BS Balance stereo pair experience?

[Yendys]

Hi I’m thinking about getting BS Balance to setup as a stereo pair.  Does anyone have experience of how well this pair works?  Is it very stable setup in a stereo pair and does not drop out?

Do they sound good in stereo and the beam width control work well?

Any feedback you have with the BS Balance would be helpful

As I have a pair of Beoplay A1s and when using the B&O app as a stereo pair it is unusable, drops in and out constantly.  They work well when you pair them with the A1s Bluetooth buttons but it would be much better if the B&O App actually worked as it should…

Thanks

Drew

[Stan]

I have a stereo pair of Balances, and they work great.  They have “hiccupped” perhaps 5 times in the 2 years that I have owned them.  The symptoms are that one or both do not work, and neither are reachable from the app.   Re-booting one or both sometimes fixes it, although I have had to drop and re-add to the app maybe twice.

I take this to be the world of software we live in today.  I do have them hardwired to each other and my router, and, oddly enough, they might be more stable running wirelessly.  I say this because at least once (maybe twice), I had to disconnect them from the ethernet to get them to recovery from their failed state.

From a sound quality perspective, they are fabulous.  I think they sound almost as good as (and sometimes better than) my BL1s with much better bass.

The beam width control does not work when they are stereo paired.  Stereo pairing puts them into the “front” mode and you cannot change them to left/right/omni.  The left / right / omni does work pretty well with an individual / non-stereo paired unit.

Prior to the balances, I did have a pair of A1s, but they were much too fiddley. Sounded very nice when they worked, but having to set them up every time, and their frequent drop-outs made them not a good long term solution.

Also want to add that they are quite expensive (maybe obvious), and, at times, I think they are overkill for my office.  If the Emerge or A5 were available when I was looking to upgrade, I might have chosen those… but then I have not heard either of those speakers so I have no idea how they compare.  The Balances can get quite loud before they start getting “screechy” from the ABL turning down the bass to save the drivers.  I still often look forward to listening to my Balances which says a lot, I think.

Overall, I am very happy with them.

Stan

[Stan]

One more thought… you might want to also consider the BL8s.

[Yendys]

Thanks for your detailed and informative reply Stan.  Very helpful particularly about the stability you have experienced and sound comparison to BL1s. Glad you are happy with them, it does say a lot.

They will be my main speakers in a second home

I did considered the BL8s still yet to hear them in person but at this point its a pair of balance

BTW the A1s are in an office/hobby room and solved the pairing instability with a cable from sounds heavenly

[zmyslony]

It all depends how much you need to invest for another Balance.

If the cost is close to Beolab 8 I really advise to go for the 8, and later buy another one for a pair. Until then you can use the 8 in another room same as Balance at the moment.

One of the drawbacks of Balance pair is you cannot use the external source like a record player. For me that was really a dealbreaker. And beolabs are easier to connect to TV or upgrade the surround in the future.

[Stan]

Line-in is available in non-Google Voice Activation (GVA) models.  I have my turntable connected to my Balances and it works great – auto-senses the input and audio can be network linked to other B&O devices.

I should add that there is a delay between dropping the needle and hearing sound from the speakers so don’t bother connecting a TV to the Balance because the sound will not synch.

[zmyslony]

In beta software I have “reduce the input delay on line-in” option. You can also change the sensitivity to High and see if that helps with the delay between the needle.

But how did you get to stereo pair two Balances and get the stereo sound from line in record player? I have read and heard that is not possible. If you use multiroom feature with beosound core or other way, you are not getting the true stereo sound (separate left and right channel) but the speakers probably are playing at the same time.

[tph]

When stereo paired, the speakers act as a single system with a left and a right speaker. Any source, including line in when connected to the primary speaker, will play in stereo through both.

Do note that even with the low-latency line in option turned on, you are not going to get an instant response from the turntable, as the system needs to allow time – around 300 ms currently – for the stereo signal distribution between the speakers. The option is only going to disable the delay required for Beolink Multiroom to play in sync across rooms.

[Stan]

^^^ What he said.

[Yendys]

Thanks all great feedback.  Good to know the line in works that way too

I haven’t yet but will also listen to a BL8 when I next visit the showroom

[Stan]

One small correction to what I said above about GVA and line-in:  All Balances have line-in.  However, only the non-GVA version can distribute the line-in audio via NL.  An odd quirk that I misremembered.

[Author]

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