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Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Wireless Smart Speaker, Wifi Speaker, Hi-Res Sound, Bluetooth, Airplay 2, Spotify Connect, and Alexa Built-In - Midnight Grey

£9.9£99Clearance
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The Zeppelin Wireless keeps the range’s legacy alive, combining a highly accomplished sound with greater functionality and a seamless design. We make sure to test speaker against its chief competitors too for sound and features such as multi-room compatibility and app support, so you can be sure that the product is the best if we say it is. We live with these speakers in our homes to make sure that their performances are consistent, and we don't finalize our testing until we are certain of the sound quality. Bowers & Wilkins revived its iconicZeppelin wireless speaker for 2021. Well, it was revived in terms of looks; the internal hardware in the B&W Zeppelin (2021) is all new and, it turns out, more than fit for purpose.

Pushing the volume northwards does result in the stage losing some of its definition, but it’s remarkable how composed the Naim remains at such hefty volumes – it simply gets louder without becoming coarse or shouty. It really depends on what kind of speaker you're after. If you want multi-room connectivity and excellent sound, look for home speakers from Sonos. The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin doesn’t quite reach the high mark set by its brand sibling, the B&W Formation Wedge, which has our top score in the premium category at 160. But it’s currently in third, just ahead of the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Balance and the Google Home Max. If you're Apple Music user, the HomePod 2 is perhaps the best-value speaker out there. It’s cheaper than what you get from the hardcore hi-fi brands (such as theNaim Mu-so Qb 2), but is crammed with luscious detail, crisp treble, and a rich mid-range. And you get the impressively easy setup and control you'd expect from Apple. Now, to get Dolby Atmos sound from it, you can't use AirPlay 2 – you need to connect your Apple Music account to the Sonos app. But you can listen to music regularly over AirPlay 2, and you still get the best stereo effect we've heard from a single speaker. It's great to listen to overall, featuring a metric ton of detail, and a great balance of sound overall – though it has no tolerance for imperfections in lower-quality music. You'll hear the issues, for sure.The Zeppelin is compatible with Bluetooth 5.0 and supports the AAC, AptX Adaptive, and SBC codecs. The speaker supports up to 24-bit/96kHz audio from various streaming services including Deezer, Qobuz, Tidal, and others, assuming you pay for a subscription that lets you stream at that quality. The Zeppelin also works with Apple AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect. Zeppelin App Controls and Smart Features Don’t go expecting it to present a sound as separated and three-dimensional as a pair of stereo speakers, and as long as you don't need any physical inputs, it represents money well spent for a modern streaming speaker. Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin review: Also consider Each employs slightly different methodology when it comes to getting sound out – or, at least, the numbers involved are all quite different. The fact the woofer fires down onto whatever the R5 is standing on from a distance of no more than 4cm contributes to a slight bloom in the lowest frequencies and makes the handover to the full-range drivers more problematic than is ideal. Finally, think about sound quality. All of the best AirPlay speakers are on our list for a reason, but you might have specific things to consider. For example, do you like listening to hi-res audio? Only a few of the options below will give you the sound quality you're looking for.

As I’ve already mentioned, there’s no remote control for the Zeppelin but there are a few control buttons located on the rear of the speaker. A multifunction button can be used to reset the Zeppelin or put it into pairing mode, there’s a button via which you can manually hail Alexa and mute the mic, and you’ll also find play/pause, volume up and volume down buttons. They’re all raised slightly and each has a distinctive shape, which helps when trying to tell them apart by feel. It also comes with a higher price tag than its predecessor because of the extra premium upgrades that have been made to it. As a result, the Era 100 no longer sits at the mid-tier wireless speaker level but instead has been moved to the more premium end of the spectrum. It's basically better than the Sonos One in every way so anyone looking for big, high-quality sound from a small speaker can expect it to remain at the top of this list for some time.It’s not a limitation that damages the Zeppelin’s appeal, however. This is, without doubt, one of the finest sounding wireless speakers around and I’m yet to find a genre that it fails to do justice to. I did the majority of my listening during testing via Qobuz, which can be integrated into the B&W Music app and supports high-resolution streaming.

Compared to the first generation of HomePod, there's better clarity around the upper mids, which really benefits classical and acoustic music, and the Dolby Atmos performance is incredible if you have two in a stereo pair. However the second generation HomePods are not as loud as the first gen, and the bass is a bit lighter too. They're still a huge step up from the HomePods mini, though, and the sound quality you get for the money is excellent. As far as usability goes, well, the Zeppelin has a number of options. There’s the Music App we’ve already mentioned, for starters: as well as the broad strokes of operability, it also offers some minor EQ adjustment and will, in time, be the place you set up your Zeppelin-based multiroom system. It's a very flexible speaker and by far the best if you want to setup a Sonos surround system. You can also access the Sonos app to support AirPlay 2, Bluetooth 5.0, line-in, Hi-Res and (of course) Dolby Atmos. So, if you're after a high-quality wireless speaker then look no further. It's important for us to compare the performance of these speakers against the specs claimed by their manufacturers too, which is why we take the time to make sure the claims are legit.

Sonus Faber is well-known for its high-priced, luxury hi-fi equipment and its latest product, the Sonus Faber Omnia, is no exception. This is a sleek, sophisticated and fairly big all-in-one system that’s easy-to-use thanks to comprehensive wireless connectivity, with built-in support for the major streaming services, AirPlay, Chromecast, and Roon. However, if you don’t have an Apple Music subscription, you’re rather limited when it comes to music streaming. You can't ask the HomePod mini to play anything through Spotify – that can only be enabled through AirPlay, and requires using your phone rather than the simpler method of asking Siri to play tunes with your voice. If there’s a single reason to buy the HomePod mini, it’s the sound quality, which delivered clear treble and smooth mids during our tests. Connected, Smart, IntuitiveNow with built-in Alexa support and a scalable wireless platform, the Zeppelin can be updated with new features over time, including multi-room listening. As far as ‘what’s new’ goes, well, it’s all new despite looking very much like previous Zeppelin speakers. Inside and out, the Zeppelin has not so much been overhauled as begun again from scratch.

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