Bowers & Wilkins Reviews 

Beyond hideous. The dealer who sent them the amplifier has periodically updated me explaining that Rotel have not been communicative and cite that they are unable to obtain a spare part.

For over a year?

cently experienced a frustrating situation with Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) that I feel compelled to share. I was interested in connecting my turntable to the B&W Formation Audio and then streaming the audio via Apple AirPlay to my Apple HomePod stereo pair. Before making any purchase, I explicitly inquired about this feature and was assured by B&W that it was indeed possible. Their response was clear: "Yes, you can connect your turntable to the Bowers & Wilkins Formation Audio and then send the signal via Apple AirPlay to your Apple HomePod stereo pair. Once your HomePod stereo pair is set up, you can select it as the audio output via AirPlay 2 in the Bowers & Wilkins Music app. Once selected, audio will start playing through your HomePod stereo pair."

Trusting this information, I decided to purchase a used Formation Audio for 549.50 EUR. However, after setting everything up, I discovered that the feature I was sold on does not exist. It turns out it is simply not possible to do what was promised. This left me with a device that did not meet my needs and, because it was a used purchase, I had no option to return it. In an attempt to recoup some of my losses, I resold the device for only 350 EUR, resulting in a loss of almost 200 EUR due to misinformation provided by B&W.

When I reached out to B&W about this issue, the only compensation they offered was a 25% discount on a Formation Flex speaker, which would still cost me 374.25 EUR. This "deal" is no better than prices I found for a new speaker from other sellers. Their response felt like a slap in the face rather than a genuine attempt to rectify their mistake.

I am extremely disappointed by B&W's handling of this situation and their misleading information. It's clear to me now that their customer support and product information cannot be trusted. I wanted to share my experience to warn others about the potential pitfalls of dealing with B&W. I will certainly think twice before considering any of their products in the future.

Customer service seems to only pay lip service to problems, refuse to actually read your concern, and just palm you off with generic copy and paste solutions. I was dealing with Emelio who single handedly lost them a customer, the biggest shame is the headphones (PS7 X2e) are, in a word, magnificent, but, knowing if anything went wrong I would receive this level of service simply isn't good enough. Very unfortunate, but follows a very similar trend with others as you will read.

Placed an order today and they have screwed up my email site.
Order No. BWGB00000911, should have realised a bad omen was in the offing due to the last 3 numbers, 911.
Since 12.27 today I have received at approximately every minute, (now 17.31) an order acknowledgement. Total to date 310 order acknowledgements. I had originally opened 23 mails and went away for a break, coming back to sheer horror.
Due to my bad hands send a member of your staff to delete all these mails which will cost me sheer hell and it is very painful just to type with one finger.
Just gone to check my emails now total 300 at 17.44.
I will be seeking compensation for this deliberate disruption.
Now 17.51 and total of new emails is 309.
Very bad nights sleep wondering if the JUNK MAILS have stopped from Bowers & Wilkins. It is now 07.31 Monday morning and the mails are still arriving from them. The new total is now 1151, so hours and hours of work yet to deal with this on all computers.
08.38 someone has just noted their computer has played up as they wrongly realise they have NOT HAD over 1189 orders over the weekend. They will see that they have been causing me mayhem and are fully aware of what they have caused. Will they now pick up the phone and speak to me. I have now had 1212 JUNK MAILS.
I will be contacting them in a short while if they do not contact me first.
Spoke to a couple members of staff and it turns out their IT equipment is based in the US and of course they are not yet awake. Time 12.34 with 1453 mails and still counting. Now advised that there is a holiday in the US so staff will not be back until 20FEB24. Now 17.55 and the total is 1772!

Can't understand the hype with this headsets. Paid €399 for a pair thinking that maybe the big price will be reflected in the good quality. First pair, returned after 1hr, impossible to pair with my phone. Gave them another chance, 2nd pair returned after 3 weeks. Issues to pair with my phone, had to keep getting the headset out of the case till got lucky to connect it with my phone. Approx after 2mins in every song, kept getting disconnected for 1 second, annoying as hell. Gave up and went for a different brand.

The quality of the products is terrible. Non-existent customer support. Run away from this brand.

I have had nothing but issues with my P14 headphones. B&W customer service is worse than awful. They simply do not care about their customers. I will never buy from B&W again.
I am stuck with a pair of headphones that are not fit for purpose. The only offer from customer service is if you return them we’ll look at them but that will cost you £130. Beyond ridiculous.

I wish I could find a term stronger than "hopeless"

I purchased a PI4 that turns out to have faulty microphone. --

I had an issue with FedEx not delivering my order in time. When I called FedEx they stated I cannot return order. Bowers and Wilkins mandated they return order. I then call Bowers and Wilkins and they refused to return shipment. Meaning they hope your order is grabbed by porch pirates because FedEx consistently delivers late, and they do not ask for signatures. I'm tired of taking time off from work to be failed. Now a new company has failed me.

I've deleted my one-star review due to the fact I was at fault for setting up Bluetooth. My apologies and yes, the headphones are worth a Five-Star review

Received a pair of PI7 s2 as a gift. These were brand new factory sealed. No USB C cable but not really a problem as I have plenty. However there weren’t any replacement silicon ear gels. As I escalate this through their Customer Support team, I get told I need the original receipt (bear in mind this was a gift) and a gift receipt is unacceptable. Also the replacement gels will not be available for another month. Product will be returned and I will buy the Bose instead. Great product let down by awful customer service.

Formation wedge, won’t appear in my app, but then it does appear, then it’s gone again. But when it does appear I try to link Alexa, all seems fine but Alexa cannot ‘link’ to the device. I’ve worked in IT for 40 years, I’m no mug technically, b&w speakers sound great but their app, connectivity and Alexa connectivity is less than woeful, I’ve previously had a zeppelin which was fine but didn’t need an app etc. I’m no longer prepared to waste tens of hours of time on such an awful product, going to cut my losses and find another manufacturers speaker

I bought a pair of px7s2 (~400 USD) as I wanted to upgrade after having my Sony MX4 since they came out and needing to do more calls hence needing a better microphone. I acquired the headphones at the end of June and found them to be pretty impressive with regards to noise cancelling and the microphone's ability to pick up my voice in challenging situations. About 5 days after the left side developed a crackling which a few days later lead to it failing completely. 2.5 months later, and about a dozen email exchanges with Bowers and Wilkins customer service here is the status: the headphones have been shipped back to B&W (in July) and their customer service has no idea what to do now. I have lost all patience with this company and have now demanded a reimbursement. Absolutely shocking how poorly they have dealt with this situation given it's a manufacturing fault.

Was blocked from there website for just browsing.

We bought 3 B&W A7's for about 10 years. As from the beginning we experienced a lot of problems. So after 2 years we said goodbye to 1, after 4 years the second one did not work anymore. The last one more or less functioned for the past years, but each half year for unknown reasons we had to reinstall it. Today again and this time we had a lot of difficulty on getting the reset working. Maybe B&W is not interested anymore in keeping their devices up to date as the latest release of their software is dated 2015 (and for sure their were a lot of new developments in our Apple environment). We will now remove the last B&W and for sure will not buy new equipment from them.

I have a pair of PX7 headphones bought just over two years ago. I can no longer switch them off. They are two months beyond warranty. I’d like to pay for a repair - a faulty switch - but B&W refuse. They say I have to buy a new set. This set replaces a pair of P5s which just needed new ear pads. They couldn’t/wouldn’t supply any. This in-built obsolescence flies in the face of sustainability. I’m not buying any more kit from B&W.

Awful customer service. Very poorly designed products. They may sound good but they will fall apart and B&W just wont care. So bitterly disappointed and I saved for the PX8's . By Px7 arms broke & B&W didn't care either. Should have taken the hint. Never buy another product from them ever.

Terrible support. Waiting mors than1 year gor thd promised update for the Zeppelin multiroom.
No news, no anwers to mails, nothing.
Very bad experience after I bouhht 2 very expensive Zeppelin.

Second PX5 with same malfunction on loudspeaker now left side. First scratching, then dead. Never buy anything from B&W. Excellent Sound but poor quality. Service in Germany was very good (Nettetal). They replaced the first one with a new one. But now guarantee is gone

I have zeppelin and the a7. Both broke after 5 to 7 years of very mild and infrequent use. Spoke to the customer services and got the a7 repaired. Broke again. The blow out easily if you have a power cut. Never again. The customer service manager for the company asked me how long is a piece of string when I told him about this issue. Avoid