Beosound balance questionnaire
Subscriber Account active since. Whether I'm listening to podcasts or my favorite music, I'm never far from a speaker. I live in a house with speakers in the router, thermostat, and even light switches. And every member of my family is known to spark impromptu dance parties at any given moment. The point is we love listening to stuff. My 5-year-old performed an "Old Town Road" dance routine he learned at camp as the audio reached every corner of our living room and beyond with precise clarity.
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Bang and Olufsen Beosound Balance Review
The Beosound Balance sounds wonderful, once you've got it to your taste, and looks great too. But its lead over much cheaper smart speakers is only small, so it's not something every music fan needs to aspire to. By Matthew Bolton Last updated T However, the fact that it costs not far off 10 times what these speakers do means the Beosound Balance will have to gun very damn hard to justify someone choosing it over them. It's bigger than those other smart speakers, but that's because it's packed with pretty hefty speaker drivers including two woofers for bass and processing technology.
You can actually order it with or without Google Assistant capability, though there's no price difference and you can always choose to disable it if you get the version that has it. Amazon Alexa support is also due in the future, but we don't know when, and trying to predict these things in current circumstances is pointless, so we'll judge it as a Google-only device for now.
If you're curious about the difference we've got a guide to Alexa vs Google Assistant. It's a standard Google Assistant speaker in the sense that it has microphones built-in, and can be set to always listen for the wake word — say "Okay Google" and then ask a question and you're away.
It also has Chromecast streaming built in, which isn't a guarantee for all Google Assistant devices when made by a company other than Google, so it's good to see it here.
You can also play to it over Bluetooth 5. Basically, getting your music into it is no problem at all, and once it's there, it's treated to a delicious W of amplifier power for seven speakers drivers inside. The configuration is interesting: the Balance is designed to sit happily on a shelf with a wall right behind it, and the speakers are aligned to take advantage of this.
The tweeter and two smaller full-range drivers face forward, while the two larger full-range drivers are angled at the rear, for spreading ambient sound into the room. The woofers sit below all this, with one in the wooden base of the Balance pointing upwards, and one at the bottom of the fabric section pointing down, in direct opposition to each other. This is often known as a 'push-push' configuration, and is a neat trick seen a few high-end speaker systems.
The point is to stop unwanted vibrations from the woofers transferring elsewhere in the body of the speaker, and into the surface it's sitting on — stray vibrations tend to interfere with the cleanness of the bass sound. You want the only vibration to be the air that the drivers move, so by having two woofers opposing each other, any vibrations that one would put into the speaker's body is cancelled by the opposing vibrations coming from the other.
The way you know it's working is that you can put your hand on the surface the Balance is playing on, and feel almost nothing, even with the speaker pumping out sound next to you. That's not the case for Apple's HomePod, for example. The Beosound Balance also runs active room compensation, so wherever you put it, it will listen to its own sound and tweak it, because the materials and locations of other objects nearby will affect clarity, which it can compensate for.
It probably won't surprise you to learn that the Beosound Balance sounds fantastic. As you would hope given the price, it is the best-sounding smart speaker so far, though not by much of a margin. Before we talk about the sound, we need to say that the audio profile on the Balance can be shifted pretty drastically. Not only are there the settings we talked about above, there are also treble and bass adjustment options though in the case of bass, the effect wasn't that pronounced. But there's also the ability to tweak these preferences by moving a point on a four-way graph, shifting from 'Relaxed' to 'Energetic', and also from 'Bright' to 'Warm'.
And then there's the well-hidden yet possibly essential 'Loudness' switch. Oh, we'll come to that. What this all means is that while we'll talk about how the Balance presents out of the box, it's possible to heavily adjust the sound to your taste.
In the Optimal mode in which the speaker is set totally central in the graph mentioned above , what's immediately clear is that it's a naturally bright and fairly neutral sound, with upper-mids and trebles standing out from the rest of the soundscape especially clearly.
Voices are lifted impressively beyond instruments, and small high-pitch details are delivered with excellent clarity. The mid-range is again detailed and can take layered music well without muddying it, though we find it just a little lacking on warmth in this mode, but that's preference rather than a flaw. For music focused on the mid-range and up, it's the best speaker we've heard at this kind of size. Strings, horns and vocals elevate themselves so clearly out of the mix, but still stay natural rather than turning harsh to get them there.
This makes it especially appealing for a lot of classical and instrumental music. However, the bass is surprisingly low-impact, especially for something with two woofers. It's absolutely there, and it's rich and slick, but it's just not very deep.
This is notable even when we switch to Party mode, in which the tone of the speaker shifts towards the 'Energetic' part of its little graph. This immediately adds meat and warmth to the mid-range, but without stepping on the treble at all, which maintains its loftiness and detail.
This mode also switches to spreading the sound more evenly around the room, and immediately makes the soundstage feel wider and more open too though don't expect to hear anything stereo-like from the one speaker.
This was our favourite way to listen to the Balance, and suits most genres of music nicely… but we still felt the lack of bass compared to the Apple HomePod in particular, which we had on the same shelf for comparison, as our current ruler of the genre.
Here's the thing: the bass that's there is handled utterly impeccably. It's so controlled, like a rally car driver using power and precision to smoothly hit every mark through a course. But like our metaphorical rally driver, it almost seems to skim along the surface, with only the amount of traction that it requires. We know lots of people prefer less bass, and it's not always thought of as a very 'hi-fi' thing, but bass is a huge part of high-end listening, even for just instrumental tracks.
Even after playing with the bass adjustments, we were ready to say that it's just a factor of the speaker, and that lots of people won't mind anyway…. The change was immediate. It still can't punch quite as low as the HomePod the amount of bass that thing puts out is just bonkers, to be fair , but it finally produced bass that gave you a reaction in your diaphragm for songs that really kick the low end, and this is while still keeping that mid and treble just as lifted and clear.
This is hidden away in a 'Sound settings' section, along with the ability to choose things like the sensitivity of the line-in, where few people will ever look — why this is, we cannot imagine. We'll briefly mention the other preset sounds here: Speech does what it's means to, but feels generally unnecessary to go the hassle of switching to; Lounge just sounds like an elephant sat on the musical, crushing all the bounce and brightness from it, and we're not sure what it's for.
It's a looker, no doubt about it. If you find the lamp-like design slightly odd, we can't really argue with you, but we like how it makes the shape a natural thing to see on a sideboard.
There are two finishes: Natural Oak and Black Oak. We prefer the former, but it's all about the aesthetics of where you'll likely place it. On top of the unit is a slightly concave panel that includes some touch controls, and these light up automatically when you approach, which is always a nice feature.
For volume control, the entire outer ring of this panel functions like a touch dial — just run your finger around and a series of lights will rise or fall to show the volume change. When you trigger Google Assistant, four lights come up within the row that normally shows volume, which is a neat way of including Google's little branding touch.
There's a mic button for manually triggering Assistant, and there's also a hardware switch to disable the mics on the Balance's underside, if you prefer. The mics prove very capable, hearing our requests as well as any other smart speaker we've tried, even over loud noise. Both are smooth experiences. It's maybe a bit over-designed aesthetically, though: the colours used on the presets are confusing at first look, for example.
There are some thoughtful settings to tweak when you dig deep deeper into the menu too, such as setting a default volume level, and a maximum volume. We like how customisable the sound is, even if it's a bit confusing initially, and it can be so natural detailed and open that it really lifts your tracks beyond what a smaller speaker can manage.
However, it's not really a revelation for sound quality, and at this price, that's kind of what you're hoping for. For the closest alternatives, each of the big smart assistant companies makes a music-focused speaker that's excellent, and in all cases you could get two to run as a stereo pair and still spend about a third of what the Balance costs.
The Apple HomePod is the best-sounding cheaper smart speaker, and is great value after a series of price cuts. However, it's strictly for Apple users only, because the only way to play anything on it is Siri or AirPlay 2. The Amazon Echo Studio is the Alexa option, and does interesting things with 3D audio support though with limited support, this is still more gimmick than essential feature, at least so far , while also sounding great.
The Google Home Max is the Google Assistant option, in a big beefy speaker that pumps out a big, finely balanced din. And there's also the Sonos One, which supports both Alexa and Google Assistant, and offers a similar kind of sound profile to the Beosound Balance, elevating the detail in the upper half of music rather than delivering big bass, though it does sound more compressed. And that's it really: if you want the best sounding single-unit smart speaker, and can afford it, get the Balance — no question, it's a fantastic speaker.
Matt is T3's master of all things audiovisual, running our TV, speakers and headphones coverage. He also handles smart home products and large appliances, as well as our toys and games articles.
He's the only one on the team who can explain both what Dolby Vision IQ is and why the Lego you're building doesn't fit together the way the instructions say, so is truly invaluable. Matt has worked for tech publications for over 10 years, in print and online, including running T3's print magazine and launching its most recent redesign.
He's also contributed to a huge number of tech and gaming titles over the years. Can the hosts make it eight consecutive wins over the Aussies? Here's how to watch England vs Australia autumn international rugby. T3 is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site. All rights reserved.
England and Wales company registration number Select your region. Sign up to our newsletter Newsletter. T3 Verdict. Reasons to avoid - Really expensive - Getting the sound right involves fiddling with surprising settings. Connected Home Audio. Matthew Bolton. How to live stream England vs Australia online and watch the rugby international where you are Can the hosts make it eight consecutive wins over the Aussies?
Review: Bang & Olufsen BeoSound Balance wireless speaker
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Bang & Olufsen Beosound Balance: a striking smart speaker with all the frills
I would love a 2nd Gen M3 which can be used in stereo or as rear speakers. Haha what a weird survey! I really wonder where they are in the design process of this new speaker to be asking these two questions specifically. I do however feel like the answers lack some granularity. They have such a smooth and lovely tactile feel that adds so nicely to the overall personality and quality of the speakers. I also feel that a physical dial is a much more accessible approach; I know in an instant what to reach for and what to do. Grab the dial, turn it and the job is done. Agree regarding the survey! Also agree regarding BS1 and 2 volume control.
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With its 38cm-tall, upright shape, oak wood base and cylindrical, knitted-clothed top in black or natural finishes , it could easily pass as a lamp. Swipe around the circular, aluminium top plate to control volume, or touch the icons to change tracks, pause playback or select presets. When you approach the speaker, the interface automatically lights up, before dimming again when you walk away. While the base contains an upward-firing woofer, the upper body houses a downward-firing bass driver, three midrange drivers and a pair of tweeters.
Bang & Olufsen Beosound Balance Review
The Beosound Balance sounds wonderful, once you've got it to your taste, and looks great too. But its lead over much cheaper smart speakers is only small, so it's not something every music fan needs to aspire to. By Matthew Bolton Last updated T However, the fact that it costs not far off 10 times what these speakers do means the Beosound Balance will have to gun very damn hard to justify someone choosing it over them. It's bigger than those other smart speakers, but that's because it's packed with pretty hefty speaker drivers including two woofers for bass and processing technology.
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Start playing one on your handset, click play on a compatible speaker system, and it will keep streaming on the speaker without interruption -- even when you take a call or leave the vicinity of your WiFi network. The audio system will actually start streaming music directly from the cloud. That means you can, say, turn on an iPad in another room and let your party guests skip songs -- though, granted, that might not be the greatest idea, depending on who you invite. Specific devices have yet to be named, though compatible systems will be branded with a Spotify Connect logo, so you'll know what you're getting yourself into. Spotify will be holding up its end of the bargain by rolling out a software update for iOS ahead of those launches. Android and other operating systems will be receiving it at a later date. Dubbed the Nordic Sky editions, the three variants previewed for Copenhagen Fashion Week represent dawn, twilight and dusk.
And this is just the beginning. There are so many great things about this speaker and we will try to tell you all about it. Beosound Balance is a simple-looking, yet incredibly attractive speaker.
Trusted Reviews is supported by its audience. If you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a commission. Learn more. What do you get if you shrink the Beoplay A9 speaker into one that can sit on a shelf?
A wireless speaker with a dynamic acoustic performance is designed to be positioned up against the wall on a shelf or side table in your home. Impressive sound compared to its size. An interior silhouette balancing gracefully on a base of natural wood. The simplicity of this design, rooted in Scandinavian minimalism, contrasts strongly with its raw, high-performing sound. And with a shape distinctly broken into two components, Beosound Balance is a luxurious design in an interior object form.
I admire that the company is willing to take risks, even if I don't always care for their individual efforts. I am very curious to hear what you think about their forthcoming speakers, the Beosound Edge :. Yes, they are visually beautiful. I think the bit about rocking the entire speaker to adjust the volume is a bit absurd, and the wall mount in particular seems ill-conceived; why project sound parallel with the wall?
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