Reviews for Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air

Packaging is beautiful. And the hardware design is stunning. Very solid and it looks great in any room. Obviously, it is very easy to get going. Plug it in the wall, hook up an iPod, and you’re off.

HOWEVER, getting it on the network was a problem. Followed the instructions to a T. I kept ending up with a red flashing light. I reset, reset, reset to no avail. I started getting quite frustrated. Finally, I just began turning it on and off and it eventually showed up in iTunes. No idea how or why and I can’t recall the steps so it can be reproduced. Just glad I got it going. Works fine now from my iPhone and MacBook Pro.

Initial feeling is that the sound is great but needs some breaking in to get to max enjoyment.

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.

both of the systems are almost equally good having their own positives.
its been more than a year since i have my sounddock 10 n recently i purchased zepplin air. now here is my description of both the systems
bose sound dock 10: overall sound quality is really good i tried playing it outdoors too and no doubt it covers more area than zeppelin and bass is at least 2 times more powerful than zeppelin air. overall volume(loudness) of bose is approximately 25% more than zeppelin air. this system has been roughly used through out the summer it was sitting in my car trunk for like months i used it for the basement parties, beaches , backyard and it pretty much satisfied everyone involved.
Zeppelin air: the design of this system doesn't make it much portable and it has been designed in a way that you get a feeling that this system is not meant for keeping it in a car trunk. i use this system for my bedroom for soft music. the sound quality is so pleasing that your ears wont get tired after continuous listening. the vocals are so soft and it has a more natural sound unlike bose which has some sort of fake crispiness due to those twiddlers i guess. the wifi option in the sound system works flawlessly.
overall if your a party animal who hosts basement parties and beach parties every weekend and likes to listen to loud music with roof shaking bass then go with the bose. however, if you are more of a sophisticated listener and want some back ground music while having a dinner than choose zeppelin air.

Picked one of these up the other day for my living room as I had been spending the last few months trying to decide the best way to get a sound system setup for casual listening. Something that wouldn't take up a lot of space, but still sound great. This definitely fits the bill. My main use will be streaming to it from my iTunes library.

I have a bit of a background in audio production / mixing so I'm quite picky when it comes to what I spend my money on, let me tell you when you read a review that says this thing sounds great, it really does. Of course, it helps to start with good quality music. I imagine low bit rate MP3's would be awful, and this system might even bring out the flaws in them more so than another speaker of lesser quality.

My iTunes library is all in Apple lossless format and whether I'm playing The Beatles, Neil Young, Michael Jackson, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Tracy Chapman, Gorillaz, Eminem, Nine Inch Nails, or Tool this system performs. It sounds clear, smooth, full and balanced. Separation between instruments / vocals is excellent. Anybody who says "there's not enough bass" is simply misspoken. They may prefer more bass sure, but this system has a balanced and natural amount of bass as far as I'm concerned. For me, more would be bad. If you need more, EQ to your own personal preferences.

Just to wrap it up, a lot of the online reviews complain about two things a) it's expensive and b) the stereo imaging / separation is poor unless you are listening from within 2-5'.

Well my answer to that is;

a) You get what you pay for, and when it comes right down to it for an all in one compact system of this quality, the price is what it is. Personally I don't think it's unreasonable.

b) This is not a flaw in the unit, but a limitation of physics. The way stereo imaging works (your ability to distinguish between the left / right speaker channels for a good stereo effect), is that the closer the left / right channels are together, the closer you have to sit in front of the speakers. The farther apart they are, the farther you need to sit. If you want good stereo imaging from 10' away, then the left / right speakers have to have a distance of 10' between them. Now I don't know about you, but I think having this thing 10' wide would defeat the purpose no? This is after all a speaker dock is it not? It's meant for quality, casual listening. If you want the ultimate hi-fi stereo setup where you can adjust your listening distance accordingly then buy the ultimate hi-fi stereo system, but be sure to have the proper sized room for it!

Well, the Apple guy said this was the best Airplay enabled speaker, but that was a MAJOR understatement. I have owned a number of high end HiFi systems in my time, the price of which might make your hair curl. So, I had zero expectation that this little offering from B+W would meet my very high audio standards, but, I am listening spellbound to it now; to a selection of classical, jazz, female vocal, folk guitar and blues music from my collection that I know extremely well and I can tell you this is an amazing performer - deep, but well controlled bass, clear mid-range and sizzling treble with an overall sweet and very musical balance. I am tapping my feet, now, unresistably, to grooves I could never imagine this little Air could ever render favorably. It has verve and persuasively fills the room with big musical images - you could listen all day, which is exactly what I've just done!

If you think this is an expensive unit then I can tell you that you need to consider that this is the ONLY unit you will ever need to invest in. I also have the Bose unit, but this Zeppelin Air puts it deep in the shade on every level. A masterpiece of engineering in a surprisingly compact design - excellent; enchanting, ethereal and exciting all at once!

Installation was very easy!! Just follow the notes precisely and position it carefully to let it breath and place it on a solid base or table to get the best from it.

After owning this device for almost 2 years my experience with Zeppelin Air is it great IF it works but for most of the time it just doesn’t.

Wireless airplay works sporadically at best with constant pauses & complete failures to stream. The lovely device has now decided to keep resetting its network name every time it sleeps on top of all they other annoyances. Don’t waste your money on this device if you plan to use on a wireless network you will be very disappointed. After every firmware release I get excited in the hope that it will finally work but it never does.

I say as a very loyal fan to the BW brand with 600 series speakers for my home theater setup along with M1 computer speakers, P5 & C5 headphones.

Worst of all is B&W support who take days to get back to you with very generic answers which never solve the problem. B&W should stick to just making speakers without embedded amplifiers !

First of all the sound on this device is really great. I consider myself a bit of an audiophile, and this is by far the most balanced compact stereo I have ever heard. Unlike most systems where you have to sacrifice thumping base in pop songs for a clean and balanced reproduction of more classical music, the Zeppelin Air pleases my ears across the whole spectrum. Everything from Lady Gaga to Yo-Yo Ma sounds great. There were some seriously annoying issues with this machine when I first bought it. The air-play set up was arduous and overly complicated, and wireless playback was unreliable. Since the release of a new iphone app that completes the set up for you, these problems have been completely resolved.

Zeppelin looks great and sounds great, no doubts it one of the best or the best speaker system for iPhone, iPod or iPad. Design beats Harman Kardon, Bose or any other equipment. I would give 5 star but AirPlay connection is not acceptable. I have tried set up connection several times using Ethernet cable, PC, iPhone or iPad wireless system and achieved nothing. Zeppelin is not able to connect to my home WiFi network. I believe B&W was aware about this issue because they recommend to install latest firmware 1.1.3 but good luck when you try to do it. I have a feeling that IT Department of B&W lives in last century. If you want to update firmware first you have to install dedicated B&W software on your PC, connect Zeppelin to PC and manually install driver. I tried to do it several times but my Windows Vista only shows info that device is not recognized. I wonder why it's so complicated when other companies can provide updated firmware as a file which can be installed without any software by connecting directly any external flash/hard drive.

A pure audiophile I'm not and those who are might talk techy stuff I don't get; but as an average Joe who has spent thousands in the 1980's and 90's on supposedly "top shelf" audio systems, the B&W Zeppelin Air is mighty impressive. I have a Bose Soundek for my original 5th gen iPod, and it's not bad. When I compare the Zep to the Bose, there is no comparison. With astounding range from lows to highs, it's hard to believe this little package delivers so much solid, crisp sound. Wireless setup with my existing network over my Airport Extreme was a snap that took only minutes. All my devices, including my iMac, Mac Air, iPad, iPhone and iTouch control the Zep beautifully from the original one-time setup. I would highly recommend this product.