BeoCom 1401 wrote:

I might be one of the only others here with a Balance Stereo pair, and I've had very similar issues. I was actually going to send one of my speakers off to B&O for repair, but now maybe I'll hold off. 

The right side speaker constantly malfunctions. I've had to factory reset it over and over again because it loses signal and no longer appears in the app at all. What I haven't done yet is try switching the left for the right. I'll do that today. 

Question, just to see if you're having the same problem I am - when you look at the speaker settings, does your stereo pair show Left and Unknown? That's what I see most of the time lately. 

Do you have 2 non-GA or 2 GA speakers?

Factory resets never helped me either.

I think you could definitely try the same things as I have:

- extend from one speaker to the other, then test

- now swap them around physically, then set them up again but with stereo according to the new position and then test

- test stereo both close to the router and with the speakers placed close to each other

- you could also compare how they work both individually (one is off for example) and in a BeoLink setup joined together

- see if they work better if they are both Ethernet-wired to your router and then setup stereo and test

Remember that my issue is that sound dropping out on the right-channel speaker immediately starts after pressing Play. I can actually see Left and Right labels in the app. I cannot recall Unknown but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have a different problem. Also, I have once experienced such heavy drop-out that even my stereo pair had disconnected itself. Then the speaker on the right was lost and was struggling to come back online and was therefore not recognized by the app. Factory reset did help with it being recognized at least.

c-larsen wrote:

Glad to help. I think you will benefit a lot from separating the two bands by fx creating <ssid_2_4> and <ssid_5> so you know which devices is running on which band. Once that is done I would recommend to try to connect your Balances to the 2.4 Ghz network and then just stereo pair them via the app as usual.

I look forward to hear if your issues go away. Otherwise let me know :)

Most definitely I will! I really couldn’t care if my 5GHz is the culprit as long as my stereo pair works :). If it does, it is still beyond me why Beolink works using the same network. Now I simply need a weekend afternoon alone, which is not too easy with a 1 and a half year old and his mom always at home :)).

At the very least I’m going to add my learnings so that also others could benefit from it.

I swapped the left and right and everything is working perfectly - for now. Let's see how long it lasts. I'll update this thread as I continue to use them. 

I swapped the left and right and everything is working perfectly - for now. Let's see how long it lasts. I'll update this thread as I continue to use them. 

matteventu wrote:

There should be more people like you in the forum :)

So you're confirming the Mozart products use a wireless connection on the 5GHz band encoded with LC3plus to communicate each other when stereo paired natively via B&O app?

If so, that's good to know, I was afraid they did that over Bluetooth (hence the thought the Wi-Fi 2.4GHz signal could interfere with the wireless link between the 2 speakers).

Is it an 802.11 connection, or any other kind of standard? You mentioned there's an option to select "LC3plus". Can you please elaborate on this? Not having 2 Mozart B&O speakers at hand at the moment I can't check myself 🙂

Is there an option that lets you configure the codec used? What are the alternatives to the LC3plus option, in the app?

Thanks a lot for your contribution!

Yes, the products use a wireless connection for better performance and audio quality.

Once you have done your stereo pair, you can select the desired audio quality level via the app. If you go to "Product Settings -> Audio Quality" it will give you the option to select between LC3plus or Uncompressed PCM. Obviously the uncompressed option will require higher bandwidth and hence will be more sensitive to interference. So I recommend to at least start with LC3plus to verify you do not experience dropouts or other issues.

If your setup allows it, there is also the option to attach an Ethernet cable between the speakers. Then you can still have a wireless connection to your router, but the audio data will be transmitted via the cable. If you want to go with this option, you first need to do the stereo pairing wirelessly (without any ethernet cables attached) and then once they are paired you can connect the cable and it will automatically switch to use that for the audio link.

Interesting discussion on 5GHz.

Long ago I created a hidden 2.4GHz-only SSID specifically for the Google Assistant products I have because some of them - most obviously the earlier Nest gear - do not support 5GHz.

But I might now investigate a 5GHz-only alternative for the products that do. It's a bit messy (I would of course prefer a single, concurrent band wi-fi network) and I'm not hopeful it'll make a difference, but it's worth a shot!

For those who want to learn more about LC3plus - have a look here: 

Page 7 - 2.2

https://assets.ctfassets.net/8cd2csgvqd3m/2luyxeIlLHpkR3cNHcrpfc/c7b95506226eed7f75e435fac4ee1766/Beolab_28_technical_sound_guide.pdf

And at the Frauenhofer homepage here:

https://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/iis/en/doc/pr/2021/2021_06_LC3plus_B-and-O_EN.pdf

P.S.

I guess at some point there will be a similar Technical Guide for the Balance/other Mozart speakers....when he, who usually writes these has some spare time  🙂

MM

Did you try killing the B&O app from the backround once pairing is complete? 
this trick always works with A1, P6 etc when encounting drop-outs in stereo pair setup! (iOS tested many times, not sure about Android)

c-larsen wrote:

Yes, the products use a wireless connection for better performance and audio quality.

Once you have done your stereo pair, you can select the desired audio quality level via the app. If you go to "Product Settings -> Audio Quality" it will give you the option to select between LC3plus or Uncompressed PCM. Obviously the uncompressed option will require higher bandwidth and hence will be more sensitive to interference. So I recommend to at least start with LC3plus to verify you do not experience dropouts or other issues.

If your setup allows it, there is also the option to attach an Ethernet cable between the speakers. Then you can still have a wireless connection to your router, but the audio data will be transmitted via the cable. If you want to go with this option, you first need to do the stereo pairing wirelessly (without any ethernet cables attached) and then once they are paired you can connect the cable and it will automatically switch to use that for the audio link.

Thank you for confirming. Really appreciated!

Is the 5GHz wireless connection over 802.11 standard, or is it a proprietary protocol?

The ability to make the stereo pair work also via ethernet cable doesn't seem to be documented anywhere, is that because it's still in testing (albeit alredy released), or it was just an oversight? If the latter, I'd suggest  providing feedback internally to the team that deals with the support resources.

A little bit off topic, but I’m interested how the Balance sounds when paired.

I was impressed about the sound of the Balance, but didn’t hear them paired.

Do they overclass the Beolab 18? Or do they sound to harsh in stereo or is it spot on?

I’m interested in your impressions.