Customer Ratings & Reviews

I have owned these for quite a while and wanted to do a review on these a while back but hadn’t gotten around to it. I have recently seen some of the reviews on the product lately as I have been interested in ordering another pair of these in white! I felt it important to set the record straight. I can agree with some of the points people make on here about the app not being up to or but it is only needs to setup the formation products, after that you use Roon or Airplay. If you are an audiophile or a person who appreciates sitting down and listening to music you probably already use Roon. These are by far the best sounding stereo speakers on the market for the price and simplicity. All I have are the speakers with one power cord connected for each speaker. The Formation audio allows for me to connect my McIntosh CD player and Denon Turntable. Most of the music I listen to comes from Roon via Tidal or Qobuz but if I want to listen to analog sources the Fromation Audio is needed. If you someone who appreciates style as much as you appreciate HiFi you will appreciate these speakers. I love had friends who are musicians over to my home and we have played these speakers and every one of them has been amazed by their sound and detail. These speakers are like hybrid of the 805 and 705 passive speakers that B&W makes but also include the correct bi-amplification. If I were to build a similar system with regular HiFi components and passive speakers I would probably only save a little bit of money but have to deal with having a lot of wires! If you want to have these connected to tv audio just grab yourself an Apple TV and airplay the sound. It sounds a works without delay. This is a great system and I highly recommend them.

Owned the Duo's for over 2 years now. The sound stage is superb. They deliver powerful sound gracefully. The bass is suprisingly adequate for bookshelf size speaker's. Very dynamic. Can connect directly to Roon, Tidal, qobuz, deezer etc.... thru B&W app. In life you may not always get what you pay for but with the Duo's you get ALL your monies worth. Excellent and I'd buy them again tomorrow.

I have owned lots of expensive audio equipment and got tired of all the wires and different components. I replaced a Mark Levinson/Linn system with small QBs from Naim. The Qbs are great for what they are, but they lack really low bass and will not play in stereo pairs. In spite of many compliments on their sound from visitors, I wanted better. So, I have been following all the new active, streaming speakers coming out. I was looking for best bang for the buck and that could double for music and movies. I tried a KEF system that kept losing WiFi and Bluetooth signal. The sound was Ok, but not great. The Naims are better, even in mono. When I returned the KEFs, I listened to these Duos in the BB store, where they were NOT set up in an appropriate location (dumb). I decided to give them a home-try. Man, what difference the environment made. The speakers sound as good as $100,000 systems I have heard. I expected crystal clear mids and treble, and they definitely deliver, but what surprised me was how much bass they put out. I don’t need a sub as I had thought I might. These are worth far more than what seems initially an expensive price. Keep in mind you don’t need separates — you already get a streamer, DAC, amps (4), preamp as well as extraordinarily good speakers. Note that a mid-fi amp and a set of passive 700 series B&W bookshelves would exceed the price of these. I am sure you could find a less expensive, less usable system, but it will be nowhere as good as these. And if you were to build a comparable system, with all the same features, you’d spend far more than $4,000 (assuming you buy total crap equipment) and it would like still not be nowhere as good. As for the older reviews regarding drop-out and the app — B&W has replaced the app, and the new one is quite good. If others suffered connectivity issues, that definitely is not indicative of all Duos, and I suspect is a rare problem, where you could get a replacement pair under warranty in any event. Give these a try— you WILL want to keep them once you figure out what value they offer.

I got this speakers as open box for 1K and I can say this are the best speakers I've had better than the 805 d3 not d4 tho but for that price you get the sound quality of a 800 series not bad at all. Finish is good but not 800 series good I believe the design is good but I still prefer the 800 diamond finishes and design Now if you get this I strongly recommend you get the formation audio it will make your life easier and you will be able to use this speaker with anything that is the downside of this system is only wireless but the formation audio fixes that in my opinion Just keep in mind this is a great deal on clearance (2k at the moment of this review) not only you get a great pair of speaker but also the amps 2x125w each speakers bi wire if you get the 805 d3 (what this compares to) and a decent amp you may be looking at 6k+ i paid for my whole system and a formation wedge 2k for all not disappointed at all.

My Formation Duo speakers arrived four days ago. For the first two days, my experience matched those of the reviewers that rated the speakers as one star—multiple dropouts and episodes of unresponsiveness. I was completely unable to use Roon with them, although the B&W Music app worked most of the time. I tried an ethernet cable right away. I restarted and factory reset the speakers several times. That seemed to improve things a little, but the dropouts continued to an intolerable degree for such an expensive piece of equipment. Roon gave me a hint. Roon provides info on its music files—I soon figured out that hi-res audio files were always dropped but lower-res compressed files would play. The Roon Help documentation emphasizes the importance of a well-tuned and correctly configured wireless system to allow maximum data transfer. Otherwise, dropouts would occur. I decided to put some time into investigating my network performance since I had already tried everything I knew to do with the speakers. My entire system had been set up by the guys from Magnolia. I had rarely experienced problems, but my AV equipment and computers are hard-wired, so the wireless may not have been challenged by web surfing over an iPhone or iPad. Magnolia had installed a fancy Luxul router and two wireless access points; the Luxul connected to the Internet through an Arris cable modem/router supplied by Spectrum. While investigating my network, I found the following (in a system that I previously thought was functioning well): • The Arris cable modem/router had a 2.4 GHz wireless network itself that was transmitting on the same channel as the Luxul access points, possibly producing interference or using bandwidth that could otherwise be used by the Duos. I turned the cable modem wireless off. • The access points needed firmware updates. I took care of that. • I found a faulty ethernet connection elsewhere in my network and replaced it. I also worried about another potential problem. Tidal limits the number of active connections to one. I used to get a warning on my iPhone when I used Tidal while I also accessed Tidal on Roon. (This was before the B&W Duos.) It’s easy to forget to close the iPhone app… so I wondered if the B&W would just not play Tidal streams if I had Tidal open on other devices. I don’t know the answer, but during the investigating period, I just signed out of Tidal and Qobuz on everything. Finally, I reset Roon and then powered off every device, switch, router, cable modem and speaker for a couple of minutes and then restarted. Something did the trick! I have had no dropouts or unresponsiveness for almost 24 hours. Roon plays like a champ. Songs that previously wouldn’t play now play beautifully. FLAC 24/192 and DSD256 are converted to 96 or 88.2kHz for transmission to the Duos, where they sound spectacular! I believe they are even better than the B&W 803s floorstanders that have produced great sound in our living room for many years… So sound quality is unsurpassed. Ease of use would also be fine if your network is configured for maximum data transfer. I hope this helps others to avoid the two days of heartburn that I experienced.

It is my birthday month so Bestbuy had 10% off for me. I got the speakers and the matching stands. Ive watched and read all the reviews for these, and most professional reviews conclude these sounds like speakers costing multiple times more, including Wilsons. I went to my local Bestbuy and listened to these first, hoping I guess I would not be wowed by them. But I was floored. Once I got the speakers I placed them on the matching stands. Once I downloaded the app, setup took 30 seconds. It was that fast and easy. I started to stream from my iphone and then did it from my macbook pro (to get higher bit rate, as iphone streams at CD quality only via bluetooth). Macbook pro streams at 24/48. Sound is absolutely incredible. You can hear instruments you did not know were there. You really don't need a subwoofer for these, as they do down to 25 Hz. The Soundstage is awesome, it is like you are there. These are likely going to be my last speakers for music, as I can't see anything I don't like about them. The stands are a must, I first plugged them in placing them on the shelf just to see if they were working, and the sound was great, but once I placed them on stands on my ear level, it was just amazing. Of course my wife thinks they look ugly, but I don't care.

5 out 5 rating. It sounds loud, clear as expected. By adding a formation bass helped to boost sounds. Thank you Bowers Wilkins. Sound spectacular when streaming.

Excellent sound and details when listening to music wont regret ever Penney spend on them

I bought this product for a cheap price and the sound is very very excellent.

I’ve been using traditional audio system for decades, then I decide to switch to this. It’s simple, way more convenient, and decent. All the maintenance used to be fun, but with the current technology this B&W speaker is the way to go. My previous speaker is B&W 800 series, and switching to this doesn’t feel like downgrade, and this means a lot. I think B&W nails it with DAC unit optimization. If you’re a fan of clear and crisp B&W sound, you’d love it. Also it works perfect with my apple eco system.

These one of the best Bookshelf Active speakers that I've come across with an excellent Frequency response and perfectly matched amplifier. The best part is the Deep Bass which you need to feel it in person and I promise you will immediately fall in love with these speakers.

These speaker are incredible. Deep, rich bass and sparkling highs. They support AirPlay2 and are home kit compatible.

I was impressed by the sound in the store, but I typically take that with a grain of salt as the store is so big and the sound goes everywhere. When I got these things home, WOW! Totally blew me away! I almost missed work the next day because I wanted to hear everything!!! I have Tidal’s upgraded account and EVERYTHING sounds amazing!!! The price tag hurt, but the sound quality healed all of that!!! I will definitely be getting a second pair for my office! (Don’t tell my wife!)

Really good deals i love the sound of music and concerts no regrets to buy my news toy

I've had my eye on these speakers for months and decided to pull the trigger on them when Best Buy ran a sale for 20% off. These are probably the best sounding speakers I've ever heard to date, especially when paired with a HiFi streaming service such as Tidal or Roon. Simply incredible. I've demoed the Bowers & Wilkins 700 series tower speakers in the magnolia room at Best Buy, and these blow them out of the water with three less speakers per side! They're also THE EASIEST set of speakers I've ever set up. Why waste your time running running, cutting & hiding speaker wire, when you can have as good or a better experience with these!? You download the app, update each speaker to the latest version, and you're off to the races. Spotify integration works flawlessly, and Tidal works just as well, but SOUNDS immensely better. (Note: the Tidal app is slightly clunkier than Spotify but makes up for it with the benefit of HiFi & maser files). I do want to note I only use these for music purposes, and have not used them for TV / Movies, nor do I ever plan to. I also purchased the Formation Bass for a complete 2.1 setup. The Formation Bass definitely gives them that extra punch, for a better overall experience, but it's not entirely necessary. These Duo's put out a significant amount of base on their own, so you can get away without having the Formation Bass depending on what your music style is. The mid's are crisp & everything that you would expect out of a speaker of this caliber, and the highs are tight & clean. All of the other reviews you see on BB complaining about connectivity issues are likely due to user error. I have Verizon Fios 1GB internet with the new router, and I haven't run into any connectivity issues while listening to them. My primary setup for listening is through an iPhone or my MacBook Pro to stream music to them. Both have had zero issues, and total set up time took 5 minutes. My experience with these speakers have been nothing short of superb. If you're looking for a quality set of loud speakers don't want the headache of running speaker wire, I can't recommend them enough. Based on the performance of these speakers, I'm all in on wireless technology for speakers. Absolutely floored about this purchase.