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Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Speakers for iPod
Design
In the looks category, the Zeppelin is top notch, created by the renowned London design firm Native. The enclosure is zeppelin shaped, hence the name, with the tweeters at the outer points, a single low-end woofer in the center, and the mid-range drivers in between. The front of the speaker is covered in finely woven black cloth, accented by a chrome arm extending from the bottom of the unit. Your iPod / iPhone sits on a "B&W" emblazoned dock connector that is spring-loaded to adjust to the multiple supported devices' sizes. As far as "Supported Devices" go, the Zeppelin is able to play your music from any dock-connector equipped iPod. You get an extra bass level adjustment under the "Speaker" menu with the 5G iPod, nano, iPhone (2G and 3G versions), and Touch. Both versions of the iPhone charge through the Zeppelin dock connector, as do all other dockable iPods except the 3rd generation iPod. The included tilt pad can be used to angle the Zeppelin forward to give you a better viewing angle for the iPod / iPhone screen. The added tilt is nice if the speaker is placed above head leavel, because it points the speaker more directly toward you. A thin chrome ring runs around the middle of the speaker, holding the volume and power buttons. A multicolored LED rests about 1/3 of the way out from this ring. The status of the speaker is indicated by the color and behavior of this light. Blue means iPod, green means AUX source. Blinking indicates pause or mute status, respectively. A white light tells you that you are approaching maximum volume, while red indicates that you've reached that limit.   The back of the Zeppelin is all chromed out with two tuned bass ports for the center-mounted low-end driver. The various inputs and outputs are found towards the bottom. There's the power cable connector, a USB port for firmware upgrades, a dual-mode analog/digital AUX in, and S-Video / Composite video ports for playing video from your iPod on the big screen. If iPodding isn't your thing, you can run additional audio into the Zeppelin via the AUX port. It automatically handles both digital and analog signals, which is a nice touch. There aren't any other inputs available, however. There's no CD player or AM/FM radio - there's not even a display, save for that single LED indicator. If simplicity is your game, you're set, but you'll have to plug in another audio source if you want to multipurpose the Zeppelin. The included remote is like a mini-Zeppelin both in shape and coloring - the bottom is chrome and the top is a piano black. You can adjust the volume, change tracks, power the Zeppelin on or off, and select sources with the remote. It looks nice, but it's almost too minimal; I turned the volume up instead of down (and vice versa) accidentally several times because I didn't look to see which side was up. The overall package is one that you would definitely want to sit on your mantle. If you have one. If you don't, it'd probably make any room you have look classier. I would even venture to say that the B&W Zeppelin looks better than the water effects in Morrowind. And that's a comparison I don't make lightly.
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4 User Comments 1 - Posted by
akustika
on November 5, 2008 - 5:29 pm Thank you for interesting article about your expirience with B&W Zeppelin! If you have no objections, I translate it with link source: http://akustika-life.blogspot.com/2008/11/bowers-w... (please remove previous incorrect comment) 2 - Posted by
Kurtis
on November 5, 2008 - 7:42 pm akustika: I would mind a lot less if you would actually link to us prominently and state that it is a translation of an article from TheTechLounge. As it stands, you're just stealing our content and putting it in a different language, without permission. I appreciate that you're asking in this case, but I noticed that you translated at least parts of our LaserVue article as well.
3 - Posted by
akustika
on November 6, 2008 - 4:50 am At the and of article I put direct link to this article and write that source is TheTechLounge. Concerning LaserVue(http://akustika-life.blogspot.com/2008/10/laser-tv...) I take only conclusion from comparing it with Pioneer PRO-151FD Kuro 60 and add link immediately. If you have objections I'll don't use TheTechLounge as source. Thank you 4 - Posted by
cole0822
on March 12, 2009 - 1:07 pm Check out the Zeppelin video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah0u_WfLWOY
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