Digital Trends

Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin November 8th, 2007 | by Marshal Rosenthal

Installation/Setup 

Turning the Zeppelin on for the first time sees it going through an internal check. The LED on the front changes color to indicate its “state” - for example, red for standby, blue for when an iPod is being used or green for when the auxiliary input is selected. (FYI - the input “knows” whether an analog or optical plug is attached and adjusts accordingly.) Putting in an iPod automatically selects it as the source. We’re using a 5G model and once attached, it easily started charging.

Evaluation 

Video quality is nothing special - it’s as good as expected in that low-resolution videos exhibit artifacting and plenty of pixilation plus it can go pretty soft at times. However, playing a higher-resolution file causes video to look much better - the Zeppelin itself just being a conveyor of the video from the iPod to the screen. 

Sonic-wise, it’s fair to say that a speaker is mightily influenced by the audio that it is being fed. An MP3 file isn’t going to compete on the same level as that of a fully-realized audio signal from a CD, but the real issue is how it sounds with ordinary tunes. Hence, during testing, our iPod played through a variety of songs both downloaded from the iTunes store along with those ripped by hand at a higher bit-rate. We listened to the Eagles and the Cars and Elvis Costello and even some Snoop Dogg from our collection, using a 5G iPod as well as a first generation Nano.

Sound coming from the Zeppelin is amazingly good and the stereo separation surprisingly so. Voices are clear and sweet and you even start hearing nuances that weren’t being picked up before. Music has a density belying its iPod-based sources and is not “thin” to the ear. Midtones are fluid and the bass is solid, deep and powerful. And that’s even at low volumes, which doesn’t happen often, because you’ll crave playing tracks as loud as the Zep’s got power to spare (there’s a 25 watt amp for each two-way mid/high-frequency section, and 50 watts for the sub). This experience is only amplified when you plug in a CD player for, say, some Mahler and Tchaikovsky, which only further reinforces just how expansive the soundfield is. To be blunt, our Bose SoundDock can now be tossed in the trash, because it sounds noth-ing as good as the Zep. It just goes to show what taking the high road with speakers - regardless of what sound source they're going to be used with - can accomplish.

Conclusion 

We’ve always had a lot of respect for B&W, as they don’t cut corners when it comes to building some really sweet speakers. The Zeppelin continues this tradition and adds a design that benefits sound quality even more than it does the eye. In short, no matter how many times you’ve parsed through those same tired old iPod tracks in your collection, it’s still bound to make you stop and take a good listen. 


Pros
• Superlative sound quality in an iPod player
• Well-designed iPod docking system
• Striking design

Cons
• Hard to carry/Not really portable
• Clunky remote
• Cannot navigate iPod menu with remote