Customer Reviews and Ratings

4.5 out of 5 stars

Based on 25 reviews

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Very disapointed!!

    • Written by from Stockport

    I bought an A7 and an A5 at christmas time in readiness for a big new years party we were having. They weren't easy to set up as the connection kept dropping out. The music stopped half way through the party and has worked intermittently ever since. I have hung on to them hoping that i may need to change a setting here or there in order to sort the problem out but after tens of hours sat at the computer changing settings to no avail i have decided to take them back. I am gutted because when they work they sound fantastic but I cant even listen to one song now without it dropping out.

    10 of 19 people found this useful

  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Very disappointing!

    • Written by from Sidney

    I am about to leave home to return the B&W A7 and am quite sad about having to do so. The sound is brilliant! Period! However, in a classic example of doing some things to perfection and ignoring other aspects of a device, the streaming is terrible. I am using a dual band router with wifi G and N compatibility. It is new and serves our condo extremely well. My iPhone and iPad are within ten feet of the speakers but they quit after 10 - 15 minutes of play and require a reconnect! We had three iPads in the condo this weekend and each of them experienced the same problem. Worse, instructions for the device are sorely lacking and there is nothing on the internet to help out. Even getting the plastic out of the remote in order to activate the battery was difficult. Why not put a slot in the battery cover to allow twisting instead of making one twist it through friction? This is not a new idea! Setup was easy except that there are virtually no instructions and if things don't go as expected, it takes a bit of technical knowledge to get the speakers working.
    The first day we enjoyed endless music with hardly a "skip". However, the device will now quit entirely after 10 or so minutes of play and a manual reconnect is required.
    Here's another "novel" idea B&W. Why not write software that allows updating through the internet? The speakers already have an ethernet connection so it would be easy to do so. That way we owners can update our software as improvements come along in much the same fashion that so many other electronic devices work these days.
    Disappointed ... that's the word. I'll get something but it won't be a B&W speaker even though I believe they are one of the best. Their software is not up to the speaker standards and is very obviously their weakest point.

    10 of 24 people found this useful