B&W Zeppelin Review

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SoundS in Music: B&W Zeppelin Review

Wow!! Its great to have a product like this and then even more great to have folks around you who can gift it to you. Yes My cousin and brother gave me the Zeppelin as my birthday gift.

So, having listened to them for few days now here are my observations :

Looks : This is the biggest plus of Zeppelin. I always never understood why companies try not to make their products look good. Yes, it might be slightly costlier, but worth the effort. You might have some desktop amp and speakers and then the wires and everything, but there is some beauty about a one box solution and there is someting even more about it, if its a Zeppelin. They were quite larger than I had pictured and they look even more lovely in real life.

Accessories: I did't see much with them. There is that rubber stand, which is not so good and a bit annoying as it gets easily detached if you move around and seems to be needed only if the Zeppelin is placed somewhere higher than your ear level. So, I am not using it. It doesn't seem to come with even cables. So, not much points here. The remote is lovely to look, but then again not much features. The bass control is accessible only through 5G ipods. I did reduce it to -2 and things seem better now.

Sound:
Yes, this is what matters the most and let me generalize the nature of the sound. It seems to have been made with digital music (iPod and mp3's) in mind (obviously its an ipod dock ) What this means is that when I actually connect it to my CD player there seems to be some softness in the highs. I find it too laidback for my tastes. You get the zing back if you play the same CD through DVD player. My DVD player was sounding less harsh in Zeppelin compared to Rotel RA04. There is a bit of exaggeration in bass. Definetly, my room seems to have some trouble here and causing the bass to be even bigger. But, neverthless there is some exaggeration in the bass in my opinion. Probably, this was done again with mp3's in mind I think. But, the rest is that its crystal clear and definetly of high quality.
The volume can go quite high, but I do notice congestion. Actually, being a one box itself there is definetly, not much of imaging and soundstage. I would say that no matter how big the box is and tries to, doesn't come close to 2 speakers. So, that limitation has to be liven with. But, neverthless, there is congestion to lesser extenet at low volumes and quite present at higher volumes.
Also, I did notice quite some prominent port noise particularly when my pod had its EQ set to Rock or something where the bass is few db's up. It was odd to find that a product like this having ended up in a situation like this. But, anyway, turning off the EQ and setting the bass control to -2 has no port noise and works fine for my room, although the bass is less.
But, play some music thats simple with just couple of instruments and vocal and this is where Zeppelin's really shine. Not just that they are good, for the first time in my venture with budget seperates system, there were songs where I could really feel some connection with the music.

Conclusion:
You need something looking great, something thats convenient without wires and have a bit of toned down expectation for that price tag of these, then you have got a piece of art for your bedroom that you can be proud off. I know I am