B&W Formation

It's way too early to make much of a judgement call on this. The biggest thing you could really say for sure is that it's priced way too high for a lot of people. On the other hand, it's going to pull in a ton of audiophile types, or perhaps just want to get the most expensive thing possible.

- The B&W line does have bluetooth though, which will make a lot of people happy. It apparently only has Spotify and Apple music services currently, so you'll likely need that bluetooth, airplay, or your local libraries. It seems to use Roon for local files, and mentions Spotify Connect. I wonder if the app can actually control the music source or if your expected to use the services app.
- It does a higher bit rate than Sonos does. That will compel a lot of folks, while others will talk about how the higher bit rate makes no difference to the human ear.
- No mention of voice services.
- Their soundbar can't be paired with surround speakers currently. They also chose to do an optical connection instead of HDMI-ARC, and do not support DTX. The manual says 'dolby surround', so not sure if that includes DD+.
- They say that there is zero latency, but they don't specifically talk about latency from video sources, whether it's in multiroom sync or not. Also didn't see anything about whether it uses 5.0 or 2.4 GHz for it's multroom connections.
- It looks like the control app is Android or iOS, no desktop support.
- I personally don't like the look of the speakers, but that's subjective. I can see where others may prefer the look.

Maybe it's interesting not so much as a competitor but in comparison of the feature decisions that were made, and now they compare to Sonos.

Ridiculous prices that are needed to support low volume sales/brand marketing. Justifiable only if it offers music play with stability that is orders of magnitude higher than Sonos, close to a wired legacy style system, because at those prices any music stuttering and stopping will be unacceptable. Since that isn't feasible, I can't see many switch from high end wired kit to this.

It's disappointing that B&W's marketing department apparently became unmoored from the science (in particular Nyquist-Shannon) and used the long-discredited 'stair-step'/'jaggies' pictures to support their claim of "96/24 Bit Audio Resolution streaming with twice the fidelity than the leading wireless speaker brand for the purest and clearest audio experience".

I used to appreciate B&W loudspeakers many years ago, and owned a series of mid-priced models, but IMO the above undermines their credibility by playing to the gallery of the audiophile faithful.

I suspect that the stair step jaggies are used to convey the message because there is no better way to do so, never mind that the means and the message are not based in science. And I doubt that this will cost them any loss of credibility with their target market - audiophiles, including those on a budget.

IMO the messaging is misleading -- what exactly is "twice the fidelity" anyway? See https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html#toc_sfam

Other observations:

The control of these units seems to be via a bit of a mish-mash of apps. The B&W app appears to be mainly for setup and grouping, with some basic playback control. Sources evidently need a native app -- Spotify, Roon, etc. or something which will send via AirPlay or Bluetooth. Presumably radio has to be delivered by AirPlay/BT as well.

Incidentally the B&W app says it requires "iOS V11.4 or later, or Android V8.1 or later" by contrast with Sonos' continued support of older OSes (notwithstanding recent grumps about the oldest being abandoned).

IMO the messaging is misleading -- what exactly is "twice the fidelity" anyway?
Erm...twice the number of steps?:-).
The point I made was that while the message is fallacious; the messaging is the best way to deliver it pictorially because people understand it from where it is valid, for pixels in video.

Erm...twice the number of steps?:-).
The point I made was that while the message is fallacious; the messaging is the best way to deliver it pictorially because people understand it from where it is valid, for pixels in video.

No, the "best way to deliver it pictorially" would be to tell the truth. Like extending the dynamic range of a smooth sine wave into the inaudible part of the spectrum. Audio has absolutely no relation to pixels in video, and stair steps (as the Sony case explicitly states) are a lie meant to mislead the consumer. They shouldn't be confused with an attempt to ease the understanding of the layman customer.

If there were still around Nyquist & Shannon would not be pleased.

No, the "best way to deliver it pictorially" would be to tell the truth.
But if one had to sell the high price point, would the truth help? That is what I was saying; given this situation, the jaggies can't be beat for a cool way of misleading the gullible. Who says that marketing is always ethical?
And it isn't just b&w, the entire HD audio industry is based on this messaging to the misled.

Assuming Sonos is the "leading wireless speaker brand" (and a lawyer would have a hard time proving otherwise) they might even consider it defamatory.

But if one had to sell the high price point, would the truth help?

Why even mention it at all? State what your bit rate is and let the consumer decide whether they want to pay for the higher bit rate or not. As far as selling to a higher price point, you do that by claiming better build quality, or more stylish and exclusive, and better features (if you have them). There is nothing untruthful about that, as it's either a fact or a matter of opinion.

No, the "best way to deliver it pictorially" would be to tell the truth.
But if one had to sell the high price point, would the truth help? That is what I was saying; given this situation, the jaggies can't be beat for a cool way of misleading the gullible. Who says that marketing is always ethical?
And it isn't just b&w, the entire HD audio industry is based on this messaging to the misled.

Marketing may not be "ethical", but there are standards they need to hold to. If only other agencies would do what the Advertising Standards Authority did to Sony:

https://www.truthinadvertising.org/sony-high-resolution-audio/

I see that link claims that Sony is barred from running the ad in the UK, but not barred in the US. It is therefore surprising to see B&W UK doing something similar on their UK website.

I see that link claims that Sony is barred from running the ad in the UK, but not barred in the US. It is therefore surprising to see B&W UK doing something similar on their UK website.

Not for long . . . 😉

Love how all the mags are touting this as a “Sonos competitor”. Kinda like Rolls Royce is a “Honda competitor”, lol. Totally different market.

Bluesound maybe. Was reading a comment on another forum from a member who had “upgraded” from Sonos to Bluesound for the “Hi-Rez” non-issue. “Now that I have a mesh WiFi, it’s working perfectly, without dropouts”. Ummmm... 😃

Those are some fugly components. Even priced right, they look more fit for planet Mars.

Even priced right, they look more fit for planet Mars.

More like the garbage bin.

Love how all the mags are touting this as a “Sonos competitor”. Kinda like Rolls Royce is a “Honda competitor”, lol. Totally different market.


Perhaps it's a bit unfair, but it's almost like comparing a 2009 RR to a 2019 Honda. Yes, it costs more and perhaps has some luxury features. It may turn a few more heads. But it doesn't have some of the basic features, like navigation, that the Honda does.

The B&W feels a tad unfinished to me. As if there were a lot of features they wanted to add, and maybe will add later, but decided to get this out now as if they were under a time crunch.

The B&W feels a tad unfinished to me. As if there were a lot of features they wanted to add, and maybe will add later, but decided to get this out now as if they were under a time crunch.

B&W is, first and foremost, a Speaker company. Their in-house experience is all about speakers, not electronics and computers. Sonos has been a technology company which builds speakers. Huge difference in in-house knowledge. B&W may very well have had to outsource most of the tech, leaving them still with no in-house knowledge. If that's the case, I wouldn't go near these (not that I would anyway, lol).

B&W is, first and foremost, a Speaker company.
Bowers & Wilkins sold to Silicon Valley start-up for undisclosed sum

Bowers & Wilkins sold to Silicon Valley start-up for undisclosed sum

Wow! Well, at least they didn't sell out to a Chinese company. Interesting. Yet another great old British brand that's no longer British.

I'm waiting to hear what the Sonos patent lawyers have to say about these. Similar to the earlier Denon offering, they sound like a good idea now but will they still after the lawyers get done gnawing the corners off.

Wow! Well, at least they didn't sell out to a Chinese company. Interesting. Yet another great old British brand that's no longer British.
China is too close to our borders for us to ever be a fan of the Chinese, but there are a lot of Chinese companies now that are world class, and there is no saying that the brand would have definitely suffered under Chinese ownership. As far as I know, Quad is Chinese owned for many years now. And as another example Chinese smart phones are giving the Koreans a run for the money in Indian smart phone market, that is the second largest in the world, China being the biggest. Apple is a non starter in both places.
Actually, I can't see the brand doing great under the ownership of a silicon valley start up.

I'm waiting to hear what the Sonos patent lawyers have to say about these. Similar to the earlier Denon offering, they sound like a good idea now but will they still after the lawyers get done gnawing the corners off.

I thought about that possibility, but if B&W was bought in 2016 with smart speakers in mind, and they know Sonos will litigate to protect patents, I'd assume they took these 2/3 years to develop their own mesh system. I'm a little curious to see how well it works. I am completely guessing, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are using 5.0Ghz for the mesh network. I've noticed that none of the reviews and news articles talk about this at all, and don't even appear to review how well the network works, just speaker performance. The visual diagram B&W puts out has all the speakers in 2 rooms only, relatively small space. Then there is no mention of any sort of buffer delays, which is also not surprising, but something I'd expect to be found in reviews of the bar.

We'll see.

5GHz.
https://www.cepro.com/article/bowers_wilkins_formation_wireless_multiroom_audio
https://www.soundandvision.com/content/formation-wireless-technology-explained

Much is made of sync accuracy and latency, but I have to confess I have never, in many years, been aware of soundstage drift between Sonos L&R stereo pairs.

Speculating wildly, the playback sync mechanisms may differ between in-room and multi-room. It could be that in-room the devices are synchronous or at least plesiochronous. Sonos of course operates over any asynchronous medium, by the exchange of timestamps. Interesting stuff.

Just as a reality check, sound takes about 1ms to travel a foot in air. Move your head slightly off the centreline, and even with two perfectly sychronised sources you'll easily inject hundreds of microseconds of offset between the channels at the listening position. And that's before room acoustics work their mischief.