North Reading, Mass. – Bowers & Wilkins will expand its selection of AirPlay-equipped tabletop speakers with the October availability of the $799-suggested A7 and $499 A5.
The pair will join the $599 Zeppelin Air, which features AirPlay but adds 30-pin iPod/iPhone dock. All three feature built-in Wi-Fi to stream music from Apple’s mobile devices and from iTunes-equipped computers.
In tabletop audio, the company also offers the $299 Zeppelin Mini iPod/iPhone docking speaker without AirPlay.
The top-end triamplified 150-watt A7 features such audiophile-grade electronics as DACs that up-scale audio to 24bits/96kHz. The A7 also features dedicated 6-inch bass driver, Class D digital amp, two 1-inch Nautilus tube aluminum tweeters, two 3-inch midranges, embedded 6-inch subwoofer, and 40Hz to 36kHz ±3dB frequency response on reference axis. The A7 also has an Ethernet port, aux analog input and optical digital input.
The $499 A5 is a two-way biampified system rated at 80 watts with frequency response of 47Hz to 22kHz ±3dB on reference axis. The speaker features Class D amplification, two 1-inch Nautilus tube aluminum tweeters, two 4-inch woofers, Ethernet port and 3.5mm analog aux in.