Full disclosure: I’ve been a fan of Bang & Olufsen ever since I managed to persuade my late father to buy a B&O audio system back in the mid-1970s. In those days, B&O was a byword for style and audio quality for people who simply wanted to hear great music without messing around with special cables or setting up a complicated turntable.
After the 1980s, the star of the iconic Danish audio brand waned and the company seemed to lose its way. Not any more. Over the past three years, Bang & Olufsen has resurged, stronger than ever and now selling its unique blend of style and technology to a whole new generation, some of whom may even be the grandchildren of those B&O fans who bought the company’s audio systems back in the 1970s and 1980s.
A great example of how high B&O is riding is evidenced by Beosound Balance wireless speakers that were announced last year. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to borrow a pair of these unique speakers for a couple of weeks so I could let you know whether I think they are worth the fairly hefty price tag.
Beosound Balance has been created by B&O’s talented designers to bring together a passion for music, design and craftsmanship, just like the system that my father bought nearly half a century ago. Beosound Balance has a uniquely soft, rounded silhouette and is made using interior-first materials such as solid oak wood, knitted textiles, aluminum plus an innovative user interface that disappears when not in use.
Beosound Balance contains seven-speaker drivers that use beam-forming technology to offer the choice between a powerful and room-filling sound for everyday listening and a sound with a precise direction to create an immersive music experience to suit the music, the room or the mood. These configurations can be saved to be recalled at the touch of a button.
This new speaker has been designed in collaboration with Benjamin Hubert from the British industrial design studio LAYER. It’s an interior-first and shelf-friendly speaker that looks a million dollars and, despite looking so good, there’s been no compromise on audio quality. The Balance has the power to fill spaces between 10 and 80 square meters with spine-tingling sound.
The designers of Beosound Balance have used a range of materials that soften the look of the speakers, so they blend in perfectly with a room’s furnishings, offering a clean and contemporary feel. Beosound Balance presents a solid oak wood base that visually grounds the speaker and is crowned by a cylindrical shape clad in a seamlessly knitted textile that makes Beosound Balance look beautiful from any angle and feel gorgeously tactile.
Designed to blend in as a piece of furniture, Beosound Balance includes a hidden touch interface on its top-plate that can be used to manually control the speaker. When approaching the speaker, the interface gently lights up using light-trough aluminum technology and positively invites the user to come hither and interact with it.
A swipe around the top plate with an extended finger controls the volume level and touch icons are used to change tracks, pause music and select presets of favorite music sources. When walking away from the speaker, the interface gently dims again, leaving nothing but the aluminum surface visible.
The idea behind Beosound Balance was to bring beautiful aesthetics, innovation and powerful sound hand in hand. The vision was to make a speaker that’s an extension of the atmosphere of the home – reflecting the place it is in and the person who’s using it. The design is sensory and tactile, with a look and feel that’s backed up by high-quality craftsmanship and high-quality natural materials.
Setting up Beosound Balance is the usual slick procedure that B&O has perfected. The speaker guides the user through the process of applying the active room compensation technology built into the speaker that enables it to analyze the acoustics of a room by listening with an internal microphone and creating a set of user-defined filters that compensate for sound reflections. Beosound Balance uses a sweep of low frequencies to analyze a room and the result is the bespoke B&O Signature Sound.
Another great feature offered by Beosound Balance is Beolink technology for multi-room sound. Other B&O Beosound speakers around the house can be connected and be playing the same music everywhere or they can be set up in sub groups playing different music sources or playlists. For example, one group could be the kitchen and dining room playing the same radio station, while the speaker in the living room could be streaming from Spotify.
Each speaker can also work as a standalone device. Beosound Balance supports Apple AirPlay 2 and Google Chromecast Built-in, which means there’s also access to Google Assistant and a quick “OK Google” can have Beosound Balance obeying your every word. It’s also possible to couple two Beosound Balance speakers as a stereo pair to create a conventional audio system that looks and sounds anything but conventional.
As I mentioned earlier, Beosound Balance uses an array of seven uniquely configured speaker drivers featuring two opposing woofers that generate a powerful bass that cancels out vibrations that could upset the neighbors. The speaker has two distinct sound modes – there’s an omnidirectional mode for delivering a uniform sound around the speaker, plus a second mode that can be precisely focused for a unique ambient experience. Both technologies have trickled down from the stunning flagship Bang & Olufsen Beolab speakers.
There are two woofers, four midrange drivers and a single tweeter in each Balance speaker and each driver has its own Class D amplifier serving up a total of 850 Watts of power. The engineering behind the system is impressive.
As well as being able to connect over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, Beosound Balance comes with some physical inputs located in the base of the speaker. There’s a 3.5mm Line-in/Optical combi-jack, a USB-C port and a couple of Ethernet ports for those who don’t want to rely on Wi-Fi connections. When used as a stereo pair, an audio signal is transmitted between the two speakers using the high-resolution LC3 Plus audio codec.
Once I’d set the two Beosound Balance speakers up, I was ready to put them through their paces. Being able to place the units almost anywhere in a room where there are power outlets makes the speakers easy to place. I set the two speakers apart sufficiently wide enough to create a focused stereo soundstage. The automatic room compensation took me a matter of seconds and then the setup was perfectly tailored to the placement and acoustics of my living room. The beauty of this system is that it’s so quick and effortless to get superb bespoke sound.
I used the B&O smartphone app as a remote to control the speakers and it offers a choice of Spotify Connect and Deezer streaming services. There’s no native support for TIDAL or Qobuz yet. That’s something I’d love to see added. The speakers can also play music using DNLA from files stored on a NAS (network-attached storage) device with most file types supported.
I was able to stream music from the TIDAL and Qobuz apps on my iPhone using Apple AirPlay 2. The clever thing was seeing the speakers pull the connection directly from the servers. Favorite radio stations can also be stored in the app as presets, plus there are four physical presets icons on the top-plate of Beosound Balance that simply require a single press to access them.
The sound produced by these beautiful speakers is beyond awesome. The effect is spine-tingling and can be further tailored using a very clever and intuitive EQ control. It didn’t matter what genre of music I played through the pair of Beosound Balance speakers, the result was perfectly poised sound that caressed my ears with a pure sound that was divine.
I know I said I was a Bang & Olufsen fanboy, but you do have to listen to Beosound Balance speakers to experience the audio miracle that B&O has managed to achieve. The sound is sublime and the speakers look so beautiful you simply can’t help falling in love with them. These speakers are an exceptional creation that reignites the design, heritage and engineering brilliance that made B&O a byword for audio and design excellence back in the 1970s. My dad would have loved a pair of Beosound Balance.
Verdict: If I had the cash to spare, I think I’d buy myself a pair of Beosound Balance speakers and a subscription to TIDAL’s Hi-Fi tier and then ditch my other audio gear. Alas, I don’t have that kind of money to spare but if you’re in the fortunate financial position of having that sort of cash to splash then I can heartily recommend these beautifully designed speakers that are the perfect fusion of design, audio excellence and aesthetic awesomeness. In my view, there’s very little to criticize about Beosound Balance except perhaps for the lovely material around the speaker that would make an ideal scratching post for a maliciously minded cat. B&O has managed to hit the bull’s eye with this product and tick every box. But don’t just take my word for it. Try a pair for yourself and then make your own mind up. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Highly Recommended.
Pricing & Availability: Beosound Balance retails for £1,750 / €2,000 / $2,250 and is available in Natural Oak and Black Oak finishes.
More info: bang-olufsen.com
Tech Specs:
- Bluetooth: Version 5.0
- Wi-Fi: Wi-fi/WLAN 802.11 b/g/n/ac (2.4 GHz & 5 GHz), 2x2 MIMO
- Streaming services: AirPlay 2, Beolink Multiroom, Chromecast built-in, Spotify Connect
- Integrated music services: Bang & Olufsen radio, Deezer
- Inputs and outputs: 1 x Main Connection 1 x Line-in/Optical combi-jack 2 x Ethernet 1 x USB-C
- Voice assistant: Google Voice Assistant built-in
- Remote control: Bang & Olufsen App
- Recommended room size: 10-80 m² 100-800 ft²
- Speaker configuration: 2 x 5.25-inch woofers, 2 x 3-inch full-range drivers, 2 x 2-inch full-range drivers, 1 x ¾-inch tweeter
- Amplifier: 2 x 200-watt Class D for bass 2Ω, 2 x 100-watt Class D for full-range 4Ω, 2 x 100-watt Class D for full-range 4Ω, 1 x 50-watt Class D for tweeters 6Ω
- Frequency range: 26 - 23,000 Hz
- Maximum Sound Pressure Level @1m: 104 dB SPL
- Bass Capability: 88 dB SPL
- Stereo pairing: Pair two Beosound Balance for stereo listening experience through the Bang & Olufsen App. Bang & Olufsen Stereo Pairing is factory default encoded using LC3 plus high-resolution codec.
- Advanced sound features: Active Room Compensation Adaptive Bass Linearization Beam Direction Control (three sides) Beam Width Control Thermal Protection
- Customizable Sound EQ
- Presets available and fully customizable through Bang & Olufsen App
- Materials: Oak, knitted fabric, aluminum
- Weight: 7.2 kg
- Dimensions: 20 x 38 x 20 cm (WxHxD)
- Power consumption: Typical 100 watts and standby 4.5 watts
