The Bang & Olufsen Beosound Balance is a wireless home speaker that looks good, is heavy, and costs a lot. It is shaped like a cylinder and is designed to fill a room with sound while fitting on a bookshelf or end table. It can run Google Assistant, which means it can do things around the house, answer questions, and play music. The device has an algorithm that lets it change the soundscape based on where it is and what is going on around it.
Bang & Olufsen says this about it: “With its unique acoustic configuration of seven drivers, Beosound Balance is made to deliver a strong bass performance and a broad sound image for truly room-filling sound when you want it. Beosound Balance is able to deliver sound directionality for focused listening from any position because it has beam-forming technology.
Specifications
- Bluetooth, AirPlay 2, Cast, combination 3.5 mm combo line-in/optical jack and 2 ethernet ports
- Cylindrical, 20 cm in diameter (7.8 inches) x 38 cm high (15 inches)
- 7.2 kg (15.8 pounds)
- 2 x 5.25″ woofer drivers, 2 x 3″ full-range drivers, 2 x 2″ full range drivers, 1 x ¾” tweete
Where to buy Bang & Olufsen Beosound?
In the Optimal mode, where the speaker is in the middle of the graph shown above, it’s clear that the sound is naturally bright and fairly neutral, with the upper mids and highs standing out from the rest of the soundscape. Voices are lifted above the instruments in a very impressive way, and high-pitched details are heard very clearly.
Basically, it’s very easy to get your music into it, and once it’s in, it gets 650W of amplifier power for the seven speaker drivers inside. You have one 3/4-inch tweeter, two full-range drivers that are 3 inches, two full-range drivers that are 2 inches, and two woofers that are 5.25 inches.
The setup is interesting. The Balance is made to sit on a shelf with a wall right behind it, and the speakers are set up 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 back to spread sound around the room.
The woofers are below all of this. One is in the wooden base of the Balance and points up, while the other is at the bottom of the fabric section and points down. This is called a “push-push” configuration, and it’s a cool trick that you can see in some high-end speaker systems.