Reviews for Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air

This is an excellent product. With proper setup and placement, it will impress. But...

- don't put it close against a wall, because the rear-ported speakers will show some severe bass distortion
- don't assume that your old Mac is fully compatible. No streaming from iTunes on your 2010 Mac running OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, for example.
- Airplay setup is not quite as seamless as this Apple user has come to expect. no word on compatibility with future wireless standard compatibility, either
- Since Apple has switched away from the old 30-pin dock connector, your new Lightning-connector iPhone or iPod won't dock. Since one is forced to use a cable adapter with their new Apple gadget, it would be nice if the adapter matched in color, or better yet, if it was easy to remove the dock arm and plug in the back without an electrical degree or without resorting to the analogue inputs.
- we are afraid to use an iPad on this dock. let's face it, even though this dock arm is stout, the Apple connector simply doesn't offer the mechanical robustness i want to see. You will end up using the iPad wirelessly, which then leaves you to look at an empty dock sticking out of what is otherwise a very sleek design.
- This is a premium speaker, designed by some of the world's best acoustic engineers. What a letdown to see that this expensive little unit is made in China. B&W, please either pass on the savings to your customer or update the Zeppelin to eliminate the many little issues that keep it from being a great value (yes, we understand that many issues are Apple's fault - i.e., changing dock connector, inconsistent dock connector placement, etc).

I have just invested the money and WOW!!! it blew my head off, how such an amazing sound can come out of such a small casing is mind baffleing

The WIFI worked well for me and easy....do not understand all the negative chat about it.
but there is a sound quility improvment when docked direct to the zeppelin.

Smashing product and worth all five stars no probs!

Enjoy it

Once you listen to the Zeppelin Air, the other systems in your house sound a little hollow. Excellent sound, Only problem is occasionally the air play set up has to be configured again. Totally Recommended.

One of the best speakers I have ever had. In addition to all of its positive feedbacks, I wanted to add that it has some minor issues such as WI-FI. It is pretty hard to set your device up in order to use it wirelessly.

Firstly, this thing is built like a tank and weighs a lot more than its size would suggest.
It sounds as good as it looks and if you had to do a blindfold test you'd never believe that such a big sound could come from such a relatively small package. Sound stage is not great which is understandable with the speakers so close together but I don't think it was intended to replace your living room hifi. It's meant to fill a small room with big sound and it does that brilliantly.

It's not all good news though, updating the firmware and setting up Airplay is a real pain. There is an app from B&W in the AppStore but simply connecting to the unit's wifi hotspot and going to its IP seems to be much easier. That being said, make sure your wifi router's security settings are set up properly else the Zeppelin will not be able to connect, even if it accepts your WiFi password.

Also, the unit doesn't control it's own volume, even though it's got vol up/down buttons, what happens is that it controls your iPhone/iPod/Mac/etc's volume. This means that when you dock your phone the first time it could start playing music at full blast!! I found this out the hard way and I feel it's a serious design flaw that should be looked at and fixed ASAP. You could seriously injure your ears.

Other than those 2 issues which cost it a star, it's a superb device and I'd highly recommend it, just remember you've been warned - don't blow your ears...

It took me more than two hours to finally succeed to turn the device light into purple so that I could setup the airplay feature. The sound is truly extraordinary but I just hope not to have to reset the wireless connection all over again...

Bought myself these speakers a year ago. The sound is great the shape is large and cumbersome. You cant place them close to a wall as the quality of sound drops and they do not work well unless plugged into the wifi box!

I have been waiting for Bowers & Wilkins to begin selling the A5 and A7 Airplay speakers. In the meantime I spent a lot of time comparing the specs to the Zeppelin Air that was released last year. In the end I bought the Zeppelin at the beginning of October 2012. It's a crackerjack and I think better value for money than the A7. That said the Zeppelin arrived without the latest software that I downloaded and then proceeded to walk through the steps with the BW App, but despite following the direction to the letter airplay failed to work. After a few emails to England, their support staff told me to reboot my router. Bingo!!

All in all I top notch product and must be one of the best airplay systems for the IPhone or IPod.

Other than the good sound, there is great difficulty in its formula to connect to your wifi, and very poor performance if you do. Intermittent play at best, not consistent as with my bluetooth experience.
The remote control and buttons on the speakers work poorly and are often non responsive.
The speakers default to tv play when a video or youtube media is play, thereby only giving sound.
Software restore would not fix my no longer working wifi connection in the unit, and support said I had to send it in to have it looked it.
I sold it as is