Bowers & Wilkins begin a new Silicon Valley - based parent companythree years ago , and now , the classic British audio marque has a new air of premium wireless speakers . The newfangled Formation Suite starts at $ 900 for a very exotic - looking thing predict the Wedge and tops out at $ 4,000 with the even more alien - looking Duo . Based on the sales pitch , these new wireless speakers can do anything a Sonos system can do and be three times as much .
The Formation Suite exemplify the first new products by Bowers & Wilkins since the society was acquired by Eva Automation in 2016 . Eva is the brainchild of Gideon Yu , co - owner of the San Francisco 49ers and former chief financial officer of Facebook . The acquisition makes a lot more horse sense now that Bowers & Wilkins is surging headlong into the wireless speaker world , especially since Eva ’s original missionwasto make “ mathematical product that will exchange how masses interact and cogitate about the home . ” These young audio products are certainly different .
Aside from the price tag — which is at the depleted range of the Bowers & Wilkins product lineup , by the manner — the company lay claim the new speaker system set themselves apart with mesh networking technology . Each component of the arrangement effectively becomes a node in a mesh web that , according to the party , “ dynamically chooses the optimal path to route audio - information between products . ” This enables the speakers to stream 96 kHz/24 - bit high-pitched - resolution audio . A few years ago , Gizmodo ’s own Mario Aguilar called this received “ impractical overkill that nobody can afford . ” It ’s more bandwidth than you postulate for Spotify playlists , but Bowers & Wilkins is aiming at audiophiles looking to modernise their hi - fi systems .
Photo: (Bowers & Wilkins)
The company is tender plenty of ways to do that , too . The flagship of the new Formation Suite is the aforementioned span speaker pair . These speakers feature the same Continuum strobilus driver that ’s in the famous Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series Diamond serial . They look like a bite - sized version of those loudspeaker , too , with the characteristic Carbon domed stadium tweeter perched above the master driver array . The Formation Duo also come with AirPlay 2.0 , Spotify Connect , and Bluetooth , although you believably want to stupefy to the interlocking connection to make the most of these bad boy .
Flanking the Formation Duo is the more affordable Formation Wedge . Featuring the same mesh networking technology and 96 kHz/24 - bit high - resolving audio capabilities as the twain , the Wedge is more of an all - in - one solution that you could baffle on your kitchen counter . The drivers , tweeters , and sub are all inwardly of an elliptical inclosure that curve at 120 - level to spread the sound around the elbow room . The whole post looks like a outer space ship on the wrong side of a wormhole or just a squished up translation ofthe Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin speaker .
Pulling up the stern is the $ 1,000 Formation Bass , the $ 1,200 Formation Bar , and the $ 700 Formation Audio . The Bass , as the name mean , is a subwoofer with opposing drivers that match with the other Formation speakers . The Bar , true to its name too , is a heavy legal community with nine drivers . The Formation Audio is a picayune box that rent you connect a traditional hi - fi organization to Formation speakers . Bowers & Wilkins also says it ’s perfected speaker synchronization so when all of these fancy miniature are hooked up , everything is perfectly timed .
Photo: (Bowers & Wilkins)
The whole proposal seems intriguing , if only because the approximation of mesh networked talker vocalise very forward - thinking . After all , mesh networks are becoming the in effect way to distribute large bandwidth connections in homes . And if the aspiration of high - solvent audio frequency andits buzzworthy full cousin three-D audiocomes true , wireless - bright audiophiles will need a upright way to connect their speaker system of rules .
Then again , the Formation Suite also seems like a very niche serial of products for a very niche sort of listener . To make the most of the system , this listener will need informant audio that ’s very high quality as well as ear that can tell the difference . get ’s be honest , though . Some very rich mass are going to listen to extremely compressed Spotify rail on these thing and feel thrilled about the money they spent .
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Photo: (Bowers & Wilkins)
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Photo: (Bowers & Wilkins)
