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Hands-on: Bang & Olufsen's latest portable speaker, the BeoSound 1

By Marcus Wong - 31 Aug 2016

Hands on with the BeoSound 1: Bang & Olufsen's latest portable speaker

New to the family - the BeoSound 1

Bang & Olufsen is one of the names in the audio world that you can always count on for quality, and multi-room audio is certainly not new to them either. Their BeoLink system has allowed for seamless wireless control over their multi-room products - with literally just a single touch needed to add more units to the mix.

Now, the latest addition to the family - the BeoSound 1- takes all of those audio capabilities and places it in a portable, self-driven body that adds 360-degree audio and wireless streaming capabilities. Bang & Olufsen says the new speaker is based on the audio engine platform, allowing it to offer streaming support for AirPlay, Google Cast, DLNA and Bluetooth. Internet radio services like Deezer, TuneIn internet radio, Spotify (also via Spotify Connect feature) and QQMusic (QPlay feature) are also supported, so you’ll be able to feed a wide range of music to the speaker from your phone.

Somewhere within this compact body, the speaker houses two class D amplifiers.

Measuring 327mm in height with a diameter of 161.8mm, the speaker weighs just 3.5kg and comes with an internal Li-ion battery that offers up to 16 hours of audio playback, so you can easily move it around the house or even bring it outdoors with you. Bang & Olufsen says the battery life will vary according to the volume level and complexity of music played, but a minimum of four hours can be achieved.

Why does the battery performance differ so much? Well the speaker uses one 40-watt class D amplifier to power a 1.5-inch full-range driver and a separate 20-watt class D amplifier to power a 4-inch woofer, so with two discrete amplifiers in a single speaker the power needs can greatly vary depending on the music played.

Billed as a High-Res audio player, the BeoSound 1 will support MP3, WMA, AAC, ALAC, FLAC, WAV and AIFF at standard sample rates up to 192 kHz, in stereo and up to 24-bit fidelity, but WMA lossless is not supported.

 

An impeccably smooth looking speaker

B&O's acoustic lens technology is responsible for the 360 sound.

The first thing you notice about the BeoSound 1 is just how clean the speaker is. Crafted from high-grade aluminum, it looks more like a designer lamp than a speaker. (Speaking of designer audio lamps, you'll certainly like to check out Yamaha's Relit LSX-170, LSX-70 and LSX-700.) The conical body houses B&O’s Acoustic Lens technology and disperses audio out in 360 degrees to fill a room with audio no matter where you place it, or your location in the room.

There are no visible buttons or controls on the body, and that’s because the entire top of the speaker is a nondescript touch sensitive wheel that lets you control playback via swipe gestures. Swipe right to left to move forward a track (just like you would swipe pictures in a gallery), and left to right to move back a track. B&O’s engineers have added a proximity sensor in the speaker so it always knows which direction you’re approaching it from, so it won’t matter how you are orientated with the BeoSound 1; the controls will always be relative to your position. This might seem a little over-the-top, but you can tell that the design and functionality of the BesoSound 1 rank very high up the design considerations. This gives the speaker a cleaner look and feel without buttons or other demarcations that would disrupt its sleek look.

Only the glow of this LED indicates the operating state of the speaker.

The top is also a mechanical volume wheel and the on/off button, as pushing down at the center activates the speaker, with just a tiny LED status indicator to show the status of operation. The volume wheel seems to be well geared so you get a good sense of feedback when adjusting the volume.

Otherwise, your other option for control is via the BeoMusic app on your smartphone. This is again a very simple affair, with the app easily taking you through your various music sources and offering the usual playback options with display of album artwork. Unfortunately, we didn‘t have multiple units of the BeoSound 1 so we weren’t able to test multi-room capabilities, but given that B&O has been integrated their own form of multi-room throughout their product family, we’re pretty sure these will work as advertised.

 

Early impressions

It's as much a work of art as it is a speaker.

After a quick audition with the BeoSound 1, the first impression the speaker left on us was that it was capable of producing high volume and handle it effortlessly without distortion. We think it can easily fill a large living room with decent audio levels.

Listening to a recording of Autumn Leaves by the Bill Evans Trio, we were pleasantly surprised to hear just how well the speaker handles the upper audio spectrum. The piano work really sings in this piece, producing nice crisp notes that are matched nicely by a mellow warm bass in the back. There’s good energy to this piece, and the speaker brings this out perfectly.

Switching tracks completely to Animals by Maroon 5, we were again pleased to find that the speaker packs a mean bass punch too; even at half volume, we found the speaker was able to produce bass with good body while keeping Adam Levine’s vocals distinct.

Finishing off our audition with one of our formal tracks – Hotel California by the Eagles, we were again impressed by the imaging prowess of the BeoSound1, but found ourselves left slightly wanting in certain aspects. The bass was a little dry, and could have done with a bit more decay, and the solo sections felt like they could have done with a little more sparkle. The speaker was still able to produce a nice wide soundstage though, and that worked well for this track.

Overall, we’re very impressed with this speaker. As with all B&O products, it looks great and sounds very good too. We still don’t have details as to price (and availability) so we can’t comment as to the value as of yet, but in terms of sheer audio performance the BeoSound 1 is certainly something to look out for!

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