New Wireless Speaker Beosound A5?

[Mbee]

Acoustical power (W RMS) have nothing to do with electrical power consumption (W)… that’s why you get the same acoustical power with less power consumption by going from class A amps to class D (ICE Power)

[Mr10Percent]

Well I wish I could have parsed it as well as you Mee.

[Rollomat]

Hey there!

Saw the spaced aluminium design. If they came up with that design in black or space grey, I would buy it without demoeing.

How realistic is such a Design and how long does it usually take until B&O comes up with new designs? Can‘t wait for a year or so…

Thank you very much in advance,

Chris

[cds]

Mr10Percent wrote:

I think we are over-thinking the specs and assuming B&O have not been doing their own Electrical Engineering? Im sure the A5 can play pretty loud all day connected to the designed power source. Im sure they specify a playback volume and battery life hours as a pseudo metric. Where and how the watts are applied makes a difference and Im too lazy to work out the sound pressure to convert to a watts output. Think of the BL90. 8200 Watts of digital amplification per speaker. It only does goes this high at full chat for a brief moment in time. If it were sustained, it would melt the power sockets and plugs, electrical power cord etc… Rather, the onboard power supply has an input power, and output power and a degree of integral electrical storage (either the power modules or capacitors etc..) to ride out the loud passages of high music output. I would relax, go and listen to it, decide if it suits your usage needs or not and buy/dont buy. But I would not for one minute think that B&O don’t know what they are doing power-management wise.

No assumptions regarding B&O’s electrical engineering. The reason I am interested in real-world experiences with this device is because of how the Beolit 17 behaves with what appears to be the same power supply specification.

[Rollomat]

Do you think the sound of the A5 will suffer a lot when placed on the floor of my terrace? I don’t want the A5 to be placed on a little table all the time.

[cds]

Mbee wrote:

Acoustical power (W RMS) have nothing to do with electrical power consumption (W)… that’s why you get the same acoustical power with less power consumption by going from class A amps to class D (ICE Power)

If the A5 can only draw 45W from USB-C and it consumes more than that on average at certain listening levels, the battery will drain regardless of how the output power is measured. I’m just interested in how much of an issue that might be – perhaps the listeners get tired way before the battery does.

[Sia43]

It looks like USB-C can deliver up to 240 watts, so there might not be a problem. That is if A5’s charger can manage enough watts.

https://manhattanproducts.eu/pages/usb-c-pd-charging-everything-you-need-to-know#:~:text=USB%2DC%20PD%20is%20a,that%20could%20deliver%20more%20power.

[trackbeo]

Can someone photograph or verify the wall wart that comes with an A5?  Aren’t they the same USB-PD (“Power Delivery”) wall wart as the Level? See a previous thread questioning the Emerge using that same power supply and scroll down to the photo near the end to see what Level’s specs read: https://beoworld.org/forums/topic/new-member-looking-to-add-an-emerge-to-my-collection/

[Steve at Sounds Heavenly]

Hi Beoworlders,

Has anyone tried the latest app version 4.9 with the A5 yet?  This unlocks a new “Advanced” tab in the Beosonic settings, you can adjust Frequency Tilt, Sound Enhancement and Directivity (Front/Omni mode).

If you think the standard Omni mode is good, wait until you hear it playing in Front mode!  This is very impressive…

Kind regards, Steve.

[Anonymous]

Sounds nice. Is there also a setting allowing to choose whether the A5 stands on a table or on the floor?

[Anonymous]

Hi,

There isn’t a separate setting for this in the app, as the room compensation will automatically adjust for the speaker position.

Kind regards, Steve.

[John]

Now that I have both the Level and the A5, to my ears the A5 sounds much better. I’m no audiophile, but it’s way more open sounding. goes louder, and oh that bass. The A5 sounds clearer too.  Also sounds a lot better out on my screen porch than the Level does. I’m going to sell my Level and get a second A5! I’m in love!

Out of the box there was an update for it. Setup was a breeze.

The dark oak is better looking in person than the photos online. I’m glad I made that color choice.  I like how the handle moves so smoothly and stays put no matter the angle.

Of course I would never pay for a speaker like this for Bluetooth, so I have no comment there. I don’t use it on B&O products.

I cannot wait to get home from work and check out those advanced settings Steve mentions and try Front Mode!

[Rollomat]

Thanks for your reply.

Do you need an external mic in order to do the room compensation – just the way you do it with AVRs or does the A5 do this automatically like the Devialet Mania?

I you have to do this manually. Can you save more than one calibration for different uses? And is this room compensation also active when in battery mode? I read that this is not the case with the Level.  Thank you very much in advance.

[Steve at Sounds Heavenly]

Hi,

I also prefer the A5 to the Level for sound, I will follow up with a side-by-side test video soon.  The room compensation can be run at any time via the app using the A5 internal mic, you can’t save this but you can just run it again if you move the speaker.

Kind regards, Steve.

[cds]

Sia43 wrote:

It looks like USB-C can deliver up to 240 watts, so there might not be a problem. That is if A5’s charger can manage enough watts. https://manhattanproducts.eu/pages/usb-c-pd-charging-everything-you-need-to-know#:~:text=USB%2DC%20PD%20is%20a,that%20could%20deliver%20more%20power.

I hope they support one of the heavier profiles like some laptops and phones use! The reason for my concern was a reddit post showing the power supply module as 15V and 3A:

[cds]

Steve at Sounds Heavenly wrote:

Hi, I also prefer the A5 to the Level for sound, I will follow up with a side-by-side test video soon. The room compensation can be run at any time via the app using the A5 internal mic, you can’t save this but you can just run it again if you move the speaker. Kind regards, Steve.

A comparison with a Beolit 15 or higher would be great if you can!

[tph]

Steve at Sounds Heavenly wrote:

Hi, I also prefer the A5 to the Level for sound, I will follow up with a side-by-side test video soon. The room compensation can be run at any time via the app using the A5 internal mic, you can’t save this but you can just run it again if you move the speaker. Kind regards, Steve.

RoomSense is currently available only when the product is plugged in. When unplugged, it will switch off the room compensation filters, same as Beosound Level.

[Rollomat]

Thanks for clarification! What do you think? Will the sound suffer a lot when standing on the floor?

[Rollomat]

Does anyone know if and when there will be new color ways available? I am particularly interested in aluminium only – space grey / black.

[tph]

cds wrote:

The power supply concerns me a little – the output is rated at a combined 280W RMS and yet it appears that the USB-C module can only handle 45W.

It is 280 W non-clipped peak power, not RMS. You’re only ever going to see very short bursts where the amplifiers are going to output that much. The battery capacity is rated 66 Wh (9000 mAh, before safety buffers that are created in software) and the product should play about 4 hours at maximum volume, which also gives some indication of power consumption.

[Author]

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