Wireless headphones are rapidly becoming a necessity in our dongle-tangled gadget universe, but the options are endless. We set out to find a pair of high-quality, wireless on-ear headphones for the discerning listener who wants to cruise the streets in style.
I don’t usually like on-ear headphones. It’s mostly a comfort thing—that and the loner desire to close myself off from the outside world. But when I heard that the beloved Bowers & Wilkins P5 on-ear headphones were going wireless, I had to try them, and there’s plenty to like.
Bowers & Wilkins makes some of our favorite audio hardware. We also happen to love AirPlay—so the union of the two should be terrific, right? Sort of. The A7 speaker is tremendous—but it's just so, so expensive.
That Bowers & Wilkins makes excellent audio products is not up for discussion. The company's product history speaks for itself, ranging from outstanding iProduct docks to speakers made from diamonds. Even the Queen weighed in. A few years ago, B&W started making headphones, releasing the sensational P5s. The P3s are…
Do you like to do things and listen to music while you're doing them? Me too! We have so much in common! Maybe you should try these C5 in-ear headphones from Bowers & Wilkins. They're great for listening while doing.
Airplay's pretty great, right? You can zap whatever music you like on over to your compatible device. Fun. Great. Just one problem: Only one person can be AirPlayin' at any given time. Minor quibble? Maybe, but it's a tad antisocial.
You can get an iPod dock for $50, and it'll do everything you'd expect: play your music, charge your phone. So how the hell can you justify spending $600 on one? You find something that surprises and delights you.
Come March the original high-end iPod dock won't require docking. Equipped with new drive units and some subtle design tweaks, B&W's Zeppelin Air also adds streaming AirPlay to the mix. Unfortunately, at $600 it's still crazy expensive. [Bowers & Wilkins]
In addition to streaming to AppleTVs and Airport Expresseses, Apple's new wireless streaming feature, AirPlay, will beam music (and metadata) to docks, receivers, and speakers from the likes of Denon, Marantz, Bowers & Wilkins, JBL and iHome. Very cool. [Apple]
Just because I could never afford this high-end 800 Series Diamond speaker from Bowers & Wilkins doesn't mean I can't enjoy looking at it, and giggling at the phrase "diamond dome tweeter."
Call his rig a ripoff if you want (his speakers, Bowers & Wilkins 802Ds, probably set him back over $15,000), but don't impugn his enthusiasm. For these ten decreasingly-appareled minutes, Ken the Audiophile is the happiest man in the entire world, and he only has B&W, Keith Richards and his predatory loan officer…
B&W must be real proud of itself, releasing these svelte-looking XT speakers that would look great pretty much anywhere. There's four models in the XT series and they each serve different purposes. The XT4 is a three-way speaker; the XT2 is a two-way speaker; the XTC is a two-way center channel speaker; and the PV1 is…
