was considering taking it back. The fact that it was brand new I decided to give it a chance to break in.
After three weeks of continuous play, I performed one more side by side comparison with the original zeppelin. I have to say that the Air version really outperforms the original in the following areas:

-Wider sound stage
-Vocals have more body and sounds more palpable
-Even in airplay mode the new zeppelin out performs the original

There was one thing that I found interesting though. the new Air version is considerably lighter than the old version. With all the upgrades I can't imagine why.

setting this thing up gave me a migraine.

Anyone else have issues with the wi-fi setup?

I too was puzzled in getting these or the Bose SoundDock 10. Bought both for comparison at home in a quiet room. Bose is going back to store. Zeppelin Air hands down won the race in all aspects. Wireless setup was a breeze. Not sure why people are having problems. I just plugged in to my Time Capsule and AirPlay connected in a sec.

Different LED indicators are a bit tricky but once you read the manual, you would know everything.

Transmitting Apple Lossless via AirPlay is great, way better than bluetooth. very detailed sound, punchy bass, but if you are true audiophile, and want to hear your music as it is meant to be heard, get Sennheiser HD800 headphones and a good tube amp/DAC. As far as these speakers go, it delivers what promises.

I am not sure how these will be compare to Philips Fidelio SoundSphere (twice the price) when they are on sale in Europe sometimes in May.

Air Play was straightforward to set up. The ergonomics of the controls are sometimes frustrating as one has to determine what's the color of tiny LED---hard from across the room.

The sound is veiled with a distinct bass heaviness --- even after adjusting
the bass in the kludgy way that B-W requires.

The Zeppelin Air is probably OK for non-critical listening where access to a real
Hi-Fi system is not possible.

the sound is excellent. I can't give it 5 stars because the setup is not friendly. I had no problem initially setting up Airplay. Connecting the iPhone was problematic. First of all make sure that you dock the iPhone without a case. It won't work otherwise. I think the documentation should emphasize this. I spent several hours resetting the speaker before it dawned on me to remove the case. However I still can not get the Setting on the iPhone that controls the speaker bass. I don't even understand why this critical setting was placed only on the docking device and not on the web configuration as well. In addition, every time I reset the speaker it comes up with a flashing yellow light and I can't configure Airplay anymore. I have to power down the speaker several times to get to the purple light. Like I said the sound is excellent but I would have liked to change the bass settings. The support is also inadequate. There is no number you can call. You can communicate only via email.

This is a great speaker which sounds awesome after you get it working. It works fine when connected wired or docked but the wireless can cause some major pains. I have it working with all my devices now which is great.

The WiFi issues were related to the router that I have. I had to use another wireless router to get it to work.

- iPod Docked works fine and the sound is great.
- iPad Docked works fine too. You select the Zeppelin Air you configured if you want to see video while it is docked.
- Both the iPod and iPad charge while in the dock.
- Both the iPod and iPad can use AirPlay
- Devices can be docked when other devices take over. If the docked device is connected to the AirPlay you will need to disconnect it using the selection icon. You do not need to take the device out of the dock and it will still charge.

Sorry I could not put my troubleshooting tips in here but it is worth it once you get the wireless working with the right router.

I have been using the Zeppelin for hours and hours, and I must say it is far superior to ANY competition. Originally, I was looking at getting the Bose SoundDock 10. But when I listened to the Bose, I was not as pleased. I am very confident in saying that this is the best sound system that there is to offer. It is very balanced, and even shows up on the ipod with a speaker EQ for bass, and some ipod settings. It was great that you could turn up and down the bass. I am very pleased with Bowers and Wilkins, and will be getting a lot more products by this company. B&W by far is the leading speaker brand for anything you may need. I would recommend them to anyone.

Beautiful product but frustrating beyond belief. After 2 complete non-starters the latest two play a docked iPhone but refuse to entertain the idea of wireless connectivity. This is not helped by 3 differing sets of instructions available from B&W's own website, all offering conflicting advice. After one failed setup the product will not even reset so no obvious means of resolution. Product will be being returned (again) to await a substantial update.

I was looking for this product everywhere from diamond stores to B&W website, and i could not find this anywhere, and i was told that the shipment will be delayed due to some issues with production. Finally I got my hand on this from the APPLE store which said 3-5 weeks for delivery, but the delivery was lightning fast, in 2 days approx. I was so thrilled after reading so many reviews and waiting nearly 3 months for this release, and it is worth the wait, every moment of it. Unpacking was fun and setup of lightning fast, being a computer geek myself, i hardly had any issues. I downloaded the updated firmware and then i was good to go.

Once i Plug Air in, and set it up on your wireless network, you’ll see “Zeppelin_Air” appear in iTunes as an AirPlay speaker, accessible by simply clicking or tapping on its name. I am using this system for my bedroom as I already have Bose V20 System for my living room, which also sound great. You cannot compare the 5.1 with 2.1 systems, but zepplin lives up to the much hype created by this system. Accessing Zepplin from my living room over the n/w is no problem for me, but you may notice slight drop in audio quality while playing using airplay, obviously due to o/p quality using airplay. overtime quality may increase as future research/updates from apple.

Also the New amplifiers move this Zeppelin from sharing three amplification units to instead offering one for each driver, adding two extra 25W drivers for the tweeters and 50W midrange and bass amps. makes this simply amazing. It uses better speaker drivers, cleaner amplifiers, and arguably superior tuning. Zeppelin Air arguable is museum-quality design, and it can produce some really beautiful music—always smooth, generally quite detailed, and powerful. It is not comparable to bose sound docks, where the sound detail is not detailed. All in all this is a superb buy.