Loved my A1 till it freaked out and was unrepairable ! Or at least not below the price of a discount P6 wich i liked even more !

I take my P6 everywhere from Borneo till the garden :) Thanks for the review i now know it's P6 staying as the travel companion.

Daniel wrote:

Where did you pay 299 $ for the Explore?

OlivierC wrote:

Canada, the price is in CAD.

Olivier

My 1-year-old has been wrestling with my Beolit 15 for some time and has killed a driver in the back, and dented the aluminium grill a tiny bit on the front. Still, he keeps asking me to turn it on. I have considered getting an Explore for him - for me, really, for when he is with me :) - but for now he can keep wrestling with the Beolit. It’s still going strong even though it’s been wounded in battle. You need to have some casulties for a greater purpose: hinting the seeds of his blooming love for B&O ;). In fact, he has been listening to the Beolit 15 since he was in his mom’s belly. But I have also wondered about if the Explore would be able to take a bigger hit, which is how B&O have been selling it.

Oh I forgot to mention for $299 this thing doesn't even have a mic. So if you get a call on your "outdoor adventures" you can't use this thing as a speaker. The Sonos has a mic AND both google assistant and Alexia for voice commands and calls.

To distract from the rant about the Beosound Explore:

I ordered one from my dealer yesterday AFTER I tested it and listened to it. Choosed the silver/alu natural and I hope there will be some other colors, too. This time even the anthracite looks damn good. I played with it at home for a fair amount of time and I'm aware of its sonical limitations. For the preferred usage scenario in the bathroom it's ideal. No more worries when the kids are playing swimming bath in the bathroom of any speaker damage.

Severed_Hand_of_Skywalker wrote:

Oh I forgot to mention for $299 this thing doesn't even have a mic. So if you get a call on your "outdoor adventures" you can't use this thing as a speaker. The Sonos has a mic AND both google assistant and Alexia for voice commands and calls.

TWG wrote:

Sonos: rendered all of their older speakers and systems useless with an intentional software update to force customers into buying new stuff.

Their software was not broken when they abandoned it, like some company we know!  Wait, wait, does Mozart work yet?  We *hope* they implement Join -- some day -- in newer speakers, without further breaking old speakers running ASE2 that lost Spotify, broke DLNA, never even could be stereo paired, etc.  P.S. Two words: BeoSound Moment.

Well said - the same suggestion was mentioned on the podcast on Sunday, and like you I dont believe it was correct.

Amazing how many chose to believe what they want to believe, all the more surprising when everyone has the power to google and find out what has actually happened.

trackbeo wrote:

TWG wrote:

Sonos: rendered all of their older speakers and systems useless with an intentional software update to force customers into buying new stuff.

Nice try.  Yellow journalism ("fake news"), reposting doesn't make it true.  What Sonos did was create new speakers that only worked with new software, and left old speakers to stay on a previous -- but fully-featured, and mostly bug-free --  version of software.  They did start out bricking devices **IF** you chose to take their 30%-off upgrade for new ones, but the backlash got them to leave old speakers working with Gen.1 software forever, even if you bought new devices with your discount.

Their software was not broken when they abandoned it, like some company we know!  Wait, wait, does Mozart work yet?  We *hope* they implement Join -- some day -- in newer speakers, without further breaking old speakers running ASE2 that lost Spotify, broke DLNA, never even could be stereo paired, etc.  P.S. Two words: BeoSound Moment.

Wasn't any try and I didn't trace progress on the Sonos topic. Just saw those "news" on many tech sites.

But the rant is pointless and doesn't help anybody! If you paid too much or you where cheated, yes, it's okay to rant, but afterwards you've got to move on. ;-)

Criticism is okay and a description of what's good or not, comparison with other devices etc. helps all of us to classify the Beosound Explore somewhere.
If you don't like the Beosound Explore, don't buy it or if you already did: Just sent it back and move on. There are hundreds of Bluetooth speakers and everybody will find one that makes him happy.

Whether it's Sonos, B&O, Bose, JBL etc.doesn't matter: NOT having a bug like Alexa, Cortana, Siri, Google Assistant (and whatever might raise in the future) is a must.

Yeah, but research requires work: the fault is with Business Insider and its ilk, not @TWG or @BeoWillie for believing the falsehood.

Karma-wise, Sonos deserves their bad press, because they did indeed (April 2018) completely and intentionally brick their CR100 controllers (from 2005, the "Soviet iPod" overize clickwheel remotes).  Sonos made it very hard to avoid that software update and, like Apple iOS, left no way to go back.  My Beo4 & BeoLink 1000 of old vintage started glitching all by themselves anyway! -- but at least it wasn't because B&O planted a software virus, plus I could still buy a BeoRemote 1 in-stead.  The only company that has performed admirably is Logitech, replacing Links with Home Hubs for free!  I was astonished and pleased, but now they have dropped out of the marketplace; too bad...

Obligatory apropos on-topic / Explore, has anybody seen the "matching" cylinder beer-can video projector?  Nebula "Capsule" (distributed by Anker, available on amazon.com): https://us.seenebula.com/collections/go-anywhere-series/products/d4111 -- It would be a fun L/C/R if someone could implement it, even with 2 Explores therefore halving the Bluetooth transmission stream, I doubt anybody would miss it with this size drivers.