I am here to report that this new B&W Zeppelin Mini, is NOT in the same sound class as the orignal Zeppelin!
I was the 1st to purchase one at J&R in NYC on Nov 3rd. While at times I was very impressed, at other moments the units sound simple became overwhelmed!
It seem to depend on what music I was actaully playing, and even how it was even recorded.
I had been waiting for -many months- for its release, and had high hopes for this new B&W ipod player. (this includes before it was announced and just a rumor that B&W put out their about it.
It took J&R in NYC, almost 45 min to actually find it in their huge underground storage area. When it came up, I was taken on how small the box was. (not in a good way).
When I got it home, and opened the box it was half the size if the small box! So they were not fooling when they said it was a quarter the size of the Zeppelin.
Bottom line: The Mini DSP attempts to get the sounds very low in the octaves. It does do so, but with no real punch or authority! The onboard DAC & two digital amps were indeed very impressive sounding BUT way too much was being pumped into these two small speakers. The sounds only at times, become distorted.
All sub actives, lows, highs, and mids are played thru with two small 3" speakers!! They pushed the envelope, a bit further then they have the ability to.
Leaving out the nautilus derived tweeters & powered sub which the larger Zeppelin has was a -very backward move.- Looks to me as the engineers at Bowers&Wilkins, were given a ultra small footprint to work with. Full compromise, from a company that never should!
I really do hope that Bowers & Wilkins creates an updated Zeppelin full size model, in the next few years. (they said they clamied they are not currently).
The worst part is at many moments the Mini does sound great....
As someone who has heard full size home B&W speakers driven with high end Audio Research Tube Amps..... Lets not comprised this great companies name any further in the future, for a buck.
The X-Fi3 keeps with the company's commitment to audio fidelity, thanks to the apt-X codec, which supposedly offers audio quality similar to a wired connection when streaming. On that front, the device also handles FLAC files.
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I am here to report that this new B&W Zeppelin Mini, is NOT in the same sound class as the orignal Zeppelin!
I was the 1st to purchase one at J&R in NYC on Nov 3rd. While at times I was very impressed, at other moments the units
sound simple became overwhelmed!
It seem to depend on what music I was actaully playing, and even how it was even recorded.
I had been waiting for -many months- for its release, and had high hopes for this new B&W ipod player.
(this includes before it was announced and just a rumor that B&W put out their about it.
It took J&R in NYC, almost 45 min to actually find it in their huge underground storage area.
When it came up, I was taken on how small the box was. (not in a good way).
When I got it home, and opened the box it was half the size if the small box!
So they were not fooling when they said it was a quarter the size of the Zeppelin.
Bottom line: The Mini DSP attempts to get the sounds very low in the octaves.
It does do so, but with no real punch or authority!
The onboard DAC & two digital amps were indeed very impressive sounding BUT way too much was being pumped into these
two small speakers. The sounds only at times, become distorted.
All sub actives, lows, highs, and mids are played thru with two small 3" speakers!!
They pushed the envelope, a bit further then they have the ability to.
Leaving out the nautilus derived tweeters & powered sub which the larger Zeppelin has was a -very backward move.-
Looks to me as the engineers at Bowers&Wilkins, were given a ultra small footprint to work with.
Full compromise, from a company that never should!
I really do hope that Bowers & Wilkins creates an updated Zeppelin full size model, in the next few years.
(they said they clamied they are not currently).
The worst part is at many moments the Mini does sound great....
As someone who has heard full size home B&W speakers driven with high end Audio Research Tube Amps.....
Lets not comprised this great companies name any further in the future, for a buck.