Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin - A Ridiculously Nice Speaker BUT BROKEN!
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- Опубликовано: 21 окт 2022
- Here we have the nicest speaker I have ever handled. The Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin. It weighs like it has been filled with Osmium! A thing of beauty, but it doesn't work. It has a flashing red light which indicates a system fault. Can it be fixed? And more importantly can a person that has never attempted to fix one of these before fix it? Let's find out.
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Remember that this is just for entertainment, and I am not an expert in these repairs. The processes in the video may not be the best way, the correct way or the safest way to fix these things. I do love fault finding and trying to fix broken things, so I hope that comes across in this 'Trying to FIX' series. Many thanks, Vince. 
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![Bowers & Wilkins B&W Zeppelin Speaker - Expensive but Faulty - [REPAIR]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/69fX32XTdfM/mqdefault.jpg)
Spoiler Saver & Riddle
What relation would your Father's Sister's Sister in Law be to you?
Na noo na noo
my mother
Mom!
Depends whether or not my father has another sibling and that sibling is also married to a woman. It's either my mother or my aunt.
My father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate?
Thank you so much for uploading this ! I'd been using a Zeppelin for 12 years until I had the same flashing red light issue a few weeks ago. I've just done the same as in your video and it's working perfectly again.
I have one these. When they came out, the company I worked for gave everyone in the firm (120+) a Christmas present. One year everyone had one of these sitting on their desk ! Caused a fair few issues with people taking these home. I had to bring in a trolley in with me to get it home. Had the red light after a year or 2 but B&W were very helpful, sent a box in the post and then a courier the next day to pick it up. Got fixed and returned within a week for no cost at all ! Still works to this day.
A very nice Christmas present back then 👍👍👍
You did not need a trolley to get it home.
@@JESUSCHRYSLER5512 I have two of them, different generations. I wouldn't want to carry either of them very far, and they wouldn't fit on my bike. If I had to move them from A to B and didn't want to take a taxi, why not a trolley?
Would love to see you putting the Echo Dot in the second one. That would be a real treat!
Thanks Philip 👍👍👍
Definitely do the dot idea. It’s the first thing that came to my mind.
Defintly
Do it!
I have done this and it works fantastically. Currently have 2 more for repair and retrofit 😊
FYI Vince - My birthday was yesterday and based on my reaction to your yellow mat and my wifes ability to please me, I have officially rolled out my own yellow mat that I got yesterday! She originally bought me the blue one because of you. Now I have one of each. The yellow mat came with a nice and complete small device (phone) tool kit as a bonus. At least one of your fans now has both and it's all because of your wonderful presentations.
Hahaha, yessss another yellow mat lives! Happy belated birthday and congrats on your new present. Thank your wife from me, she'll now have to buy you sunglasses for an early Christmas present 😂👍
Nice fix Vince. Proving yet again that cheap parts failing often see expensive products consigned to e-waste when they're perfectly fixable. I would love to see the Alexa Zepplin!
Nice one Jon, thank you 👍👌
Nicely fixed, I had the same fault on mine a few years ago and ended up replacing all the caps. I also didn't bother re-attaching the ipod dock as I hadn't used that in years and it makes the design look a lot cleaner :)
The coils you see are called crossovers. They send the frequencies to the correct drivers (speakers).
Wonderful repair Vince! That item looks like quality, at least with the speakers in it. I can't help but chuckle a bit over the shape. It does resemble a zeppelin style lighter-than-air ship. However, when I look at it I see Prof. Farnsworth from Futurama holding up a similar shaped pill saying "good news everyone it's a suppository". 🤣
Hahaha, I won't be able to look at it in the same way now!
@@Mymatevince 🤣
@@Mymatevince You could replace the defective fabric with the fabric of your wife's black women's nylon pantyhose. This should look good and not affect the sound.
It's so warming to see how excited you are at getting electronic "junk" in working order again. This video has made me reconsider buying active speakers for my home theater/stereo setup. They've made leaps and bounds improvements but they're inherently limited. Where as at my parents house my dad is still using his B&O RL45's as rear channels from 1994! Passive lasts. Meanwhile he has been through 4 broken A/V receivers in that time.
Bought three of these recently, a mk1, an air and an air lightning, all for not much money, they sound accurate, melodic when needed and kick hard when the song asks for it.
I too would like to see the Echo Dot added to the other one - would also be interesting to see if you could find some grille material to recover the front of the speaker covers - would be fantastic to "mod" (modify / customize) the second Zeppelin cosmetically and make a super smart speaker - possibly 3d print a new base that looks like the dirigible's gondola. I don't know how acoustic it would be the grille material could resemble the skin of an airship - just a though Vince - great video!
Just don't have flames shoot out of it and a nearby (Lego?) figure scream "Oh the humanity."
Grill cloth is widely available and not particularly expensive. I count over 300 listings on Amazon and almost as many on eBay tonight; Vince might also want to check large local fabric stores and audio repair outlets.
You do need to use proper grill cloth, and not just anything at the fabric store; the proper stuff is acoustically transparent.
A set of Mrs Vince`s tights would do the trick, just not the fishnets 😆
So, it's a zeppelin, and it's heavy. Now you know exactly what you're supposed to play on it. Here's a hint... it's lead.
Haha, it has already played Stairway to Heaven, it was one of the first songs played on it. Must have been a subconscious thing 😂
Awful patter…… fair enough though
@@AcornElectron C'mon, that was *GREAT* banter. A-ha!
Led
I had the same from ebay till it got broken a year ago. Using it as TV sound bar. It has an awesome DAC inside so it is better to connect it via digital. Great job and it is funny how I was looking for that kind of manual everywhere and few poppped up in one month.
I also had 2 of these given to me by a client 8 years ago, they were one of the head honchos at B&W. They are fantastic, they also come with a stand and as you said a remote. Shame the front connecter has gone out of fashion but I also use mine on the aux now. Would love to see what you do with the next one.
Remember reviewing these when they came out. Such a great looking, great sounding and wonderfully simple device. Shame they inherently had a time limit on their usefulness. Even the later Bluetooth version lacked a certain something compared to the original with the iPod dock.
I love B&W speakers. They are some of the best I've ever had. I use 686 S2s and they sound AMAZING.
It’s times like that you know what you are doing is so worth while! Congratulations 🎉
yeah, the echo Dot Mod would be a nice idea! I'd love to see you modify and repair the other one like this!
Great job again!
Got to love it when something like that is such an easy fix 🙌🏻
I know someone in the comment has suggested this but on the 2nd one, seeing it has the ribbon still for the Ipod connector you could see which lines are ground, 5v and data on that and mount the google mini or dot on the arm. amazing video as always
A nice set of speakers there and a nice and easy fix i do appreciate all the hard work and dedication Vince keep up the good work.
Keep in mind you can always use capacitors rated for higher voltages.
Since these are 16V you can use 25V no issue.
I have one of these for sale at the moment. I have just had it repaired… but i have to say it, it is probably one of the best Apple speakers I have ever used or heard. The sound of these are phenomenal and I paid a lot less for mine brand new than the current ones.
The repair they did to mine was a capacitor issue as well. I didn’t have a flashing red light, but a very slow pulsing lavender colour light.
Great finish to a stressful week, thank you.
Yes, turning the second one into a massive echo dot would be a great project. With regards to bluetooth modding the first one - you can get bluetooth receivers that sit on the 30pin port and work very well, so that's a much easier mod.
I have an original iPod, with the non-replaceable (Wink wink) battery...wonder if I CAN fix it?
@@NatureOkie Look at Ifixit
Yeah kinda dame as what you would do to mod an old car stereo to B T
I got a little spray bottle/atomiser for my isopropyl. Works well. Keep up the great work, Vince.
Great fix, Vince! I've had one of these speakers since 2009-ish, but I haven't put sound through it in probably six or seven years. I agree with you though, the mid-range of these is a bit muddy, so the sound is fairly dull to my ears. But I still have it on display because it's so cool looking!
What a fix! An absolute bargain you have there. I remember seeing these at 400 and were fairly hardly regarded then. Amazing one cap can totally disable it.
Thanks Paul, yes the video I seen was £400 or €600 back in the 2008. Well worth the £25 for a faulty one 👍
Ah the famous B&W Zeppelin !
It all brings me back to 2008 when I got a 2nd gen iPod Touch as a gift.
The mirror finish on the back of the Zeppelin reminds me of this very iPod (That unfortunately ended up destroyed in a house fire along many other stuff). After that I got an iPhone, then other smartphones as time goes by, you know like everyone does nowadays...
And I remember seeing the Zeppelin at the stores, even trying it with my iPod Touch.
Back in its time it was clearly presented and thought of as "the poshest" iPod/iPhone speaker you could get, in fact it was THE most expensive one at the stores I got to.
Great repair video , I got a zepplin very very cheap because it was faulty. Power supply was good but the inputs were fault, it was cosmetically challenged but cleaned up nice and works perfect now .
Hello, could you maybe explain how to check if the imputs are faulty?
@@budthewhite9723 I only use the 3.5mm aux input on the back , that was faulty also , causing right channel drop out , had to open the zeppelin up and resoilder the contacts , I've never managed to pair anything wirelessly.
ANOTHER fine repair you've done!
Gotta Love when problems are obvious to detect and fix. I kinda think the speaker looks nicer with the cloth covers off and the drivers exposed.
Excellent repair- what got me was “ keep it somewhere safe” *breaks glass in the background 😂
remember seeing these for sale in the HMV shop in Canary Wharf, they had it against the wall playing…. Was a party piece in itself,,, and thumping bass a plenty,,, know it was mega expensive, way out of my wage bracket, you’re a clever lucky fella Vince….what a result !!!!!!!
Thanks Russ, pricey back then but very reasonable now even for a working one👍👍👍
Thanks for posting this video. I picked up yesterday from the curb a different version of the Zeppelin (also 30 pin but looks different inside and the metal part on the back of yours is made of plastic on mine - probably an older model ?). Initially I thought it had a firmware issue and spent like an hour trying different things. After seeing your video I got some courage to open it up. Sure enough there were 3 bulged capacitors on the power board. Replaced them and it's working again !
Never seen one of these speakers in my life. Just glimpsed one sitting proudly in my neighbours lounge and am now convinced you live on my street 😂😂😂 love your videos 👌🏻👏🏻
😂😂👍
The crashing sound at 16:30 absolutely made my day😂😂
Back 20+ years ago I bought a tool that would check most capacitors in circuit, did not work 100% of the time (because of other components) but on those I would take 1 leg out and re test. Saved me tons of time
Try LCR-T7 tester, which beside testing LCR, also tests Diodes, Zeners, Transistors, MOSFETs, JFETS, ESR. and thanks to Chinese it is cheap, like less than $30. i can’t speak to in-circuit testing, though. Like your previous experience, it should occasionally work.
I have a peak ESR meter and it’s spot on all the time
I have one of these. it has moved with me across the world around 4-5 times. I have long since abandoned the old Ipod. Iphone dock, and use the optical S/PDIF socket, on the back from a raspberry pi, with a hifi-berry board. The sound is awesome, better than the original dock.
Just wanted to say I stumbled on your videos the other night and you've given me the confidence to fiddle with more gadgets and gizmos. Turns out when you're not afraid of voiding a warranty or making it look awful, most things can be fixed. You asked briefly if B&W were as good as Bang and Olufsen, and depending on how serious Bowers and Wilkins gets with their engineering, the answer is absolutely yes. Their biggest claim to fame is that their speakers have been used as monitors at Abbey Road studios for decades, and they have a huge semi-concept speaker that looks like a snail shell and sells for sports car money.
I had one of these come in a few years ago. The power supply was different, more complex and fried so I bought a suitable replacement from RS-Components for about £25. Space was tight but it did fit. Job done.
I remember doing the original "works with iPhone" cert for these things. It was very hard for them to get through the cellular reception requirements since the entire thing was metal. At the end, that is why you have the black plastic bits on the docking arm. Otherwise, it simply was impossible to get the WWI approval from Apple.
Absolute, without a doubt the best built unit at the time. They spared no expense.
Yes, put an echo dot in, it’s the sort of thing I would do, great video, Vince.
Nice fix. Sounds nice coming through my Bose sound bar.
Merci beaucoup, vous avez donné une 2ème vie a mon haut parleur 😊
The two units up top are crossover for the speaker’s frequency for woofer,midrange,tweeters and so on nice simple repair 😊
Well done for saving this tech from the scrap heap. Remember seeing these in John Lewis for around £500. Loved the design and sound quality, but was way out of my price range.
Great fix! I have one of these, it has a beautiful sound and I do like the design as well. Should it ever break, I'll now know how to fix it, cheers!
I can’t believe it!😂 Literally less than 24 hours after posting my comment, I received a faulty Zeppelin😅
Most Xellent my friend. Superb descriptive and visual work. Many Thanx.
Well done. Vince, when replacing capacitors in power supplies there is another parameter (apart from capacitance and ESR) that you need to consider: maximum ripple current. If you go back to RS Components and look at that Panasonic capacitor you showed on screen, and download its datasheet, and scroll down to the table on page 112 (actually page 2 of the pdf) you'll see that each cap has a specified max ripple current. Ideally the max ripple current of your replacement cap should be at least as high as that of the failed component. However, it may be hard to discover what that was! The actual ripple current in the cap may be about the same as the current draw from that supply line.
Nice fix, faulty part was proven faulty with testers, even it also looked bad, and only the falty part was replaced, and it fixed the device. I like that :)
Thanks JSV, I love it when the testers confirm a fault rather than guessing and assuming 👍👍👍
Great video Vince, I've been thinking about getting one of these to show off my iPod collection. Now I might get a broken one
Thanks Peter, fingers crossed you'll find one with the same issue 👍👍👍
Always fancied one of these Vince
Enjoyable video from start to end 👍
I’ve went to school for four years to be an electrician and I’ve done many small appliance repairs, watching your videos makes me confident I can get into small electronics repairs a bit. I’m curious as to what brand your soldering equipment is?
I now have a nice Hakko FX-951 soldering iron and a QUICK 861DE hot Air station BUT before that I used a cheap generic Chinese 3 in 1 solder station for a few years 👍👍
Wow even as a speaker alone it's amazing, and with your knowledge it's an astounding bargain.
A popular hack that people do is just get rid of the front bracket like you mentioned. Especially the Zeppelin Air, which I am a proud owner of, really benefits on the looks department without that bracket for the iPhone connector.
Excellent work Vince
Thank you Number Six 👌👍👍👍
@@Mymatevince 👋🤚 Be seeing you
Yes I would like to see the Echo dot video, this finished up very well thank you Vince
Long live the blue mat! Nice video Vince.
This was an awesome repair. I bought a small bluetooth receiver for my iPod Hi-Fi that connects to the 30-pin dock. I can stream music directly from my iPhone without having to worry about cables. It's called a "Andoer Bluetooth A2DP Music Audio 30 Pin Receiver" and was £7.99 on amazon.
Loved the video it's awesome to see you so excited to fix something thanks for the great content and yes do the echo dot I would love to see that done keep up the great work. 😀
Reminds me of a CD player I had back in the day. Audio Innovations Alto. Would love to see one of those on the channel. And yes get rid of the dock on the other one. Be nice to see a bit of modding as well as repair.
AMAZING video Vince..... Would LOVE to see the EcoDot build! Thanks for everything you do.
Thanks Daniel 👌
Listening to this via my B&W 607 speakers. Low end B&W but better than PC speakers :)
The sound quality is very amazing 👏 👌
Nice work. Quick tip for the desoldering gun - I've found the gun is far less likely to jam up if you hold the piece you're working on as close to vertical as you can. While the vacuum is pretty decent, keeping the piece horizontal means the gun is having to work against gravity to pull the solder up into the collector. Holding the piece vertically means you can hold the gun horizontally, giving the molten solder a much easier journey. Cleaning out solder stuck in those guns is no fun . . .
That makes sense, cheers Neil 👌
@@Mymatevince Not so good for the camera though.
Incidentally, Could the iPod dock be taken off and it'll still work without modding?
I fixed one a while ago, it was also a bad capacitor. You can remove the docking part, it looks better in my opinion. I added a little bluetooth board to mine (cheap from aliexpress), built inside, and it works great. Just connect it to AUX port pins on the board and take 5V from somewhere. You need to modify AUX port itself because there is detection if a cable is plugged in, this way it will go directly to AUX when it's turned on. Great sounding speaker, one of the best docking speakers ever built, they just don't do quality stuff these days.
I really hate this "they just don't do quality stuff these days" thing. Those speakers were 600 Euros 13 years ago. If you're willing to shell out that kind of money you can also get that kind of quality today. Most people just aren't willing to do that.
@@MyRegardsToTheDodo Very well said. You always have and always will be able to buy quality.
@@MyRegardsToTheDodo I agree with you, for the right amount of money you can get quality. But in this class of speakers there is not much incentive for manufacturers to put quality components in, not many people willing to spend more than equivalent JBL for example. No one will put that large cast metal back, large air core inductors for crossover, because it costs money. Even in B&W next model of zeppelin you can notice some cost saving measures, doing digital signal processing, cheaper drivers, etc.
There are better sounding speakers in this class today, for less money, but thanks to DSP and other stuff. Zeppelin was from different era when quality of internal components was most important. This is just my opinion.
I would say yes to the Echo Dot. Great video Vince
Always wanted one of these👍
Great video - I had this device and it went faulty, B&W replaced it out of warranty for the newer version (not for free, but at a decent discount) for the newer version that didn't have the dock. That also went faulty, and I was given a discount for their Formation Wedge. They are lovely speakers, good sound, but quite unreliable. Interesting to see the fault may have been a few dollar capacitor. The Wedge that I now still use has been performing reliably since I got it. Let's see if reliability has increased over the years :-)
What a big speaker. Straight forward fix.
You can get a 30 pin Bluetooth adapter that just plugs into the port and makes it a Bluetooth speaker. I use one on old Bose speaker. Just clips in!
Well done Vince ! 😊
Cheers Mike 👍👍👍
I've just picked one myself! You can buy bluetooth adaptors that will fit on the 30pin dock connector, for like 10 pounds on ebay - will let you use it like a modern BT speaker!
I still rock my Zeppelin every day....and it is an old 30 pin. Added a new Bluetooth 5.0 adapter, awesome. Got mine for £70 'due to fault' about 9yrs ago on the Bay....turned out it just needed a reset. This Unit range was the What Hi-Fi Best winner for about 5yrs
Excellent 👍👍👍
Hi, could you elaborate which Zeppelin you have and how you resetted it? Thanks in advance
It's always fun spilling the alcohol container ... Happens to me all the time ...
Nice repair Vince 👍
😂👌
the foamy thing in the tube is to control the air flow in the reflex port - which helps the bass sound using resonance of the air inside the zepplin (and keeps spiders out!)
Thanks Andrew 👍
Picked up one of these at a boot sale for a fiver . Worth the money
Good job mate 👍
I like the way the seller packed the package 😁
I'm assuming it's the Mrs that walks in while Vince is recording. She does not care what Vince is up to, she needs something and by God she's gonna get it filming or no! There's almost a passive/aggressive away she goes about it. Comes in, roots around, finds it (whatever it is) and leaves with a nice big door slam! I can hear dishes being done ALL the time as well. She's got things to do, Vince is just havin a laugh and she's busy! Lovely.
😂👍
more like this please! Nice work :)
Love the design i have seen these on the internet
Great video and nice fix. I'd love to see you converting the second one to an echo dot or something. I think it would look better without that outdated iPod holder anyway.
Great video Vince. One capacitor..great!
I would like to see you putting the Echo Dot in the second one. It's probably easy to find a 5v rail inside, since it already charges the ipod
long time ago i have this one...insane sound for this small thing
I have a collection of B&O equipment, some Bose and a few B&W and find the B&W to be every bit as good as the B&O but each excels in different areas.
The B&O is just classic, or maybe just nostalgic which I why I enjoy collecting them.
I love B&O stuff. The feel and the look of them is just lovely. I picked up a faulty B&O charity shop find for £100 a few months ago that I am looking forward to filming. It came with nice B&O speakers as well that weigh a tonne! I can't remember the model number but it has a CD player one side and a tape deck the other, both hidden by sliding mirrors, it's huge 👌👍 I think I could also get addicted to B&W though 😂
i love these vids vince mate keep em coming :)
Thanks George 👍👍👍
Panasonic, Rubycon,Nichicon or Chemi-Con capacitors will be nice to have on hand. These are all top quality caps. There are a few other top quality ones too
nice! I revived an old Bose Ipod/Iphone dock speaker by installing a cheap bluetooth module (plugs right into the "30pin" connector)
B&W had a factory in Worthing, might still do. Me and a mate used get on our bikes from Shoreham-by-Sea to go and raid their skips for speakers and speaker wire. Actually made some decent speakers from what they discarded. This was back in early 90s.
I have one of these but when I listened to classic at home I was utterly disappointed!!
Bassy, week highs and unclear midths. The store didn’t take it back, so I brought it to a Bowers and Wilkins service shop to see if it was somehow brocken but no: that’s how it sounds.
I love the form and the idea but do not waste your money on it.
Nice job there!! Wonderful little piece of history. I would definitely get rid of the iPod dock for the other as you won't be using it anyway, the shape is nice even without that... maybe even more :) Congrats!
Great repair. Maybe glue the material together at the back and if necessary use a black permanent marker
I never knew that bowers and Wilkins were b&w ! I’ve got two bookshelf type speaks for my denon system and they still sound great
Absolutely amazing my mate Vince you did a great job fixing it mate 👍 I would love to see you fix the other one with the echo dot device it would be incredible hoesnty you did a fantastic job
Thank you Ryan 👍👍👍
Listening to this on my B & W PX7's
Also, for the fabric: grill cloth is a fairly complex polyester mesh weave and can't really be repaired when it tears. Luckily it's fairly cheap; just don't buy a width sight unseen without making sure it's large enough.
FWIW tights fabric is knit, not woven, which is why it runs.