Hi everyone!
Has anyone with a BeoSound 1 or BeoSound 2 updated their software to the latest version recently and subsequently experienced an extreme degradation in sound quality?
Here’s my setup: I have both a BeoSound 1 (1st Generation) and BeoSound 2 (2nd Generation w/o GVA) that’s connected to a wireless network that ordinarily doesn’t have an internet connection. I do this for all networked devices that don’t really have a reason to maintain an internet connectivity 24/7, and it also helps prevent automatic software updates from inevitably breaking stuff and ruining my sanity.
That said, I’ve slowly been using AirPlay on my speakers more often and on the previous software version AirPlay reliability was pretty atrocious.
Even Bluetooth was rather temperamental for most part; like when I wake up in the morning I never know if I need to use Bluetooth (because occasionally I can’t find my speakers via AirPlay) or use AirPlay (because Bluetooth occasionally fails to pair) or whether I need to go out of my way to reboot the darn thing because both Bluetooth and AirPlay have decided to cease functioning.
Due to this I eventually caved in and temporarily moved my speakers to my proper wireless network with internet connectivity and updated their respective firmware, after which I moved them back to my isolated wireless network and performed a factory reset just to be safe and also because I did want to reconfigure both of the speakers anyhow. Now though they both sound like absolute dog poo.
For one there’s absolutely zero bass (even on the “Free” position, despite my two speakers being wall mounted in their respective rooms (and I ordinarily use the “Wall” setting)), and on top of that they just generally sound way out of balance (muffled mid-range, questionable highs); seriously they sound worse than my 50$ Anker portable speaker and significantly worse than my BeoPlay A1.
So what gives? Because this seems like one step forward and ten steps back, I can’t use either of these speakers anymore and there’s no way for me to revert to the previous firmware version.
Well, I did find a way to manually upload a specific firmware version to the speaker (you’re presented with this option when accessing the web interface of the speaker from a desktop browser), but B&O doesn’t provide any of their firmware on their website for manual download since they obviously want customers to just use the automatic software update feature.
Needless to say I’m not a happy bunny right now. I haven’t bothered contact B&O support yet because my last experience with them was horrible so I’m trying to avoid that for now; I’d thus appreciate it if anyone could share their experiences with either of these speakers with me and whether or not they’re also on the latest software version and whether or not sound quality has also suffered since.
Just to further clarify: BOTH of my speakers experienced exactly the same symptoms after I updated their software and they were both perfectly fine prior.
And yes I did make sure the equalizer wasn’t messed with on either speaker; they’re default.
On another note: B&O, you guys really need to get your software in order or you’ll just end up losing more customers. I originally had a BeoLab 18, 19 & Core ready to order but I ditched this plan after witnessing your poor software AND support first hand. Even simple things like “declining” to share usage data on your wireless speakers don’t work (both my BeoSound 1 & BeoSound 2 consistently re-accept “anonymous data sharing” (typically after several days) without my intervention despite me having previously declined on numerous occasions), which is another reason I have them firewalled from the internet.
