Which B&O speaker is best for your needs? The ultimate guide! B&O Speaker review from £600 to £5,000

hi I'm Steve from sounds heavenly and I'd like to welcome you to bang Olufsen of Nottingham with Alfie my name's Alfie and I'm here at bangalore's in Nottingham if this is your first time considering a smart speaker or if you're looking at getting a gift for someone close to you and you don't know where to start this video is for you we're going to give you a beginner's guide to the best high-end smart speakers on the market and then at the end we're going to give you a one size fits all an option the way you cannot go wrong so regardless of what you want to use your speakers for come and join us I think we'll have an answer for you [Music] so we've got a range of speakers here starting from just over 600 pounds up to under 5 000 pounds and I think it's probably worth saying everything that we're going to cover today is it's on bno's new software so it's called Mozart Mozart correct yeah so let's see I'll probably get this wrong but it will do a Bluetooth 5 AirPlay 2 Chromecast Spotify connect yep title and Deezer title connect Deezer yeah yeah and so you've also got bno radio in the bno app so you've basically got internet radio stations and also b o multi-room so if you add more speakers around the house at a later date you can share your music Across across any of these speakers yep correct yeah so they can all be stereo paired and work in a traditional left and right with two of them um all used on their own but my feeling is that there are some of these speakers that work best in Stereo and some of them that give their best when they're used as a single speaker the one thing I didn't mention about that all of these speakers have got that for me is a game changer and it's why I haven't suggested any other brands of products here is that these all have active room compensation okay so sense yes yeah so what they do is they'll play a tone that's like a submarine sonar um and they listen with microphones to the response and what they will do is measure your room acoustically work out where the Echoes are how big it is how far the walls are away and use that to map the sound so you don't ever get booming bass or treble the shrieky everything is balanced yeah the sound is really tailored to your room and it will detect any any reflections of sound and it'll cut that all out so it's always a linear linear listening so it's it's awesome should we start with the the lowest price point and we'll talk through what those speakers will do and where they're where they're best suited yeah so the lowest price that comes in at the emerge and this is a very unique speaker because as you can see the profile of it is almost like a book and that's kind of the intention uh they're a bookshelf speaker so you can tuck them away and they don't have to be seen and they will slide in between your books or hoses bookends so in a quiet room maybe a reading room or just a room where you listen to music after the kids have gone to bed yes the low level tones are absolutely phenomenal in comparison to any other speaker the low level it really Takes the Cake um so yeah for that for that late night quiet sort of uh sort of listening experience these are the best to go for I mean I absolutely love these if you a regular on the channel you know I use a stereo pair of emojis in my bedroom for exactly the reason you describe quiet music if I'm reading a book after the kids have gone to bed and at low volume say below about 70 decibels they have such a sweet Clear Tone that I've not found any other speaker not just no other b o speaker but no other speaker that matches them for the music Clarity so from just over 600 pounds each I think you can use a single one I would stereo pair two of them and they are a joy to use yeah so as we move up the range from the emerge um we come to the A5 so we'll cover more about this one later I think without dropping too many hints as to where we're going but this is brand new in the range isn't it brand new it's our latest speaker just came out last month in 2023 and uh yeah there's a lot to talk about on that one there is yeah that's another one that I would personally say it's it's great on its own but it really comes to life when you stereo pair two of them yeah so from 899 for one speaker that's uh that's the next step up in price and that is a that's great if you aren't really sure how you're going to make use of it flexible and portable with a battery built in as is the next one up beer sound level so we're looking at um 1199 aren't we on this one yeah 11.99 for an entry-level BSM level and what's amazing about this is it is by itself a stereo pair configuration so the speakers aligned you've got a left and a right uh the speaker is portable it's got a built-in battery so it holds charge you can take it anywhere it's more of a garden speaker or a kitchen speaker again just due to its portability and that's where customers generally like to put them and it can be hung on the wall so when you would hang it on the wall you get a bracket like that and then it fits on the wall like that gravity sensors change the left and right channels to now vertically posed so that's a cool feature you can have it flat on its back as well as standing up like this or on the wall yes and I think that's a great choice if you're short on Space because the fact it can hang on the wall and then on the times you need to move it somewhere else you literally unhook it lay it flat on a table the garden for example or in the kitchen or stand it up as we've got it here as a picture frame exactly yeah but it takes up no spare space in the meantime yeah slim profile nice and compact exactly like you say moving up the range I think at this stage I'm going to sidestep the beer sound balance which is slightly cheaper and go to the bsm2 so this is from 2649 if I've got that right and in my mind this is the quintessential kitchen speaker it's a point source speaker so with this acoustic lens for the treble it fan send out 360 degrees so wherever you place it in a big busy room as people move about you've always got perfect sound yeah no matter what angle it will always get to your ears at the perfect perfect frequency and that will be the same for everyone in the room no matter where you're standing around the speaker I always say to my customers that this is more of a kitchen speaker just because that's the way they feel as well and like you say Steve this is uh it's an industrial look it's got more of a robust look to it because of the the washed aluminum and yeah it is just a perfect kitchen speaker and I agree yeah but then that brings us to the slightly cheaper BSN balance so 2399 each the reason I suggest we put these after the bsn2 is that these really come to life when you stereo pair them they I think they are absolutely made to be together they if you're into traditional high-end Hi-Fi like I've been for decades this is an absolute breath of fresh air because this gives you a sound that almost no traditional Hi-Fi system can give you in stereo from just the speakers yeah with features and and capabilities that blew my mind when I first heard them so where the the base depth and quality you get from these is absolutely incredible you you just have to hear it to believe it the 360 sounds so again like the beer sound 2 detail from all around the room and when you have got them in a stereo pair again you can have them as 360 sound if you're having a party and you've got loads of people in the room or alternatively if it's just you listening and you want to listen to that your favorite album you can sit in your sweet spot and have it directly to your ears with the wide and narrow beam width control that it's got um and yeah it's just a fantastic speaker for your really traditional audio file that likes the stereo pair you can't go wrong with the balances for sure right so we've moved from the table because we've got something a little bit bigger here haven't we just a bit yeah now I love the A9 and this is its fifth generation Now isn't it and yeah so it's been brought bang up today this is the this is the speaker where if you've got a restaurant or an art gallery or just a large entertaining space and you like having a big crowd of friends around for social events this is the one it's a it's a stereo speaker in one isn't it yeah the power is incredible it will fill a hole with easily with a beautiful sound you can hang it on the wall and price wise price wise we're about 3100 for this one yeah yeah so they're they're pretty affordable in my opinion for what you get yeah uh because this is again it's outstanding speaker for sound quality the stereo uh aspect of it is second to none uh and also the aesthetic of it I mean you've got three Oak legs that it comes on you can put it in the corner of a room or you can put it in amongst your furniture and it's almost like a reconstructed chair or reconstructed piece of furniture really high quality uh and and it's just a beautiful eyepiece to have in a room as well as functional amazing sound so yeah it's really impressive for that aspect yeah I love the fact that the cover can be changed within a few minutes a little bit of a challenge challenge so get used to it and figure it out be an O of a huge range of different colors and there are also separate companies who make their own or even let you make your own custom covers so yeah if you're having a party or an event or you've got a corporate space that you're using you can dress this for the time of the year for the event you can really have anything you want on it yep so it's it's the perfect entertaining speaker I think in both sound and looks 100 yeah now we did mention at the start that if you're not quite sure how you or the um the special person who you're gifting a speaker for is going to use it day to day there is a I suppose in Lord of the Rings terminology there is a one ring to rule them all there is an option where you cannot go wrong and that brand new 2023 just released last month from bang Olufsen and this is your all-round absolutely phenomenal speaker it's lightweight it's uh beautiful materials got wood finishes on the top wireless charging for your phone and a lovely weave comes in two different colors you can get a dark wood version or this version the sound is absolutely phenomenal compared to any other speaker on the market from such a small speaker with a small compact profile like this and it's portable can hold charge it's got a battery of its own the sound is unmatched and you have these in a stereo pair they're incredible yeah yeah it's just it's unbelievable to be honest you have to hear it to believe it to give you just a rough comparison purely in terms of sound quality I'm in my own personal view 185 beats two emerges and A5 beats the level which is about 200 300 pounds more expensive this is my opinion it almost matches the bsn2 for sound quality and when you stereo pair them two a5s I believe are not far off the sound of the balance and that's this is an incredible speaker so when you think this is a portable speaker you could take to a garden on holiday with you you could you could move it around the house on a whim but when you put two of them together you have got proper high-end audiophile sound which yes that is possible from a smart speaker the technology has moved on so far and so fast that I mean I grew up in the 70s and 80s with big wooden boxes of speakers racks of amplifiers and this outpaces them this really does when you put them side by side for sand you'll struggle to find anything that will match that certainly for that sort of money correct yeah so I hope that's been helpful thank you Alfie and I hope you'll join me in welcoming him to the channel there's going to be some video links appearing on screen now just here will be my review of the A5 in detail and then below it here will be a playlist of some recent smart speaker reviews please come on down to bno Nottingham come and have a chat with Alfie and listen to the speakers yeah come down and we'll be happy to see you through anything that you want to hear thank you for watching

Channel: Steve at Sounds Heavenly

Views: 42,710

Keywords: Bang, Olufsen, cables, Beolab, speakers, sounds heavenly, connections, bang & olufsen, Bang and Olufsen

Id: 712JfPtPdlU

Length: 13min 44sec (824 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 10 2023