Bowers & Wilkins got into the wireless speaker game early with its Zeppelin and Zeppelin Air speakers, but the company took its time coming up with a portable Bluetooth speaker it could be proud of. The result of B&W’s patient work is the T7, a battery-powered Bluetooth speaker that incorporates just enough of the storied speaker maker’s proprietary technology to make it special, and sound quality worthy of its well-reputed name.

As you can see in the video below,  what sets the T7 apart from its competition is its honeycomb framework, which comes from B&W’s lauded 800 Series Diamond Loudspeakers, a fixture in the famed Abbey Road Studios in London. That pattern isn’t just for looks, it makes the speaker’s enclosure more rigid, which helps buck sound-muddying cabinet resonances. It’s effective, too, as we’ve yet to hear a speaker that is able to maintain such a clean sound from top to bottom. Even the Braven 850, which stands as one of our favorite high-end Bluetooth speakers, suffers from a bit of enclosure hum when the bass really gets going.

The T7’s $350 price tag is steep, to be sure, but then again, so is the competing Bang & Olufsen A2, which seeks $50 more. So far, we’re really enjoying the T7, and we think it holds up very well against its slim set of competition. We’ll back with a full review in the coming weeks.

Amazon