I think for $4000 I could have fine tuned the whole stack and gone with a much better sounding system, but I saw the simplicity of the Formation series and decided to give it a try.
The setup was dead simple; downloaded the app and setup the speakers in under 5 minutes. The only problem I ran into was the mounting the stands, since both the speakers and the stands are very heavy and I was scared to drop the speakers, I ended up mounting them on my sofa lying both down. It was by no means a bad experience, just me being paranoid to not damage the $4000! speakers.
The sound was fantastic to my ears. Spacious sound with great imaging, sound stage with width and depth, put on some live recording and it sounds like the band was playing in front of me, and the crowd was around me.
Since this is my first high-end pair of loudspeakers, passive or active, I really don’t have anything to analytically compare it to, I felt the speakers output enough bass to not be too lean to my taste, especially since I listen at lower volume most the time. I added to the system the Formation Bass (Great looking unit btw) to provide more low end. The result was phenomenal. Listening to drum heavy tracks with high dynamic range, when the bass kicks in, I feel the bass impact, but not the boominess. Powerful, clean, tight bass.
Mid-range sounds sweet, I don’t have any complaints; treble could sound a bit more exciting, but I haven’t played with the Treble setting in the Formation app to see if anything could be improved. Overall I’m quite happy with the sound as is.
I use Roon + Tidal for most of my streaming. It’s unfortunate all my DSD files get converted to match the Formation Duo, so I could be missing out on sound quality here. Flac and Tidal streaming for the most part are bit-to-bit. My wife streams over content using AirPlay 2 which is very convenient.
Overall, these speakers do cost a ton, 5K w/ the Bass. So far I’m loving the sound, and the all-in-one design, robust wireless playback, and Roon Readiness are the major selling point for me.

I have a seriously love-hate relationship with these speakers after owning them + Formation Bass + Formation Audio for 2 years. On the one hand they are fantastic, sound amazing (especially with Roon), and are hands-down the best speakers I’ve ever owned. On the other hand they were super finicky and my partner can’t use them because there’s no volume button/remote and she doesn’t want to use the app. We actually use it for both music and movies and it works wonderfully when it does work. It’s not designed for movie watching so it’s hard to knock it on that but generally when the file sizes/song quality increases, the speakers start to struggle and get less reliable. I believe this is partly due to being 2.4 GHz only and also due to the fact that they’re likely just bad at staying connected to one another. They often get out of sync or have a brief pausing when catching up etc. It also strangely has gotten worse over time – that one I can’t figure out. I beefed up my WiFi with a ton of extenders etc and it never got better. No other device on my network has issues. Then I plugged them into Ethernet and life was so much better, until literally 2 years and 1 month into ownership one of them just started crackling and appears to be busted. Of course the warranty is only 2 years for such an expensive and “high end” product. I feel that Bowers is not selling a product here that they stand behind or want to keep up to date but I’m also very torn because I’m not sure what speakers would have been better for my application (not wanting a receiver, not wanting a ton of wires, but wanting high end sound). Sigh – cannot recommend.

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.

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.