Bang & Olufsen Beosound A1 (Gen 2)

amazon Bang & Olufsen Beosound A1 (Gen 2) reviews

The eco-friendly Bang & Olufsen Beosound A1 (2nd Generation) loudspeaker offers a powerful combination of style and sonic performance.

We find our fair share of outdoor-friendly Bluetooth speakers, and most tend to be built like tanks. The new $250 Bang & Olufsen Beosound A1 (2nd Generation) continues to look like the previous model, but it’s completely waterproof (not to mention dustproof). There are also improvements to audio performance and battery life, with Amazon Alexa support added for good measure. It probably feels a bit pricey for a mono model. However, there are some other things to complain about here — it’s still a portable speaker worth beating when it comes to eco-friendly design, and weather and acoustic performance are equally important.

Design

Available in black, gray, green, or pink, the Beosound A1 is a circular, upward-facing speaker with rounded edges. Its 5.2 x 1.8-inch (HW) footprint impressively compacts how loud it can be, but it’s lightweight (1.2 pounds). The top panel has holes in the small circular speaker grille, flanked by small status LEDs. A brown leather strap is attached to the side panel, a nice organic touch, with a metal cinch bearing the Bang & Olufsen logo.

There are push buttons for power, pairing, and microphone/mute on one side of the lanyard, along with the side panel. Dedicated Play/Pause and volume up/down buttons are on the other side. The play/pause button can be pressed twice to go forward a track or three times to navigate backward. Incoming calls can also be answered with this button.

Beneath the grille, a 3.5-inch woofer and a 0.4-inch tweeter are driven by two dedicated 30-watt Class D amplifiers, delivering mono sound with a frequency range of 55Hz-20khz.

The Beosound A1’s impressive IP67 rating indicates that the speaker is completely waterproof — a 7 in rating means the speaker can be safely submerged up to one meter. Although the Bluetooth signal doesn’t work well underwater, you can rinse the speaker under running water or expose it to rain or splashes by the pool with no problem. A score of 6 in the rating means that the speaker is dustproof and that no solids can penetrate its enclosure — which is a bit of a surprise given that the USB-C charging port isn’t covered, but we’ll talk about B & O here.

The Bang & Olufsen app is essential to setting up Alexa, making it even more frustrating to create an account with B&O — or sign in via Apple, Facebook, or Google — to access the account. I am always disappointed by any product that offers an application that you can only use after providing personal information. That said, after you set up your account, the app connects to the Amazon Alexa app to complete the setup process. Alexa can then be accessed by pressing the microphone button on the speaker.

In the B&O app, you can also access different listening modes, which are just EQ presets. You can create your EQ, but instead of the familiar bands and sliders we’re used to seeing, this is a pie chart that you drag your finger across to make the sound brighter or more bassy. It’s less intuitive than simple bands, but at least still can adjust the sound. You can pause and play in-app audio and download firmware updates.

The speaker is compatible with Bluetooth 5.1 and supports both AAC and AptX (Adaptive) codecs, rare in this category.

Bang & Olufsen estimates battery life to be around 18 hours, but your results will vary with your volume level.

Performance

On tracks with intense bass content, such as The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the Beosound A1 delivers impressive bass depth — the kind of sound that will vibrate the surfaces on which it is placed (in when the speaker itself remains perfectly still). At moderate to high volumes, the bass is fuller — DSP (digital signal processing) inevitably starts to thin things out at the highest volumes, but this is in the name of avoiding distortions form and never sound thin. That is a sign of bass transition, but deep bass is full at submax volume.

Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a track with less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the Beosound A1’s overall tonal character. Even at the highest volumes, this track sounds great — Callahan’s vocals have a mid-bass lacquer finish to complement his mid-range delivery without overwhelming it, while the mids and highs remain clear. The drums in this track are complemented with some low frequencies that never sound unnatural or overly boosted. The tonal ranges are bright and clear, as are percussion tracks with higher registration. That sculptural sound notation changes slightly depending on the volume level, but it’s always balanced.

In Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the kick drum gets some more banging, giving it more bass, while its attack has enough mid-range presence high to keep it small. The beat-breaking sub-bass synths are delivered with solid depth, but nothing like you’d expect from a woofer that pumps out the basses — the Beosound A1 excels at the tones bass and mids, but the sub-bass, which is predictable for a speaker of this size, turns around. The win here is still producing some deep bass without distortion. The vocals in this song are delivered with great clarity and no extra sound.

Like the opening scene in John Adams’ Other Mary-Vast Gospels, orchestral tracks sound rich, lush, and clear through the Beosound A1. The lower register instrument serves as its anchor for the brass, strings, and vocals of the higher but is not under-or exaggerated in the mix.

Microphone for clear hearing. Using the Voice Memos app on the iPhone 8, we understood every word we recorded clearly. Getting closer to the speaker improves the overall fidelity of the recording — from a foot more than a foot away from the microphone, the sound is thinner, while from 5 inches away, the sound is clearer and the bass response stronger.

Conclusion

Bang & Olufsen Beosound A1 feels like a natural progression from the original, where changes are immediate and subtle. The speaker is, in theory, the winner — you get the ideal Bluetooth codec playback for both AptX and AAC, and even though it’s mono, there are dual drivers, providing ideal clarity thought in both low and high tones. From a design standpoint, the sleek, sophisticated look meets the top IP67 weatherproof rating.

Advantages

Powerful, rich, clear sound

Beautiful design

Waterproof texture

Amazon Alexa support

Disadvantage

Expensive for the size

Speaker Type Mono

where can you get a Bang & Olufsen Beosound A1 (Gen 2) online

Bang & Olufsen Beosound A1 2nd Gen Portable Wireless Bluetooth Speaker with Voice Assist & Alexa Integration, 3 Microphones for Great Call Quality, 18-Hours Playtime, IP 67 Dustproof and Waterproof: Buy it now

Bang & Olufsen Beosound A1 2nd Gen Wireless Speaker w/ Microphone – Anthracite (Renewed): Buy it now