Performance
Antony and the Johnsons I Am a Bird Now
sounded better over the Zeppelin than any iPod speaker we've tested to
date. Antony's soaring vocals reached for the heavens, the band's
acoustic accompaniment was very natural. Guitars and various string
instruments were remarkably clear.
Stereo separation, limited by the Zeppelin's two-foot width, wasn't any better than we've heard from other similar stubby single-enclosure speakers (the Bose SoundDock, the aforementioned Chestnut Hill George, Cambridge SoundWorks 745i and so forth). The Zeppelin sounded best when we were sitting within a metre of it -- much farther than that, and it started to sound, well, like an iPod speaker.
Piano jazz with Duke Ellington highlighted the Zeppelin's refined qualities. The piano, bass and drums were all vivid, but their sound was miniaturised by the Zeppelin. The speaker's weaknesses were further revealed when we switched to heavier hitting genres.
The quieter tunes on Arcade Fire's Neon Bible CD sounded great -- the speaker delivers more, if not better, bass than the vast majority of its more affordable competitors. But when the band starts to work up a sweat, the Zeppelin's bass turned muddy. Turning up the volume certainly didn't help matters, but it will get fairly loud.
We couldn't resist cranking a few Led Zeppelin tunes over the B&W, but the sound fell flat. The speaker doesn't have the power to put across heavy metal with any real conviction, and the more we pushed the Zeppelin's volume, the less we liked it.
The same was true on more pop-oriented songs like Nelly Furtado's "Say It Right" -- the B&W was fine at medium volume, but strained at higher volume levels. Contrast that to the late, great Klipsch iFi -- the 2.1 iPod speaker system will never compete with the B&W for looks, but it's still a clear-cut winner for overall sound quality.
Conclusion
The Zeppelin is an undeniably great iPod speaker: it looks amazing and
is far better built than most competing models, which are little more
than hunks of plastic. But the hefty price tag and the B&W name may
have raised our level of expectations to an almost unreachable level.
For an iPod speaker, the overall sound quality is impressive, but it suffers when the material moves away from acoustic and instrumental music to harder-driving rock and hip-hop. If your musical tastes run to more mellow music -- and you're looking to invest in an audio objet d'art -- the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin may be just the ticket.
Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday
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User reviews4
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james foster 4 February 2012
Good: Sounds good
Bad: Customer care support
Comment: Having experienced a problem setting the system up, I was told of a technical glitch that made it incompatible with my router. Customer support was dismissive - and frankly the product is just a glorified boom box with the airplay facility useless. Extremely frustrating and I would return in a heartbeat if it wasn't out of the retailer's return expiry time limit.
garybeal 30 September 2010
Good: unbelievably good sound
Bad: remote is very basic
Comment: i've had the zeppelin for few months now and its still amazes me . i didnt even own an ipod when i saw it but got one just so i could buy the zeppelin. at first i thought the bass was far too much but as i hadnt owned an ipod i didnt really know what i was doing with the sound options but once you sort the bass out and ignore your neighbours constantly complaining about the noise its unreal . but to get the best out of it you have to use the apple lossless decoder or whater its called when ripping a cd to itunes because it doasnt sound as good at 128 kbps as opposed to a much higher level. i would advise anyone who wants an amazing looking and sounding ipod dock to buy this but be prepared for neighbours hating you
Darryl Stevens 10 August 2010
Good: Sound quality
Bad: Price tag
Comment: I think this is an epic docking system, and looks the part with an iPad hooked up to it. Whether in a small room, or played out in the open, the quality obliterates anything I've heard iPod dock wise. However, saying this, it is still an iPod dock.. £400! That's insane, with very few features. However I can't wait to hook up my PS3 to it. Very happy I have it, but would I buy it again for the same price? No.
See all 4 user reviews