Audio Video News

It's been seven years since Bowers & Wilkins introduced the Zeppelin audio system. That's an eternity for this kind of product. Now the world is awash in phone-friendly compact powered speakers. Yesterday the company took the wraps off the new Zeppelin Wireless at a New York press event.

As the name implies, the biggest change is that the Zeppelin has gone wireless. Gone is the iOS iPhone/iPod dock. The one in the old Zeppelin used Apple's now obsolete 30-pin connector and B&W has not opted to create a new version for the Lightning connector. The new Zeppelin speaks AirPlay, Bluetooth with performance-boosting aptX and AAC compression, and Spotify Connect (for paid subscribers only). AirPlay will connect your iPhone and iPad and Bluetooth suffices for everything else. (As for iPods—what's an iPod?)

The new Zeppelin Wireless still has the distinctive shape of the original—more like an American football than a zeppelin, actually. This has audible benefits, reducing diffraction as the enclosure narrows to the tweeters at the far sides. It is still a three-way system with a single 6.5-inch bass driver, two 3.5-inch midrange drivers, and two 1-inch double-dome tweeters. The bass driver gets 50 watts and each of the others gets 25. But on the inside, things have changed.

The front fascia is 50 percent thicker, with glass fiber ribs to strengthen the enclosure. The presentation showed how resonance, which once affected nearly the entire enclosure, is now largely confined to the area around the bass driver. The computer analysis that made this possible has also been applied to the Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series Diamond speakers introduced a few weeks ago.

The chassis needs to be thicker and more nonresonant because the bass driver has increased from 5 to 6.5 inches. However, that doesn't necessarily mean the bass has become overpowering. A side-by-side demo of the old and new Zeppelins, with the same songs, showed that the older model had more aggressive—but also more congested—bass. The new one has a more open and fine-tuned top end. It benefits from the use of "double dome" tweeters, with a second ring diaphragm behind the main one.

The DAC has also been upgraded. All inputs are now upsampled to 24/192.

The Zeppelin Wireless is available now from B&W's website and will hit brick-and-mortar retailers October 15. Price: $699. We've received a review sample and will report back in a few months.