There are Bluetooth speakers – and there are Bluetooth speakers. The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin is several steps above your average Bluetooth speaker – it’s an attractive product that looks as good as it sounds.
This is a complete stereo system in one which offers high resolution audio that would satisfy even the fussiest listener.
The Zeppelin has an unmistakable eye-catching design – a shape that has been around for more than 15 years.
This time out, the speaker has been improved on the inside and on the outside.
Its iconic shape and size have been refined but under the hood is where Bowers & Wilkins have made the biggest changes.
Inside there are dedicated left and right speaker assemblies along with a large 150mm subwoofer and all of it is powered by 240W of amplification.
The components are precisely mounted with the ultra-rigid enclosure.
The sound is remarkable – clarity but also authority.
The soundstage is epic but with enough nuance to hear the detail of your music.
And the subwoofer provides the icing on the cake with this satisfy bass that makes its presence felt without completely taking over.
The Zeppelin tweeters are paired with the 90mm mid-range drivers and utilises the Bowers & Wilkins proprietary fixed suspension transducer (STTM) technology.
That’s the same technology used in the Bowers & Wilkins outstanding floor-standing speakers like the reference 800 Series Diamond.
Users connect to the speaker via Bluetooth but the there’s also the Bowers & Wilkins app that can also link your music services like TuneIn, Tidal and Deezer.
We had issues with the app – it couldn’t recognise the Zeppelin at first, so we just put it into pairing mode and connected directly with our smartphone via Bluetooth.
This in no way affects the audio quality or the experience. The app didn’t allow us to link our Apple Music account, so it made no difference to us.
The Zeppelin has AirPlay 2 so you can play directly from your Apple device as well as aptX Adaptive Bluetooth, so it plays nicely with both iOS and Android devices.
And if you’re a Spotify user, you can enjoy Spotify Connect so you get the quality and ease of use.
There are control buttons on the top rear edge of the Zeppelin if you are close enough to manually navigate your music.
And the speaker also has Alexa built-in so it as much a smart speaker as it a high-quality audio speaker.
And there is a firmware update coming that will provide multiroom capability so the speaker can form part of a larger multiroom system.
The Bowers & Wilkin Zeppelin is available now and is priced at $1,199.
VERDICT
The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin is a thing of beauty – not just beautiful to look at – but beautiful to listen to as well.
