The Bang & Olufsen Beosound Explore is a small, well-made Bluetooth speaker that you can take with you. It has a built-in carrying strap and a carabiner hook that you can take off. It has a boomy sound that gives the mix a little more bass, but this can make the vocals hard to hear and may be too much for some people.
The good news is that its companion app has customizable EQ presets and a “Beosonic” sound customization feature, so you can change the way it sounds by moving around the sound circle on the feature. Unfortunately, like most small speakers, it has trouble making the deep thump and rumble of low bass, which is often felt in music with a lot of bass.
Specifications
- Compact, classy design with built-in strap and bundled carabiner
- Dual driver configuration
- Up to 27 hours playtime – which is excellent
- Expansive, detailed sound given its dimensions
- Refuses to distort, even at higher volumes
- Bass is a little lean
Where to get Bang and Olufsen Beosound Explore?
Under the cool case, you’ll find two 1.8-inch full-range drivers powered by two 30-watt Class D amplifiers. It’s a little disappointing to learn that, despite having a Bluetooth 5.2 chipset, your wireless codec support is limited to plain old SBC, which means you can’t use aptX for higher-quality streaming or AptX Low Latency.
The Beosound Explore will take up about as much space in your bag as a travel mug or coke can, but it’s a lot heavier than these things. At 637g with the carabiner (and if there’s a carabiner, we’re always going to attach it), it’s about the same weight as a basketball. It’s reassuringly weighty rather than heavy, but the similarly sized Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 2 weighs only 420g. The metal body and big battery (which lasts for 27 hours, the most in its class) do make a difference.
Rubberized polymer covers the bottom and top plate, which looks great next to the cool metal case. The top plate has the usual buttons for power, pairing, play/pause, and volume adjustments, as well as a small power LED light. Under the fabric strap is a USB-C port for charging, but there are no other ins or outs. It’s a shame that this strap is too small to slip over our wrist, like you can with the Beosound A1 2nd Gen, but that’s a small problem.
B&O also tells users that the Explore has a dust- and water-proof rating of IP67. This means that it can be submerged in fresh water up to one metre deep for 30 minutes and still work.
The app is fun to use because you can change the EQ and bring all of your streaming subscriptions together in one place. Of course, you can still go into each app to manage your music. We especially like the radio tab, which makes it easy to listen to Linn Jazz, BBC Radio 4, and more, which you might not expect at this level.