Bang & Olufsen Beosound Stage review: A major-tier portable song streamer

Indubitably, the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Stage is the prettiest and most attention-grabbing-sounding wireless streaming speaker I’ve encountered that operates on each AC and battery strength. It holds good to the comely spirit that’s lengthy driven this legendary Danish electronics impress, ever striving for a magical fusion of invent and technology.  

But be forewarned, procuring into this purposeful work of art work isn’t for the financially faint of coronary heart: A single Beosound Stage costs either $1,499 or $1,799, reckoning on which mannequin you believe you studied. That you would be able to need to rationalize this luxurious indulgence as a lengthy-term investment; just like the pitch proffered for a Rolex timekeeper, or an exotic Euro sports car. And like these uncommon goods, the Beosound Stage has a sensitive nature that in many ways requires a little bit of of coddling (extra on that in a little bit of).

This review is section of TechHive’s protection of the ideal Bluetooth speakers, the set up you’ll fetch critiques of the opponents’s choices, plus a buyer’s handbook to the facets it is best to purchase into memoir when shopping for this form of product.

At the coronary heart of this instrument (and about a of B&O’s various Wi-Fi-enabled speakers) is a current, modular circuit core known as Mozart, which the producer says would possibly perhaps well furthermore furthermore be swapped out for but one more if the onboard upgradability ever reaches its restrict. The lithium-Ion battery pack is swappable too—as is the Stage’s front quilt. That you would be able to furthermore roar you’re procuring inexperienced along with your wad of inexperienced, on memoir of in a market bursting with disposable electronics, this one would possibly perhaps well by no plan must be trashed.

Jonathan Takiff / IDG

The educational curve is a small bit steeper right here than it’s with rival song-streaming systems that integrate all operations into one mighty on-conceal menu. Stage merchants can safe it going with good B&O’s hold app, which comprises a good world array of net radio stations (B&O Radio) accessible by language, location and genre. (I’ve found some distinctive reggae and ska, Afro-pop, Brazilian samba, English trad folks, and a long way-flung jazz stores this plan.)

Jonathan Takiff / IDG

But if you are going to furthermore very smartly be searching to need to set off the Google Direct Assistant to receive philosophize material, or link various smartly suited wireless audio parts to play in unified groups, you’ll need to link your Stage to the Google Dwelling app for your cell phone or capsule. Direct-constructed-in play buddies encompass Spotify, Apple Tune, Pandora, Deezer, YouTube Tune, and TuneIn.

If your fashion runs to various services—the likes of Qobuz, Tidal, or Amazon Tune—build in for your mobile instrument, you are going to furthermore “solid” them to the Stage utilizing either Airplay 2 or Chromecast. Bluetooth 5.0 is also supported, despite the incontrovertible fact that I rate its audio performance on this speaker lovely mighty as good gorgeous. Unexcited, it does allow the Stage to seize taking half in song if you are going to furthermore’t join to the net (assuming you’ve gotten song stored for your instrument, that is).

Impeccable industrial invent

The Stage is gorgeous and just a small brighter sounding in its less pricey beget: a matte aluminum-framed cupboard with a unhappy grey rubbery ribbed backing and a charcoal Kvadrat speaker grill cloth (a conventional B&O colour diagram). But I found the Stage mighty extra fetching—and a tad warmer in sonic tone—within the terminate trim model: a delicate copper-colored anodized metal frame with a putty-tinted abet panel and a delicate oak wood grill.

Product fashion designer Torsten Valeur says he took inspiration from minimalist Eastern décor. But, this model of the Stage also is evocative of traditional wood-cased radios, just like the mid-1940s Philco “roll prime” portable I scored eons ago at an upstate Unique York knick-knack shop.  Trimmed in brown leather-essentially essentially based mostly, this spiffy wood-boxed mannequin changed into “very trendy with college students—a staple in dorms, on picnics, on the seaside,” shared the antique seller. “Every BMOC had one.”

Jonathan Takiff / IDG

In either trim, the proficient and transportable Beosound Stage makes my coronary heart flutter every time I search for upon and abet it to speak. The Stage is kind of light (7.25 pounds) and if truth be told orderly at 9.06 x 14 x 2.2 inches (HxWxD). It’s slim ample to fit on the narrowest windowsill, fireplace mantel, or bookshelf. That has made it straightforward (as has the smartly-balanced scoop handle) to seize this charmer by my aspect as I switch true thru the premises. And with 16 hours of play time between battery prices (conducted with a snappy-join, Magazine-Procure-styled rear charging puck), this ingredient is able to party on for a lengthy spell. Peel off a rubbery quilt and you’ll gawk the recessed charging zone in abet also harbors an ethernet port, a USB-C charging port, and a line in/optical combi jack.

Let it rip

The entice is mighty extra than skin deep. A Beosound Stage performs with a readability, sweetness, roundness of sound, and you-are-there realism unmatched by rival portables such because the Sonos Pass, Bose Transportable Orderly Speaker, Polk Omni SR2, UE Megablast, and Como Audio Amico.  As smartly it must, given the Stage’s four- to 5-times elevated asking impress than the similar choices from Sonos and Bose. Top-notch parts encompass twin 0.8-lunge tweeters—curiously linked in a section-reversed beget (relative to every various) to good one 15-watt Class D amp, plus a single 2-lunge paunchy-range speaker driven by 30 watts of amplification, and a first rate stereo pair of 4-lunge woofers, every of which will get 30 watts. Every of the speaker cones is fabricated from a “excessive-performance polymer,” per B&O.

Jonathan Takiff / IDG

Well-engineered philosophize material—acoustic jazz, symphonies and string quartets, alt-pop, folks, and country—shine engaging and good. Iconic L.A. singer/songwriter Jackson Browne’s contemporary, paunchy-band supported Downhill From In every single set up comeback space if truth be told space my jangly folks-rocking coronary heart beating faster in excessive-res Apple Tune beget. Ditto the most modern post-mortem Jerry Garcia Band launch: Garcia Stay: Volume 16 (recorded at Madison Square Garden) that I found jamming in Ultra HD beget on Amazon Tune. Meanwhile, Devendra Banhart’s hideous left turn to ambient song-ville, Refuge, sounded positively haunting in Hi-Res Audio beget from Qobuz.

Jonathan Takiff / IDG

The Stage’s most compelling attribute is its finely detailed excessive-terminate response, but I set up now not want any complaints about its good mid-range performance that pushes vocals and soloing devices handiest ample forward. And whereas the bottom terminate is by no plan gonna fetch a bangin’ contest, bass notes are tight, good, and remarkably palpable for a box this thin. You’ll by no plan confuse a Fender electric bass for a standup right here or extinguish up wondering “What’d he roar?” as a rapper cuts unfastened with a spitfire tirade. A hits series by hip hop fave Mos Def changed into most articulately defined by this discipline leveler.

As for stereo unfold; uh, let’s now not bound there. Even when seated without extend in front of it, I infrequently sensed extra than an occasional hint of channel separation. Certain, it’s now that you just’re going to furthermore imagine (thanks to a present B&O software update) to mix two Phases as a stereo pair, but at a price that strikes me as lunatic absurdity.

Too good?

The Stage’s dark-magic digital signal processing and that unfamiliar tweeter section inversion—intended to bolster the spaciousness of sound—would possibly perhaps well furthermore furthermore be responsible for a mildly troubling persona quirk I found. This ingredient is now not kindly disposed to distortion, whether or now not unintentional or man-made. On a uncommon day when my mainstream jazz fave WBGO changed into having some signal encoding/transmission complications, the sputtering sounded worse on the Stage than on the Bose and Sonos streaming speakers that were within earshot.

Likewise, the bass buzz distortion I newly heard on a WXPN “Flashback 80s” blast of Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing within the Darkish” changed into so blatant on the LeveI that I feared I’d blown a driver or found a invent shortcoming within the slatted oak grill. I ran to ascertain the an identical music taking half in on various units. Yup, the electrical buzz in Garry W. Tallent’s bass line changed into completely audible there, as smartly, even though now not nearly as pronounced—or tense.

This would possibly increasingly perhaps well attend uncover why the Stage is now not as nice in most cases on rock recordings, a realm the set up engineers are intentionally compressing, section transferring, and in some other case distorting the hell out of the “stems” to lend extra, um, persona and would possibly perhaps well to the production, for extra car-stereo appeal. However the Beosound Stage is good now not one to abdominal such shenanigans. It spits them out.

Genuinely, the target market for the Stage is neither a head-banger, nor an audio zealot difficult to buckle into a unnecessary-center sweet-set up. Moderately, it’s designed for sensitive-eared, deep-pocketed song aficionados who won’t decide for wallpaper-quality background song as they bound about their every single day tasks. What if truth be told counts in a song box like right here is its direct presence, mighty throw, and extremely-discrete appearance.

Jonathan Takiff / IDG

Despite its slight proportions, this ingredient can absorb a room—even to a 2d ground. Cranking the quantity control to the max for a lush Baltimore Symphony rendering of Bernstein’s ‘West Aspect Myth’ Symphonic Dances on Vermont’s VPR Classical journey, my actual sound tension meter confirmed the Stage outputting a dwelling-filling, distortion-free 98 decibels. That’s the an identical level because the Sonos Pass (which, to my ears, sounds bloated when pushed to such an excessive), and it’s 4dB extra than the Bose Transportable Dwelling Speaker delivered. But truly, there’s no need to crank the Stage to 11 to kill it sound particular. Any setting above the 50-percent quantity model wakes its paunchy dynamic range and nuanced “Hear the rosin on the bow?” shipping abilities.

Fair true-searching tunings

B&O’s associate app for the Beosound Stage invitations the individual to purchase from a couple of EQ Listening Mode settings—along with Energetic, Lounge, Rep collectively, and Night time. That you would be able to furthermore furthermore dial in a personalised EQ on an attention-grabbing virtual wheel of ideas that shifts the tonal balance between engaging, bassed-out, and a couple of other facets in between. After moderately about a playing spherical, I particular the default “Optimal” setting changed into the ideal.

Moderately of customized room equalization is also that you just’re going to furthermore imagine, while you set off the Stage app’s room compensation chance. A snappy spiraling sound wave goes out and bounces off the room’s surfaces abet to the speaker’s onboard microphone and processor, which in the present day calculate and adjust the EQ for the room’s shape, dimension, and resonance. This room-tuning characteristic, on the opposite hand, is handiest readily accessible when the speaker is hooked up to AC strength. The Stage defaults to its manufacturing facility EQ when unplugged.

Even extra tweaking is that you just’re going to furthermore imagine by varying the speaker’s orientation, from standing true to lying flat on its abet (after the charging puck is eliminated). Or you are going to furthermore mount the Stage to the wall utilizing an optionally accessible constructed-in striking/charging bracket ($119). An onboard gyroscope tracks the shifted space and triggers modifications within the DSP (this takes a couple seconds). The bass changed into boldest when the Stage changed into reclining on my eating room sideboard, a safe location eliminated from the rest that will perhaps well furthermore spill, shed, scratch, or drool into its grill work.

Jonathan Takiff / IDG

Flies within the ointment

For better—and worse—I found the Stage’s prime panel contact controls to be further sensitive. A proximity sensor lights up the panel as you components, which responds most attention-grabbing with very light faucets and swipes true thru the panel. Lay a finger down too lengthy on indubitably one of its four space/present presets and Google Assistant will spout “Must reprogram?” Wrap your palm true thru the contact strip as you’re toting the Stage and whoops, you are going to inadvertently instigate a reboot.

It also helps to appear at a feathery contact as you prance or roll true thru the quantity control zone. All but indubitably one of many seven ascending quantity-up (and down) faucet facets are only for three level steps, so there are 19 level gradations in all. I found the most true components to alter the quantity level changed into to roll the aspect of my index finger up and down this zone.

Early on in my testing, the Stage’s thermal contact controls and mature strength button also had a snide behavior of freezing—and in most cases disabling the song—when I moved the Stage from room to room. It changed into then now not doable to safe the rig going all as soon as more with out asking B&O customer strengthen to remotely purchase over and reboot the machine—a in most cases delayed job given the corporate’s Danish wrong of operations. (The strengthen team reply the cell phone and reply to emails 24/7, but the terminate-tier engineers who would possibly perhaps well make an on-line fix are handiest readily accessible from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. local time.) After the third time this freeze-up took place, I began to stare a sample. The Stage would handiest act up if I’d moved it from one room to but one more whereas the unit changed into powered on, song changed into taking half in, and I changed into transferring it from one Wi-Fi zone to but one more in my three-zone dwelling network. While all three Wi-Fi nodes sing the an identical SSID and password, the Stage couldn’t transition gracefully from one to but one more.

Jonathan Takiff / IDG

So, I‘ve  discovered to sing some conduct modification: I shut off the Stage sooner than I cart it to but one more location. As soon because it powers up all as soon as more, the Stage discovers the closest Wi-Fi source and re-connects perfectly. This takes good about a seconds, and it saves hours of heartache.

A B&O get has assured me that the “world quiz” for these distant service intercessions has been minimal. And that if the Stage owner has good one centrally located router, this won’t be a problem. But expectantly they’re taking my “Rep-22” discovery to coronary heart: Their fashioned advice for triggering a Stage reboot or manufacturing facility reset—“concurrently press the forward and abet buttons” or “press and seize the strength button for 18 seconds”—won’t carry out a little bit of of just when these self same buttons are disabled by a instrument meltdown.

For particular, mastering the art work of a portable Wi-Fi speaker is a advanced alternate. Sonos is indubitably one of many few companies to pull it off. Bang & Olufsen is 95 percent of the components there with the Beosound Stage. Take care of this princess upright, search for out for peas under the mattress, and he or she’ll reward you with impeccable audio performances for loads of years to attain.

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  Bang & Olufsen Beosound Stage (aluminum)

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  Bang & Olufsen Beosound Stage (oak)