Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin

Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin – Tim Gideon Tim Gideon Editor, Audio My Experience. I have been working as a contributing editor since 2011. Prior to that, he was Senior Audio Analyst from 2006 to 2011. He is now a freelancer, but has been here for over 10 years and audio equipment reviews are still his main focus. . Prior to my career in technical review, I worked as an audio engineer. My love for audio recording eventually led me to write about audio equipment. Read the full biography

The 2021 Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin speaker models deliver beautiful high-fidelity wireless sound in a stunningly designed enclosure with built-in support for Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant.

Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin

Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin

Editors independently select and review products. If you purchase through an affiliate link, you may receive a commission to help support testing.

Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin: The Ultimate Standalone Speaker

2021 marks the 15th anniversary of the release of the original Zeppelin speakers. The original Zeppelin speakers were essentially giant iPod docks, but they sounded good. Bowers & Wilkins has since dropped the dock and launched a series of new Zeppelins that retain their iconic design while adding support for wireless audio. At $799, the 2021 edition of Zeppelin is the most expensive, but it’s also the most versatile, supporting 24-bit streaming via Apple AirPlay 2, Bluetooth and Spotify Connect, plus more streaming services than ever before. The sound quality is still exemplary and I love the addition of a companion app that lets you adjust the EQ to bass and treble levels. With built-in Alexa voice control, it’s the most acoustically impressive smart speaker I’ve ever heard. It’s definitely on a big budget, but the Zeppelin 2021 won the Editors’ Choice award for remaining the best-looking and sounding all-in-one wireless speaker we’ve tested.

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Measuring 8.3 x 25.6 x 7.6 inches (HWD) and weighing 14.3 pounds, the Zeppelin is an apt name for its rounded contours and overall dimensions, reminiscent of the cylindrical airships of the past. The speakers are available in a dark gray that is almost black or a lighter metallic gray.

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As with previous models, a cloth grille covers the front of the speaker. Behind the grille, the new Zeppelin features dual 1-inch 40-watt dual-dome tweeters. Dual 3.5-inch, FST 40-watt midrange drivers; One 6″ 80 Watt Subwoofer A 240 Watt amplifier powers these components providing a frequency range of 35Hz to 24kHz.

Bowers & Wilkins Launches Zeppelin Wireless

A smooth plastic material covers the back, and the control strip is located just below the top speaker ridges (not visible when viewed from the front). On the back panel there are buttons for volume, Alexa access, playback control, and multi-room audio control (eg you can press a button to get music playing in the B&W Formation Bar Zeppelin). Alexa works just like any other Echo speaker. You can call the voice assistant by pressing the Alexa button or give a voice command that starts with the phrase “Alexa”. If you’re concerned about privacy, you can turn on the always-on Alexa microphone. Just press and hold the Alexa button for 5 seconds.

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Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin

The speaker cabinet sits on a large metal stand that is hard to see from all angles and can float the Zeppelin. When turned on, a pale blue-white light illuminates the stand. You can dim or turn it off in the app with a neat touch. A rubber pad covers the underside of the stand. Due to the significant weight of this material and Zeppelin, it is firmly attached to a flat surface.

Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Wireless Review: Big, Bold And Blueto

On the back of the built-in stand is a panel with a USB-C service port, a port for the included power cable, and a reset button.

Zeppelin is compatible with Bluetooth 5.0 and supports AAC, AptX Adaptive and SBC codecs. These speakers support up to 24-bit/96kHz audio from a variety of streaming services including Deezer, Qobuz, Tidal, and others, assuming you pay a subscription fee to stream in that quality. Zeppelin also works with Apple AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect.

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The Bowers & Wilkins Music app for Android and iOS is well designed and helps you set up Zeppelin correctly. After that, there are some useful adjustments that are not essential for speaker operation. One caveat is that in order to use the app you will need to create an account with your email, which seems like an unnecessary loop to skip to buy the $800 product.

After creating an account, you can pair Zeppelin, download the necessary software updates, and connect the music streaming service you want to use from within the app. Of course, you can also easily stream audio directly to your speakers from the app or from your chosen connection method.

Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Test 2021: Klingt Abgehoben

The app has a number of useful controls, including bass and treble faders, LED dimmers that illuminate the bottom of the speaker, and Alexa-related settings. By connecting multiple Bower & Wilkins speakers, the app can also act as a multi-room controller.

After you link your Amazon account to the app, you can use Alexa to play music. The microphone is always on by default, but as mentioned you can turn it off via the speaker’s Alexa button. When you press the Alexa button on the Zeppelin dashboard, the LED on the speaker base turns blue while Alexa is listening. The Alexa setup process was relatively smooth, and the speaker’s microphone had no problems receiving voice commands from a distance.

I’d love to see more connectivity options in terms of price. Since the USB-C port does not support audio playback, there is no other way to physically connect an Aux input or audio source. You can adjust the bass and treble through the app, but I would have preferred the 5-band EQ. But for speakers that already sound great, bass and treble are mostly sufficient.

Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin

Despite its all-in-one design, the Zeppelin is loud and capable of firing impressive firepower. Expect digital signal processing (DSP) to work at the highest volume levels, boosting the bass and treble to some extent. And we expected a better sense of stereo separation given the speaker’s long construction. You can still get both left and right channel content, but it sounds like a mono speaker at normal listening distances.

Review: Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Wireless Speaker

On tracks with intense sub-bass content, such as The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” Zeppelin provides a thunderous low-frequency response. At maximum volume, there is no distortion, at slightly lower (but still quite loud) levels the bass sounds serious, and DSP does a good job of keeping the sound from being distorted too dynamically. At low volumes, the speaker delivers a sense of bass depth and is ideally balanced with treble at all volumes.

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Bill Callahan’s “Drover”, a track with a much less deep bass in the mix, gives you a better feel for Zeppelin’s sonic character. The drums on this track sound great with Zeppelin drivers. The subwoofer adds a bit of punch, but the drums don’t look too powerful or unnatural. The speakers faithfully represent the mids and highs, so Callahan’s baritone vocals get the ideal richness of the lows and mids, and the clarity of the highs and mids. Acoustic kicks and higher frequency percussion strikes are bright, upbeat and clear. This is a well-rounded and beautiful sound feature.

In Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the drum loop has enough high-mid presence for the attack to sustain a punch. But at higher volume I hear more DSP on this track. Drum hits can sometimes sound like a momentary lowering of the overall volume. This effect causes the vinyl to crackle in the background and hiss like waves crashing. DSP in this case can be a bit more difficult, but it’s usually more transparent. You’ll hear less of the truly deep bass than you would with a bigger and more powerful subwoofer, but synth hits with heavy sub-bass rhythms come with solid power. That said, the Zeppelin has no problem reproducing powerful bass, but with a slight dropoff before delivering the deepest reverberation of the subwoofer. Zeppelin expresses this track’s vocals cleanly and clearly without hissing. At high volumes when DSP is actually on, the bass may sound like it’s disturbing the vocals, but restoring the bass in the app or lowering the volume can prevent this effect.

, sounds beautiful via Zeppelin. Bass instruments have body, depth and vitality. It doesn’t sound too boosted and leaves plenty of room for high-end brass, strings and vocals to shine at the forefront of the mix. classic

Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Wall Bracket

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