Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Wireless Speaker System

 Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Wireless Speaker System

Through extensive product development and scientific research, Bowers & Wilkins are able to raise the bar once more and retain their reputation as being one of the most superlative home-audio companies on the market today. Essentially every element of the Zeppelin has been improved to form the Zeppelin Wireless, incorporating technological methods that aren’t simply used in any other speaker within its class. The Zeppelin Wireless sets an entirely new standard for sound quality in wireless home audio. 

Appliance of Science

When Bowers & Wilkins set out to redesign the critically acclaimed Zeppelin, the company went back to the drawing board. Using an advanced modelling technique called ‘Finite Element Analysis (FEA)’, Bowers & Wilkins scrutinised essentially every component of the unit to see where they could reduce parasitic resonance and raise the performance even further. Finite Element Analysis is often used in the construction of aircraft and motor vehicles, as well as the company’s redeveloped, flagship ‘800 Series Diamond’ loudspeaker. This resulted in every aspect of the all-in-one speaker seeing an upgrade, from major adjustments like redeveloping the drive unit design, all the way to the finer more delicate and often missed details, like redesigning the position of screw fixing. It’s this meticulous level of attention to detail that has allowed the Zeppelin Wireless to become the best sounding wireless loudspeaker that Bowers & Wilkins have made to date.

High Fidelity Unit

The Zeppelin Wireless’ newly developed drive units feature the latest in Bowers & Wilkins’ innovative design philosophy, using decoupling methods and proven materials to give the unit a sound more familiar with the company’s traditional loudspeaker systems. The Zeppelin Wireless makes use of two 25mm Double Dome Tweeters (as found in the company’s prestigious and award-winning ‘CM S2 Series’), both of which comprise of a thin aluminium dome, allowing for fast and responsive movement. This aluminium dome is backed by a thicker aluminium ring, which gives the tweeter the rigidity needed to operate at high speeds with precision and accuracy.

Two 90mm ‘Fixed Suspension Transducer’ drivers operate upon a unique surround-less suspension, which Bowers & Wilkins say gives the driver the ‘perfect edge termination for the cone’.

The FEA development process was applied to many of the unit’s subwoofer components, resulting in adjustments to the shape and choice material of the subwoofer’s suspension component. This has been remodelled to guarantee total linearity, while the cone itself has been modelled to ensure a breakup frequency way above the operating band. It’s 150mm in size and uses a larger magnet system, in tandem with an ultra-long-throw voice coil, allowing deep and controlled bass to disperse within the room with compromise, even when used at high volumes.

The end result is an array of speaker drivers that when combined offer a clean, intelligible performance across the frequency spectrum, portraying the most in-depth and acoustically rich listening experience across a vast stereo field.

Reinforced Cabinet

The cabinet is one of the most important elements to a loudspeaker’s sound and capability. A rock-solid cabinet enclosure is essential to ensuring that only clean and accurate sounds are delivered, while a poorly developed enclosure will add all sorts of unwanted resonance and vibration to the resulting sound. The housing for the Zeppelin Wireless is the sturdiest Zeppelin cabinet that Bowers & Wilkins have ever created. The front fascia is 50% denser than the Zeppelin Air, and specially designed glass-fibre ‘ribs’ add an extra degree of strength to the cabinet in the necessary places.