Reviews for Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air

I just purchased this product at the Apple store in Houston. Been playing music through it for about 8 hours now. Set up the air play feature as instructed and there was no issue. The only thing I've found so far is if you try to adjust the volume through the volume slider on iTunes, it automatically goes to the loudest setting on the zeppelin, even if you don't turn it up that far on the computer. Scares me because I don't want to bust the speakers. Also, I find the quality of the sound (as far as equalizer settings) sounds better through the docked iPhone. I was constantly having to play with the equalized through iTunes to get a sound i liked.

As someone mentioned on another review, this product sounds amazing with acoustic guitars. Bluegrass music sounds AMAZING! Piano solo music from Pandora sounds amazing as well. I don't care for the quality of the bass on pop music. Perhaps it's just the placement of the unit in my room that's the issue because many people say they think it sounds great. This replaced a 10 year old bose wave radio that I really love. The Zeppelin sounds much, much better. It does seem that you have to listen to the zeppelin at a higher volume to hear it at its best. May be something to consider if you are using it in a smaller room.

10 of 12 people found this useful

a fine product thats gives excellent deep yet warm sound .
however setup was a mess took me hours and plus airplay was patchy. after returning it to the B&W service center they informed me that i needed a firmware update and needed to change my wifi password settings to WLAN2/psk TKIP.
i have played songs on it for 6 hours at a stretch and there was no hassle.
it gives distortion free sounds even at full volume(which can wake up several of your neighbors)

34 of 44 people found this useful

I compared my B&W DM110, which are ~30years old. They were entry level back then and are found used today very cheaply. I run them with an Airport Express and I stream all my music.

The Zeppelin Air is a $600 IPod dock, which is excellent because it is portable. If you're going for sound quality alone though, this isn't as good as dedicated speakers. The bass is stronger, which I didn't really prefer. The spacial imaging is quite good, but the sense of space is quite narrow.

Setup on IOS was great. I updated the firmware with a USB (not supplied btw) and that was also effortless. Since I already own B&W I thought I'd test out. But I'll be returning them. Too expensive for no improved quality over my dedicated loudspeakers.

15 of 23 people found this useful

I just returned my Zeppelin to the Apple Store yesterday for the same reason so many people complained, AirPlay problems. It would be playing fine for a few minutes then total loss. The Zeppelin would be indicating that the connection was there, but nothing showed on, iPad, iPhone4s or Macbook Air. I wrote to B&W and got a very fast response indicating that the problem was with Apple and had been corrected with iOS 5.1. For me it was too late, I had already returned it and don't feel inclined to try again. I took a look at the Kliptch, which has a similar problem which they acknowledge on the opening page, saying that they will post the information when the problem is corrected. I like that attitude better and will try that product when they do post the correction.

16 of 25 people found this useful

Apple lists the 4s as being compatible with this device, but it is not. This is a problem B&W knows about but is blaming Apple, and there's no indication of when it will be fixed. It has been this way for many months.

Sounds is way better than I expected for something of this size. Really good solution and sounds amazing. If it only worked as advertised (by Apple anyway).

If it weren't for that it would get 4 stars (missing one because the setup is a bit convoluted), but as it is, since I have a 4s, this device leaves something to be desired.

13 of 19 people found this useful

Works great on airplay for all other devices in the house, but not the wife's iphone 4S - it connects for a couple of minutes then loses the signal and jams up the Airplay on the Zeppelin, so have to restart before connecting to another device. Have tried restores etc on the iphone 4s and no success. Even tried downloading the Firmware update for Mac from Zeppelin site, but got an error trying to open it!

Not ideal, they need to sort issue so compatible with iphone 4GS

14 of 15 people found this useful

This is by far the best iPod speaker on the market. We picked up ours at a local Magnolia HiFi store and ended up using it as a sound bar for the tv as well as a wireless speaker system from our iMac. It's pricey but nothing else like it even comes close to the amazing sound this thing produces.

8 of 11 people found this useful

Sounds great BUT the Zeppelin does not stay connected to Air Play/WiFi - then it DOES NOT even power up. The WiFi signal is intermittent at times, but for added frustration, the Air Play lasts the day you set it up, but after that the Zeppelin goes to sleep and you cannot get the power to turn back on - not manually or the by hitting the reset button at the back. You have to re-program the whole system - so basically this is just a docking system. We did as much research on this product as possible, we were looking forward to adding it to the home sound system, but this is not what is advertised - very disappointed.

15 of 21 people found this useful

Set up airplay is a bit of work since you have to wired. When you ducking your device the sound is extremely good but when you use with airplay, make sure you are in the same network for all your devices. Also sound will be interrupted if your network is just a little busy. Other than that, sound can easily full fill my whole big living room. I just love it.

4 of 5 people found this useful

looks good and sounds great. unfortunately gets disconnected frequently when i use my iphone 4s. It works well with my MacBook pro. I'm not sure if I keep it as I am disappointed .I am sure B&W is aware of this problem and they have not fixed it yet and falsely claiming that it is compatible with all Iphones.as I gathered after googleing this problem ; others have this problem and even more(I felt somehow lucky). The bottom line is that they have not delivered what they promised for 600 dollars.

18 of 30 people found this useful