I saw/heard the BeoSound 8 yesterday - EXTREMELY impressed! The sound is really quite special - all the subtlety of 'proper' hifi, plenty of bass-extension (which is impressive for it's size), good overall tonal balance (maybe lending a little towards bass heavy, but not much, and in a pleasant way!), nice smooth top-end, really quite transparent and musical, the dispersion seems to fall off pretty quickly when you get past 90º off-axis making it fairly well behaved in an acoustically poor room, and in the flesh it looks fantastic IMO!

The finish is absolutely fantastic - loved the little remote control, but it can also be controlled from a Beo 4. A few nice little touches:

- As lee says, the speakers don't actually reach the surface it's sat on, looks nice when you're looking at it from a distance.

- The centre of the BeoSound 8 is the same layout/design as the remote control, pushing one of the buttons on the BeoSound 8 remote (or a Beo 4/5) causes the relevant button on the BeoSound 8 itself to light up.

- The finish and build quality right across the unit feels absolutely excellent, in fact one of the best-finished B&O products I know of! No 'round-the-back-so-it-doesn't-matter' surfaces on this.

Oh and yes, it really can fill a large room in an impressive way!

As you might expect though, you can't really get any sort of stereo image as the speakers are just far too close together, but that's irrelevant for this product IMO.

Well...I have a BeoSound 8 at home this evening.  We are having an event at the local Audi dealership tomorrow to launch the new Audi A1, and I didn't fancy leaving it at the garage overnight!

So I thought I'd give it a proper road test having only heard it briefly in Denmark in a crowded room.

I have a diverse range of music on my iPad and having first positioned  the set up switch to wall mode (there is a 3 position switch for bass handling purposes - freestanding/wall/corner) I gave my kitchen a good blast!

Very impressed - I have a Zeppelin (I know, shame on me!), but there is really no comparison.  Much deeper bass, and a cleaner top end, with far greater volume.  For those that are technically minded, the BeoSound 8 has a class D 70 watt amplifier to handle the bass, and 35 watt treble amplifer...it is very loud without losing shape.

I would place it just above BeoLab 6000 (£2250) for outright performance - shame it's got to go back to work tomorrow, I'll have to wait until they become readily available before I can have one!!

SHEFFIELD wrote:

I would place it just above BeoLab 6000 (£2250) for outright performance

wow !!

Wow indeed....it's not that long ago that Beolab 8000s and 3's cost less than the current price of the 6000s!!!

*shakes head and waves fist at B&O arrogant price increases when all around are lowering theirs*

Anyway,look forward to some independent sound quality feedback.

FYI - the dealers I have called are pleading ignorance regarding the Airplay situation...

The Airplay situation is you plug-in an AirPort Express! Works perfectly, and should AirPlay not take off in the way it's intended too, then you don't end up with a bit of redundant technology inside the BeoSound 8.

FWIW, one of the best things about the BeoSound 8 is that it's nice to finally hear a decent iPod dock with MIDRANGE, something the Zeppelin completely lacks.

Without wanting to cause any offense to any owners, I'm actually genuinely quite appalled at how bad the Zeppelin sounds, but then again, some of B&W's other new products also sound pretty dire, the MM-1s and P5 headphones being examples!

Airport Express is an unsatisfactory workaround to those who want an integrated solution.That's all there is to it.

Can't imagine Airplay not taking off.Not sure I follow your logic of a unit containing a theoretically redundent tech such as Airplay being an issue,as it would still function normally.

Not having it is the issue!

My two Zeps weren't lacking in the midrange department.The Zeppelin Mini on the other hand...or the Beolab 9s  that I lived with for a week or two.Now they were the kings of the recessed mid.

I also wouldn't recommend folk buy a Zep as both my units failed within a year.This is a known issue.

I would buy a Beosound 8 and recommend it to the hordes if and when it is updated and priced at £750 max.

Your comments struck a cord with me, so I googled "B&W price increase over last 5 years".  Got this...

Hi Guys,

I was at a rather excellent dinner party soire last night that ended up turning into the most wild house party. Anyway my friends (FROM KISS FM RADIO) were using a very very good iPod docking station (DENON) - it's amazing how many people actually brought their party playlists on iPods - myself included and how awesome the music was. Over the past few weeks this really does seem the norm to do at house parties now and I think it's an excellent idea. 

After last night, yep, i'll be buying that funky lil BeoSound 8! Bravo!

Paul Winn wrote:

it's amazing how many people actually brought their party playlists on iPods - myself included and how awesome the music was. Over the past few weeks this really does seem the norm to do at house parties now and I think it's an excellent idea. 

Never had the same experience. I must be getting old 😁

It's the big thing, in both parties and a lot of bars - where people get to connect their favorite playlist until it's voted down, or people get the fun of others being enthusiastic about their selection. 

But it's also at times incredibly annoying, as people no longer wait for something to finish, before wanting to propose something completely different. And with Airplay, this is going to be amazingly strange.

I'm 53. On Thursday evening I was visited by two Finnish web-programmers in their mid-20s. When we were through with business, they wanted to listen to my BeoLab 5s. And most encouragingly, they asked if I had "something symphonic" that we could start out with. They enjoyed a hefty helping of Mahler - but when they realized that my setup allows access to a lot of on-site and web-based digital sources: OFF WE WENT into cyberspace.

Imagine parties where people are pestering the host to get the access-info for the WiFi, in order to send content through Airplay to units in the home. At least you will get a global perspective on what's available out there ... the two Finns went loco in selecting things to watch, listen to, etc. Attention Deficit Disorder was not far from my mind.