It would be interesting for me to have others’ experience too since I am considering buying one. I assume it is not a main rule that all Beosound 2 speakers would have a ruined bass at a particular software update, but only some. I have not had such issues with the Beosound 1 mark 2 or the Balance - yet. Do keep in mind though that you may have one issue with one speaker, and another issue with another speaker. So ditching the Beosound 2 and getting a Balance might not be the solution. B&O should investigate why this is even an issue with your Beosound 2. Honestly I am also a bit surprised how a mature product such as Beosound 2 may still be impacted by not only software issues but also a downgrade in bass performance. On the one hand it gets me thinking if I should rather go for a Level as my next addition, however I have read another thread about swapped stereo channels. I don’t know what B&O changes so that it is not caught before a new software update is released but too many people report sound degration issues. I don’t like that too much.

For a year or more I was holding on to buying a Balance for several reasons, and one of them was if I should get a Beosound 2 instead. I went to my local dealer in order to audition a range of new and old speakers, and while I found the Level okay, I did get an instant impression of the Beosound 2 that it was bigger, in my view more precise and there was this magic about it that you can only feel but not describe. Soundwise that’s the speaker I wanted to go for. Then immediately I continued with the Balance. To my ears it sounded very close to the Beosound 2. More so than to other speakers, and they are commonly compared. I and my dealer agreed that the Beosound 2 sounded slightly more pleasing while the Balance had a slightly bigger sound. I have now got two Balances (a Nordic Ice with an in my view gorgeous aluminium base, depending on the light(!) with some subtle sandy/grainy texture and a walnut Bespoke version), and I love them both but I still keep thinking of the sound of the BS2 :).

Another thing in terms of sound is that while the BS2 has got a tiny edge in how sonorous it is, you have more options to tune the Balance. For example you have no Active Room Compensation with the BS2. These two speakers were not placed next to each other at my dealer’s, so acoustics may have impacted my first impressions. But when playing the Balance in omni mode, it has got a much greater embrace in the room than when it plays forward-facing towards you.

Last but not least what I have experienced with the Balance is that they are awesome with Beolink, not a hick-up, but when set up in stereo wirelessly, then no matter which one I place on the right and set up as the right channel, this speaker would keep dropping off, so the playback keeps coming and going. Wired through Ethernet it is perfect. Usually I’d have no speed issues with my internet and I have a meshed setup of several access points. So I’m kind of suspecting a software issue here. Primarily because - as mentioned - they play perfectly via Beolink multiroom, and they play perfectly as stand-alone speakers too.

Just wanted to share what I have experienced before you really get rid of your BS2 :). I’d still prefer its sound a lot over the Level and a tiny bit over the Balance, and it seems like no speaker is an exception when it comes to sound issues. Sadly!!! But B&O needs to fix it instead of you getting another one.

Hey thank you for your detailed and lengthy reply :D yeah I’ve also heard about the issues with the Level lol. Joke. How that could even get past any sort of QC is beyond me; even when setting up my speakers on Windows one of the very first things I do is a Left/Right channel test because crap just sounds WAY weird when your stereo channels are swapped.

Yeah my issues with the BeoSound 2 are unfortunate because it’s seriously the best sounding Bluetooth speaker I’ve ever owned… when it works. I actually firewalled my speakers so that they can’t automatically update for precisely this reason, but I went ahead to update them anyway since I was hoping that Bluetooth would be a little more stable (which I’m happy to report I haven’t had any Bluetooth crashes yet requiring a full speaker reboot ever since the latest update). My previous update was about a year and a half ago which was the last time an update wrecked the bass performance on my BeoSound 2; I can’t even remember how I fixed it the last time round (numerous factory resets and another update I think).

Either way my hope is that with the Balance being on the latest software platform they’d hopefully pay more attention to it. I only have so much energy to deal with a speaker’s sound profile changing every single time I update the damn thing. Even if the Balance is “only” 90% of the BS2 I’d happily take this sacrifice if it means that I don’t have to deal with software update headaches anymore.

Oh and also my patience with B&O’s support has run out an extremely long time ago. I’d rather take the hit of selling my BS2 and buying a Balance than tearing my hair out dealing with their customer service. The last time I emailed them about my BS2 they gave me the firmware download link for the MP3 player by the same god damn name despite me mentioning a gazillion times that I’m talking about the BS2 Speaker and not the darn MP3 player from an eternity and a half ago. Also my BS2 was already exchanged once also due to software screwups and I know I’m not the only one with the sound profile changing post-update although we do seem to be in the minority.

Having said that I typically listen to my BS2 daily so I’m extremely accustomed to its sound and I’ll notice even minor changes very quick.

Hi BeoAnna

I agree with you regarding B&O online support. It's atrocious. 

What I don't understand, is why you put up with this and continue purchasing B&O products. I, for sure, will stop buying their products. I have been a regular customer for 25 years but now I have had it with B&O.

Sorry, did not want to hijack your thread, just wanted to express my astonishment.

I think it depends a lot on the room where the speaker will be positioned as well as personal preference. The Balance is more powerful and more accurate, the Beosound 2 has more personality. It's somehow similar to Beolab 50 vs Beolab 5.

In a bigger room the Balance will do better. Also, the Balance can do room compensation while the Beosound 2 cannot. That being said, under the right circumstances, to me the Beosound 2 sounds more pleasing than the Balance.

schatzoy wrote:

Hi BeoAnna

I agree with you regarding B&O online support. It's atrocious. 

What I don't understand, is why you put up with this and continue purchasing B&O products. I, for sure, will stop buying their products. I have been a regular customer for 25 years but now I have had it with B&O.

Sorry, did not want to hijack your thread, just wanted to express my astonishment.

Haha don’t worry, not a hijack; ultimately it’s an important question and B&O does need to get their crap together unless they fancy losing more customers. While I do entertain their “lower end” — albeit still very expensive — products I no longer bother with BeoLabs et al. Just isn’t worth the risk. And the only reason I even tolerate their BeoSound series is because it’s not easy finding a good speaker with decent lower frequency performance which is also compact and doesn’t eat up too much horizontal real estate. Right now I’m living in a small apartment so I place a huge emphasis on how much performance I can get with minimum space, and while I’m quite a bass junkie I do like my bass to be extremely punchy and tight.

I have a friend with a Devialet and their software and support is amazingly even worse than B&O.

There really aren’t that many wireless speakers out there that can give you the sheer bass performance you get from the BS2/BSB in a 20cm diameter; and being the huge interior design nutter that I am I do like my stuff to not be an eyesore as well, so I really do appreciate B&O’s design philosophy a lot and unfortunately you just don’t get much of this from anywhere else.

So for me I guess I only continue buying some of their crap because the pro’s still kinda outweigh the con’s? If anyone has any idea what other speakers I can look at I’ll definitely peek around, but again space is my number one priority followed by design and bass performance.

Again thanks to everyone who has replied to this thread :D

Hi BeoAnna

thank you for your response. Your argumentation makes sense, there are no real alternatives, that look good and perform well. It's a catch 22, can't live with and can't live without.

I hope you will find a satisfying replacement for the BS2. Oops...I said BS :-)

Bloody hell my problems keep getting worse.

Got myself a Balance in Nordic Ice, lovely finish, and damn does it sound good. I find the room compensation a bit crap but I guess this is one of those big “YMMV” subjects especially since the Balance calibrates based on its own position and not yours. Anyway, as mentioned in my original thread I had to opt for the GVA version because my dealer refuses to carry non-GVA models (they basically told me that since they’re the same price everyone here wants the GVA one just in case). I originally thought this wouldn’t be a big deal since there’s a nice big clicky “MIC OFF” switch at the bottom; so I bought the speaker and went on to set it up via the iOS Settings App as an AirPlay speaker thus fully bypassing any Google shenanigans.

All good. Except… WHY does Bluetooth get disabled if you don’t use GVA?!? WHAT? If I tap on the Bluetooth pairing button I am greeted with a “nice” voice telling me that I cannot pair any Bluetooth devices until I complete the Google Home App portion of the setup. Really??? I don’t know about you guys but this sounds like something that would’ve been nice to know on such an expensive product.

While I don’t have an issue with AirPlay I do require Bluetooth to be working and this puts a huge spanner in my plans.

Anyone have any idea what I should do about this?

Sigh.

I think there are people more knowledgeable than me here regarding Google but to me this sounds more like something Google is to blame for rather than B&O. Previously I heard line-in could not be shared in a multiroom setup, exactly because it was kind of prevented by Google, whereas you could do that in the non-GA version. I have gone non-GA all the way. On the one hand I do not understand why they are not selling non-GA where you live, on the other hand I do agree that there are important notes that should be shared with customers on the B&O webpage so that everyone can find the type of speaker that works for their use case. I still do not know in what way they differ from each other but as long as I can, I would never get a GA-enabled speaker. It is not only voice-contol that you get with your purchase.

Csaba wrote:

I would never get a GA-enabled speaker. It is not only voice-contol that you get with your purchase.

Yeah I hear ya there. Problem is I’m not sure if the non-GVA speakers are much better in a sense that they’re still equipped with Google Home. For a long time the B&O App would always redirect you and force you to setup your non-GVA speaker with Google Home regardless even if it didn’t have Google Voice; I would know since I have a BeoSound 2 Mk2 without GVA. It took me a lot of digging around many years ago to find out that you could bypass the Google Home portion of the setup by setting the speaker up as an AirPlay speaker first, and Bluetooth continued to work. So I assumed that I’d be able to do the same thing with the GVA Balance and still be able to retain all functionality. Apparently not.

At the end of the day I have all my speakers firewalled since I don’t trust that nothing is being transmitted knowing that Google Home functionality exists even within the non-GVA speakers. Also B&O *NEVER* honours my Privacy Settings on my BeoSound 1 & 2. Every time I click “Decline” to share usage data it always gets changed to say I accepted it a day later even though I didn’t; even on the latest update.

Pretty depressed about all this because I otherwise like the Balance.