Who Would Spend £699 on a Non-smart Home Speaker?

My review of the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Pro

Image courtesy of author

Why would you spend £699 on a Bluetooth speaker that doesn’t have any form of smart tech built into it? Add to that the absence of a line-in connection, no Dolby Atmos or fancy room-filling speaker configurations, and dimensions that would trouble even the most spacious bookcases, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that Bowers & Wilkins has gone utterly mad.

Image courtesy of author

Welcome, one and all, to the world of the Zeppelin Pro, which started life as an expensive but highly regarded third-party iPod speaker dock that retailed between 2006 and 2011. Since then, Bowers & Wilkins has reimagined its home speaker as the Air, the Mini, the Wireless, and the streamlined fourth-generation model which arrived in 2021 and was simply called ‘Zeppelin’.

The Zeppelin Pro has now arrived and looks identical to the model it replaces, save for a new colour option and a fancier downlight.

All this to say: you probably have many questions. I certainly did, which is why I was delighted to get hands-on with the Zeppelin Pro before it hit the shelves.