Customer Ratings & Reviews

I have embraced the B&W Formation lineup for its all-in-one simplicity and sound quality. And I would say so far it's a seamless experience. Having a Formation Duo + Bass in my living room, 2 Formation wedge in my kitchen and bedroom, I was able to use the B&W app to play audio in PERFECT SYNC. The app allows individual volume setting, and also a overall volume which change the individual volume relative to its current level. It's intuitive and works great. The downside of this closed ecosystem is I can only get the synchronization via the app. Using groups in Roon, there is a delay and obviously not the way B&W intended. As a result, when I use full house sync in the app, Room still thinks that the speaker that initiated the playback is the only one active. A bit of a disconnect, but something I can live with. In terms of sound quality, it does it's job, very well. I found the bass to be too much for my taste, overpowering the mid and high, so I dialed it down by 2 ticks in the app and I'm happy with the sound. The sound is full bodied and with good details, instrument separation and sound stage is nowhere near the Formation Duo (obviously); the same is true with the marketed stereo tweeters, the sound I hear still sounds like it came from a single location rather than 2 distinct channels. But with all that said, all Bluetooth speakers in the same category share the same property, I'm really happy with what I'm hearing in terms of tonality, details and transparency, enough for me to recommend this speaker. The price on these units are very high, but for me I went with the ecosystem and wanted to have to cohesive experience from 1 brand rather than many. I was debating whether to get 2 or 3 sonos 1s or even bluesound speakers now BB carries them, but after experiencing the seamless playback experience and quantity of the sound, I probably won't bother. B&W kind of did an Apple over here, and I am satisfied with the level of quality (sound and build) and simplicity that it offered to my audio experience.

The sound it produces is so clearly perfect. I actually returned it because I need more bass and a larger setup is the only way around it, but this speaker is still the best it gets for its size in terms of quality & performance.

I’ve owned Sonos, HEOS and tried Bluesound. After extensive online research, I’ve decided to switch to Formation line and Wedge is my first entry. The sound quality is awesome and exactly what I’ve been looking for. Crystal clear sound with good audio separation. Bass is decent but not exaggerated. One of main competition for this premium price range with high reputation is Naim Muso series which supposedly has better bass. But clear sound is more important factor for me and in this regards reviews say Wedge has its edge. Also, Formation line has Duo or Flex to give true stereo separation if I ever decide in such need. Or if somehow I need more Bass I can always get Formation Bass. The reason Formation line as a whole has not received the best review is due to its app. Setup is super easy and fast but you can’t do much. In fact as of today you can’t even play music from the app. For HiRes audio on Apple device we need Roon as Airplay 2 only capable of CD quality. Currently, there is no Alexa or Google Assistant support. Other than GA, B&W promised to change these in near future but they should have done it from the start to get better reputation. I can only imagine they’d have received top notch scores and awards from many review sites otherwise. Also lack of wired input may appear disadvantage to some. Technically speaking, Wedge has Airplay 2 and Bluetooth Apx HD so these two types of wireless connection allows you to play/connect pretty much anything from most recent electronics. One may wish Chromecast support so it would have made this full wireless connectivity. Regardless, If one absolutely need Wired connection like Aux input, one can purchase formation Audio. The claimed latency is merely 40 ms (according to B&W rep) which is far better than Direct connection Sonos Play 5, HEOS bar, Sonos playbar or Bluesound. So overall, if you are looking for the best sound quality in multiroom wireless speaker platform, this is it. But if you can wait, perhaps wait until updated app release in second quarter may be the best unless you already have or plan to subscribe Roon otherwise you won’t get the best performance from this.