Shorty after the announcement of the B&W T7 also Bang & Olufsen announced their own vision of a true portable speaker with omnidirectional sound, a claimed 24 hours battery life, recharging of external devices and max. 180W!! sound... well, too good to be true? All those specs come with a price and this is 399$ or 349€, which makes the A2 even more expensive than the B&W T7 at least in the US because in Europe both cost the same. For the price of one Beoplay A2, you could also have an Infinity One
So lets find if the Beoplay A2 is really worth the extra and how it compares to the current line of portable Bluetoothspeakers particularly with regard to its direct competitor from B&W.
Within audiophile circles Bang & Olufsen always had a similar reputation to Bose. They were both smiled at by serious audio fanatics claiming both companies to produce overpriced piece of junk that doesnt sound good.
I am not so sure if these flamed companies in reality didnt manage to make the better products in the end, at least in regard to consumer friendly portable speakers.
The Beoplay A2 is the first portable Bluetooth speaker for Bang & Olufsen. They already had some stationary dockinstation models like the Beoplay A8, or a portable Airplay-Boombox Beolit 12, and I must confess that all of those that I have heard sounded pretty good in contrast to some "real audiophile" companies like Bowers & Wilkins, whose products never managed to thrill me much. Both B&W and B&O were priced higher than the competition, but those from Bang & Olufsen sounded much more exciting to me.
In the meantime I found an interesting blog from Bang & Olufsens "Tonmeister" and sound designer Geoff Martin who shares some interesting insights into B&Os philiosphy of speaker design. Especially the videos 1 and 2 of how B&O designs their speakers is quite informative. Some of the mentioned approaches to optimize directivity do directly apply to portable speakers as well, thats why B&O obviously decided to make the Beoplay A2 an omnidirectional speaker, which is still quite rare among serious portable speakers as most simply rely on conventional design with fullrange drivers that have a strong directivity especially with treble. Instead of copying old and unfavorable speaker concepts, B&O obviously tried to improve on many problems of existing portable speakers and create something that really stands out of the crowd.
Unlike your hifi-stereo which most of the time will be fixed and maybe even equalized for a flat response on your exact listening position, portable speakers do profit from the possibility of being carried around and placed wherever you need them. But only speakers with a broad sound dispersion or even better full omnidirectional sound make sense to be placed completely free, otherwise you could just use your portable speaker in the same way as your fixed hifi-system and place it somewhere against a wall as far from you as possible to get the broadest sound dispersion.
My biggest complain about most portable speakers so far was that they only sounded convincing (if they managed to sound convincing at all due to the restrictions of their small sizes etc) exactly or close to on-axis. One extreme example was the Bose Soundlink Mini, which sounded very mature and far beyond its size regarding bass response. It didnt have much treble extension though as it already started rolling off above 12kHz, but when aimed directly at the listener the sound was still acceptable to one who liked Boses typical bass accentuated sound tuning. Unfortunately the Soundlink Mini aimed away from the listener just slightly would already result in a boomy muffled mess. I always felt forced to turn the speaker around towards me whole the time, therefore I finally sold it, because I got bored because of this. Outdoor when together with some friends you couldnt just put it somewhere in the center, because only one person would get good sound, assumed the speaker was also tilted upwards to focus the sound to ones head instead of ones feet.
I already have some experience with different omnidirectional speakers like the Libratone Zipp, the Fugoo, or even the FoxL Dash 7 when placed flat. Such speakers have a big advantage over speakers that have a more focused sound and will only give you satisfying sound within their narrow sweetspot (as it was exactly the case with the Soundlink Mini). Thus my hope was big for the Beoplay A2 to offer some particular performance and stick out of the competition.
The Beoplay A2 comes in 3 different colours. It is hard to decide which one looks best, but I have seen all of them live, and I think the black one to be a bit too boring. The green one might be even looking best, despite being "green". I went for the grey one as I expected it to be rather silver. From the official images on the B&O site the speaker looked as if it was made completely of aluminium or at least it looked shiny, but in reality only the slim center part is aluminum, the entire rest of the speaker is just simple plastic. The grey one reminds me a little bit of a wall plug, as those have exactly the same color, thus resulting in a slightly cheap look. Although I prefer the golden colour of the aluminium body most, the grey color spoils the entire look. The green version has a nice reddish brown wrist-strap, which makes a pretty contrast to the hefty green colour. With black everything is black, which some might still like if they want it as simple as possible.
If you care about classy packaging, you will love the one from B&O. Open the box and you will immediately notice the premium tag to it, the interior of the box is lined with some black velvet compared to the simple carton/paper interior of the B&W T7 packaging at least with B&O you know what you are paying for. Inside you will find the speaker and a proprietary charger with some international plugs. Obviously the Beoplay A2 cannot be charged through USB which is a pity.
The speaker itself definitely looks and feels nice, the design is timeless and the fact that some of the grille-holes are covered gives a particular accent. But the A2 doesnt put over that kind of premium finish I was expecting especially regarding the price. An Infinity One feels much better and more expensive, maybe partly because of the uncommon ceramic-coating. The A2 design is quite minimalistic, you only get some control buttons at the top and some ports at the side, nothing else. There are enough companies that would willingly spoil the great design by spangling it with some huge logo covering half of the front or back. Kudos to B&O for adding just a mall sign at the top of the speaker and an even more minuscule one at the strap-knob.
The A2 is not very compact, it is about the size of the original Bose Soundlink and a bit bigger than the B&W T7. It has 1.3l cubature which puts it on par sizewise with speakers like the TDK A33 or the Infinity One with the only difference that the A2 is much slimmer and manages to pretend a much smaller size than the others which rather might appear clunky but otherwise use exactly the same space.
Together with the rounded edges the A2 is much easier to be packed away. Even though the T7 might have an overall smaller cubature, the A2 is nevertheless more convenient to transport, also because of the dedicated wrist strap. You can carry it around like a simple bag, or pinch it under your arm like some mens purse, it really feels comfortable like that, as there are no hard edges, and it is more secure to carry than an Infinity One, which is hardly to grab with one hand because of its thickness.
It is just not that easy to handle the Beoplay A2 bag-like. If you carry it with the handle and want to put it down, it would stand upright, but only at the bottom side are some small rubber feet, not on the shorter side opposite to the wrist strap.
If you want to place it on stone or concrete, you will probably quickly scratch that part of the speaker. It is a pity the desingers didnt add some additional feet at that shorter side too or simply some additional rubber coating at the edges. Also when carrying the speaker with the handle with the intent of placing it down, you will probably come in trouble with just one hand. The handle is at the short side, but the speaker has to be placed at the longer bottom side, when just hanging there upright it is not easy to place it without affecting the edge of the speaker somehow, not if you dont use the other hand to turn it around first. You could of course place it upright first, afterwards turn it around to the side, but as already mentioned, there is no protection or any kind of feet at the shorter sides, thus putting the speaker on harder surfaces for quite often might damage the plastic sides.
As the plastic covers are deattachable, I could even imagine them as spare parts, although I am not sure B&O would offer them separately, which is to hope, as the Beoplay A2 will probably fall over quite often thanks to its slim design. While the flat design might be favorable for packing or transport, it is not that ideal for secure positioning. The small feet at the bottom are less than 3cm apart while the speaker is more than 14cm high, or even 25cm if placed upright. It stands very wobbly especially on slightly uneven surfaces. Better to place some cushions all around, just in case it tips over thanks to some wind maybe...
I didnt manage to place it on my sofa for example. But also outdoors on the ground it is nearly impossible to make it stand. Even if you manage, it will fall over shortly after. You have to apply some tricks to make it stand on a lawn, or you can try to find a branch or something where you can let it hang.
Of course you might just lay it down flat, and it would even work like that, but you will cover one speaker side and lose one stereo-channel because of that. In a pinch it will be still usable, but it definitely sounds better when standing. I sometimes even had the impression as if the A2 was sounding better when standing upright, which might be a result from the tweeter being farther away from the reflecting surface unterneath, I cannot say for certain, but there is definitely a difference in sound depending on whether placed horizontally or vertically.
When turning the speaker on it will play an unremarkable click-like sound, if pairing is successfull a similar tone will be played, as well as when the speaker is turned off again. The tone is not very loud, and much less obtrusive than that from the Infinity One, the JBL Charge 2 etc. let alone the Pill XL. I can definitely live with such a kind of sound and prefer it over the virtuosic harp-playing you hear when you turn on the B&W T7.
Bluetooth connection is pretty simple, just keep the Bluetooth-button pressed for 2 seconds and it will jump into pairing mode, there is no additional NFC for even quicker pairing though. The A2 supports AptX if your non-Apple device supports that too and it can connect to 2 devices simultanously. The 2 devices must have been paired to the speaker at least once, so that they can both connect to the speaker at the same time. Otherwise you will have to break up the connection to one device if you want to pair it with the other one first. Unfortunately the A2 always wants to connect to the latest paired device. If you have more devices already paired to it, it will still always expect the latest one and ignore to automatically connect to the others except if you force the connection directly from the device. Volume control is mirrored between speaker and the connected device at least on iOS devices and the A2 offers 32 volume steps which are subdivided sensibly to allow for some fine volume control even at lowest levels, unlike all the recent speakers from JBL, Infinity, Beats etc...
Bluetooth connection seemed quite OK and stable without any hickups or drop outs but it was not class-leading. It was stable as long as the distance between speaker and streaming device didnt get too far, but my old Soundlink Wireless Music System managed to keep the connection at much longer distances, while the A2 had already lost connection from the same spot.
I noticed some stronger mobile network interference from my mobile phone. When the phone was placed closer to the speaker and started searching for a network etc, it was easily hearable through the A2. It seems as if shielding was not really well executed. Especially with the phone attached to the speaker for charging lying next to it resulted in repeated interference noises. Only switching it into flight-mode did help.
The A2 will charge external devices through the built in USB-port. The speaker has to be turned on for charging though. Some speakers can be turned off again and will continue to charge, it doesnt seem to be the case with the A2 though. Some will probably be missing speakerphone ability, the A2 just doesnt offer that. There is no track-control available through the speaker either, so you will always need your player at hand to stop or resume music, skip to the next track etc.
Now some technical data: The speaker is driven by a claimed 60W D-class amplifier with max. 180W power!!! Not sure how B&O calculates those values, but 60W would be extremely powerful for the given size, let alone 180W outperforming even larger speakers like the Bose Sounddock Portable, which only has 40W. The Infinity One has a claimed 25W amplifier only but will play louder with more bass than the A2.
There is a 3" fullrange driver together with an additional tweeter and a passive radiator at each side of the speaker. If you take the speaker grille off, you can see the "heart" of the Beoplay A2 quite well. It is interesting to spot that the drivers are slightly offset at the front and back part of the speaker, particularly noticeable with the tweeter which is close to the edge at the front, but closer to the center at the back. Also the main drivers are placed slightly differently for the front and back part of the speaker. I am not sure if this is for acoustic reasons or if it is pure coincidence due to some internal design limitations. But when looking at the speaker up front, you will have the front driver at the right side, while the non visible back driver will be left hand. The same goes for the tweeters. This setup allows for some increased stereo-separation which is pretty obvious on the Beoplay A2 compared to most other speakers. As you also hear the back drivers bleeding through to the front slightly, there will not only be a front/back separation but also left/right. More on that effect later.
When judging the sound of a speaker I think the first impression you get is very important. Playing the first tunes you might sometimes even get the impression that the speaker was broken (this is what I got when I first listened to the B&W T7) then slowly getting used to it to finally persuade yourself that it doesnt sound that bad in reality. Or you might start smiling after the first notes of a song, which was the case, when I tried the B&O Beoplay A2 for the very first time.
Let me begin with the fact, that the A2 is definitely not a "neutral" or flat sounding speaker. It has some colorations for sure. You will probably hear some humps with higher frequencies, some dips with mids and upper bass too, but overall sound is nevertheless pleasant and not fatiguing in any way, it is just that you will probably hear the sound to be sculpted quite a bit and not 100% faithful to the original recording. It is equally sculpted as what Bose usually does to make their speakers sound "better". But B&O did this with much more finesse and with more style. Listening to the A2 makes fun and wants to make you actually listen to your favorite songs again to hear how they will sound, while when listening to the B&W T7 I never wanted to listen for too long, as it didnt give me any satisfaction.
Overall I would roughly describe the sound of the A2 as treble-friendly with lots of deep bass, but without any artificial basst boost and slightly recessed mids at the same time.
Treble is very clear and detailed but boosted too much to be called flat and tending to sound a bit sharp on some tracks, but at the same time it hardly rolls-off even when listened exactly from the side of the speaker, which you will usually avoid doing under normal circumstances. But you could even put the A2 directly on the floor and listen standing from above without having a too strong treble loss, placed near the floor will also pronounce bass even more, which you may like or not, depending on the music. Of course it sounds clearest when listened exactly on axis (and with the speaker grille taken off, yes I did also some measurements to compare the sound with and without speaker grille, and the speaker grille definitely takes away some of the treble), but even when listened from less than optimum positions it will still sound clearer than many other speakers listened perfectly aligned. This is a 360° speaker, so you might even stand behind it and still get the same sound. Some might counter that nobody needs a speaker playing in all directions, I tend to contradict, because for a portable speaker this is the best you can get. Just put it anywhere and you should be able to move around without losing much quality. Try that with any Bose speaker, and come back again for discussion.
Mids sometimes seem to be covered a little bit. It is not that obvious when listenening solely to the A2, but switching between different speakers you will sometimes get the impression as if the singer was singing through a funnel. There is some coloration that makes the A2 sound quite a bit different than most other speakers pretending a "flat response", like the B&W T7 for example. It is definitely a matter of taste too, but I rather prefer the colored sound of the A2, than the lifeless and boring sound of the T7. B&O obviously tuned this speaker to make it sound pleasant instead of trying to tune it for the most neutral sound reproduction. As it is more demanding for a portable speaker to sound good at any position, I am quite sure that the intention behind the A2 tuning was exactly to make it sound good at many different places one might think of. Portable speakers are different, and B&O finally seem to be the ones who really figured that out, while other companies try to translate their common old school Hifi-knowledge into portable speakers and fail.
Bass is the other more impressive part of the A2 as it reaches very deep, maybe even deepest of any comparable speakers I have heard so far. I heard clean bass notes down below 50Hz, but not only as slight hints of bass with a much lower amplitute, but real bass. Most other comparable speakers hardly manage to reach 60Hz. Of course you wont get any subwoofer-like bass at higher loudness levels, as the Beoplay A2 will also reduce bass to some degree as soon as you start raising the volume, it is just the same as with all the other small portable speakers out there, no particular magic going on here. But up to medium volume you will get a much more full-bodied sound than from any of those (including Bose Soundlink III, Infinity One etc). At the same time bass from the Beoplay A2 is not overly boosted, it is just deep, so it should still sound very natural for those who do not like any artificial bass. What surprised me a bit was that B&O decided not to include any form of loudness compensation. Usually B&O are known for optimizing the sound with their own loudness curves, not so with the A2. It will sound equal at the lowest setting, as it will at medium volume. It is just that bass is starting to get more and more reduced the higher you turn it. Unfortunately at really low levels, lets say the first notches, it will sound a bit too flat for my taste. You have to turn it up some more notches to get a satisfying amount of bass. I found the Sony SRS-X3 to sound more impressive at comparably low levels, it was only at higher levels, where the advantage of the A2 became obvious.
As the bass has no particular boost, you can even try positioning the Beoplay A2 near a wall or corner (I would avoid doing so with most Bose speakers). You will lose the whole 360° feature like that, but you can pronounce bass even more without making it drone, because the boomy frequencies above 100Hz are kept relatively conservative. With some particular placements you can really get the impression as if you were listening to a much larger system, while with other placements the A2 might also sound a bit thin or flat, as I would call it, because it never sounds tinny, but sometimes the bass is not as pronounced as other times. The A2 seems to be more sensitive to placement in regard to bass response than other speakers. I am not sure what is the reason for that, but the A2 can sometimes sound either big or small, depending on where you place it or where you are standing. I assume room modes are to blame for that. The A2 has lots of bass down to 50Hz and even lower, while many rooms have a resonance between 50-60Hz. In such a case, all the deeper part of the bass will get cancelled out, if the speaker or listener both catch a negative room-mode. Other speakers have more upper bass and wont even reach that deep, thus will probably sound more full-bodied, as the room wont have that much influence on the upper bass frequencies, this is just an assumption though, but I got this impression when I was listening to the Beoplay A2 and JBL Charge 2 side by side. Sometimes the JBL sounded considerably fuller with stronger bass while the A2 standing right beside left a much flatter impression. Other times the A2 had a huge advantage where you could hear deeper bass notes, that were simply not present on the JBL Charge 2 regardless of positioning. I was nevertheless quite surprised to hear how nice and natural the A2 sounded outdoors standing completely free, as it managed to sound more impressive than inside when placed badly.
What is a bit missing on the A2 is some stronger upper bass punch that you will notice with bassdrums. It seems to me as if the A2 was simply relying on its deep-bass impact, but falling a bit short of the stronger punch you get when there might be some slight upper bass ephasis. Bassdrums often seemed to miss attack, instead you could more hear the lower decay part, thus overall bass felt a bit flabby.
This deeper bass tuning comes at a cost though. First I didnt notice it that much, but the more I listened to the A2 and the more different tracks I tried, the more it became obvious. The A2 can suffer from some considerable bass-distortion with particular recordings. The overall sound remains pretty clean even at maximum volume, there is neither any kind of intermodulation distortion nor crackling etc. everything is well under control, except bassdrums which can start to drone already below half volume. I listened a lot and nailed it down to mostly electronic drums, which can cause problems on the A2. These typcial housekicks you know from the legendary TR-909/808 drum machines, which are still so popular nowadays (or rather samples or clones of them) can make the A2 sound really bad. The problem becomes ob
