Bowers & Wilkins Formation Wedge Review

Much has changed since Bowers & Wilkins released the iconic Zeppelin Wireless speaker—most notably, the company has come under new ownership.

Luckily, with its new Formation line of wireless speakers, it looks like B&W is still on top of its game.

At $899.99, the Formation Wedge is even more expensive than the $700 Zeppelin was at launch.

But like the Zeppelin, it pushes boundaries in the style department while putting out powerful, room-filling audio with some serious bass presence and excellent high frequency clarity.

Whether it's worth the sky-high price, however, depends on how much you're willing to pay for innovative design.

Design

Measuring 10.0 by 11.1 by 10.2 inches (HWD) and available in gray with a white backing or black with a wood veneer backing, the Formation Wedge has a 120-degree curve to its front panel.

The cloth grille covering this panel is especially striking thanks to the sheen of the fabric combined with a faceted pattern.

There's no aruging that the Formation Wedge is a lovely design piece, perhaps even better-looking than the Zeppelin models that came before it.

The back panel is a smooth and somewhat rounded, with a slotted port for air dispersal from driver movement.

The bottom panel has rubberized footing and a recessed area where the included power cable connects to the speaker.

This panel also houses an Ethernet connection, a USB-C port for service, and a reset button.

There are threaded screw holes on the bottom panel for mounting on a stand.

Up top, the touch-sensitive control panel is subtly emblazoned with the Bowers & Wilkins logo, and when nothing's happening, that's all you see.

Tapping the panel reveals light-up controls—a plus and minus control for volume, a central play/pause button, and a button with the Formation logo, which cycles through your various available streams and sound sources.

It took a minute or so for the Bowers & Wilkins Home app (for Android and iOS) to recognize the Wedge in testing, but once it did, setting it up on a Wi-Fi network was a simple step-by-step process.

In addition to helping with setup, the app is home to a simple EQ—only two bands, bass and treble—that can be used to tweak the sound signature somewhat.

Beyond that, if you have multiple B&W Formation speakers, you can use the app to control them all in a multi-room array.

The app is functional, though I would've like to see more granular levels of control.

Aside from Wi-Fi streaming, you can pair with the Formation Wedge via AirPlay 2 and Bluetooth.

It's also compatible with Roon and Spotify Connect.

Performance

Behind the grille, there are dual 1-inch, 40-watt tweeters; dual 3.5-inch, 40-watt woofers; and a 6-inch, 80-watt subwoofer, combining for a frequency range of 35Hz to 28kHz.

The speaker can stream up to 96kHz, 24-bit audio.

Some speakers claim to have a built-in subwoofer, and what that really means is that there's a woofer that is similar to but not quite a sub, and the net result in these cases is underwhelming sub-bass response.

The Formation Wedge is not one of those speakers.

This is some of the most powerful bass depth I've heard from an all-in-one wireless speaker—it can get quite loud, and will rattle tables and walls.

On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife's "Silent Shout," the low-frequency response is truly strong, and at high volumes, it'll shake most walls—but the drivers can also be pushed to the brink of distortion.

This is a surprise because the Formation Wedge employs DSP (digital signal processing) that typically would prevent this, but we won't call it a deal breaker, as the volumes at which this occurs are truly high.

At even 80 percent volume, the output is seriously loud, and distortion is not in the picture.

Bill Callahan's "Drover," a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the Formation Wedge's general sound signature.

The drums on this track have a lovely, natural roundness through the Wedge—the drivers definitely boost the lows, but not to obscene levels, and not without also sculpting the higher frequencies somewhat to keep things balanced.

This may not be a purist's ideal sound signature, but there's deep, rich bass depth paired with clear highs, allowing Callahan's baritone voice to be crisp and to resonate in the low-mids.

On Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," the kick drum loop receives plenty of high-mid presence, allowing its attack to retain its punchiness, while the loop also receives some added sustain, which provides some palpable low-frequency thump.

The sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are delivered with some oomph, but the bulk of their ominous presence is just out of the subwoofer's range—there's no distortion, but there's no earth-rattling sound like we'd hear if the sub went all the way down to the deepest sub-bass.

Regardless, the sound signature here is powerful, with solid clarity on all three vocal parts, as well.

Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, sound glorious though the Formation Wedge.

The lower register instrumentation gets a push forward, but the overall low-frequency response still sounds natural, despite the added richness.

The higher register brass, strings, and vocals are delivered with superb clarity and crispness—again, there's some sculpting here, so those seeking true flat response might not love the sound signature, but plenty of listeners will enjoy this full-sounding, bright output.

Conclusions

Is the Bowers & Wilkins Formation Wedge beautiful? Yes.

Powerful, with compelling bass depth and clarity? Yes.

Is it worth $900? That's debatable.

For the same amount of money or less, you can purchase stereo speakers that deliver true stereo separation, and maybe even a subwoofer.

But you're clearly paying as much for beauty and branding here as you are for performance—the Wedge is essentially the high-end sports car of the wireless speaker realm.

If you like the idea of a powerful all-in-one wireless speaker, but $900 is out of your league, consider the Sonos Beam, the Marshall Woburn II Bluetooth, the JBL Boombox, or the Denon Envaya DSB-250BT.

All are less expensive than the Wedge by varying degrees, and all offer quality audio performance for the price.

If you have money to burn and the like the design, however, the Formation Wedge is an excellent option.