Earlier this week, Bowers & Wilkins launched Formation: a five-strong wireless multi-room family of products; its premium take on Sonos.
We received word of the US pricing of the Formation Duo active wireless speakers ($3999, pictured below), Formation Wedge wireless speaker ($899), Formation Bar soundbar ($1199), Formation Bass subwoofer ($999) and Formation Audio wireless hub ($699) - and today the British brand has confirmed UK figures on its site.
- B&W Formation Duo hands-on review
- B&W Formation Wedge hands-on review
- B&W Formation Bar and Formation Bass hands-on review
As one may have guessed from the US prices, the top-of-the-range Duos will cost £3499 while the single-unit Wedge and Bar are priced £900 and £1000 respectively.
The Bass is £900 and the Audio is £600.
They will all be available on UK shelves from 29th April.
As we previously gauged from the already-announced US pricing, B&W's Formation family is a more premium multi-room alternative to Sonos, Audio Pro and even Bluesound.
Naturally, it'll have to prove its worth both on the sonic and equally-important usability fronts, although first impressions from our hands-on time with the products are positive, and their feature lists can't be argued with...
The Formation suite of products is compatible with Apple AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, Roon Ready and aptX HD Bluetooth. File support is up to 24-bit/96kHz, while smartphone control is via the all-new B&W Formation app.
As we noted in our launch story, the family has been designed entirely in-house and uses a patented mesh network. B&W's engineers were adamant that a seamless connection between products and across rooms was crucial, and the company claims the Formation range delivers an industry-leading, "imperceptible" synchronisation of under one microsecond between the Duo speakers and milliseconds between components. B&W says this is way ahead of the competition.
Needless to say we look forward to taking them for a proper spin soon.
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