It wasn’t a good fit for our publication at the time, but I should have at least asked him about stock options!
Since then, wireless audio has exploded. Streaming has grabbed the public’s attention, though many traditional audio hardware companies have bided their time to avoid the snags that often afflict those who rush to jump on the Next Big Thing.
Bowers & Wilkins counts among that old guard. But while it remains firmly tied to making conventional, wired audio products, the company has been quietly working away in the dark recesses of its Worthing, England headquarters for the past few years on its first contribution to the wireless audio revolution. The result is Formation, a family of wireless audio products that emphasize both style and performance.
Formation includes a soundbar (cleverly named the Formation Bar), a small subwoofer (the Formation Bass), a pair of bookshelf speakers (the Formation Duo—are we sensing a pattern here?), a wireless hub to bring other sources, including analog ones, to the wireless party (the Formation Audio), a one-piece music system (the Formation Wedge) and a compact speaker (the Formation Flex). While the Flex lacks the voice-activated features of other compact wireless speakers such as those from Amazon and Google, it’s otherwise quite...um...flexible, and can be used as a single speaker, in a stereo pair, or as a surround speaker in a Formation 5.1 home theater setup.
DESCRIPTION AND FEATURES
This story is from the December 2019 - January 2020 edition of Sound & Vision.
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This story is from the December 2019 - January 2020 edition of Sound & Vision.
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