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I have A paired set of BS-Levels in a medium size room (around 25 m^2). I must admit that I never listen to music on high volumes nor care for punchy basses, such as in techno or disco music, and I don’t use them as TV speakers. The Paired levels do a brilliant job playing classical and pop music, and since I’ve added a Beolab 11 to the set, they also work very well with Jazz and rock music. I’ve compared a BS-level pair with a BS-Balance pair at the B&O store. Although the BS-Balance sounds bigger, I prefer Levels for my room size and music-listening style. This is a personal opinion, but the BS-Balance bass and lower midrange frequencies sound blurred to me, and I’m not a big fan of how they look, either.

I also have a pair of BS-Emerges in a smaller room, and again I prefer the BS-level; while they look pretty cool, I must add.

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Thanks for your input Razlaw. It is a pitty as BL12-3 looks really great, but obviously, only looks is not enough when it omes to loudspeakers.

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Here are two Areas that “might”require consideration in this discussion:

1.       Exactness of the produced sound (deviation in the sound compared to the sound that was produced by the artist)

2.       Individual preferences

There is no need to discuss difference in preferences as it is individual. When it comes to exactness I believe the issue of sound separation becomes an issue, especially with music with many layers of tones (such as orchestral). It then becomes obvious that woofer’s quickness and their numbers play a central role. The more woofers you have (assuming that they are nicely separated using high quality cross-overs), the better different tones can be separated. That is probably why many people love their Pentas. It is also a fact that newer B&O speakers tend to have more woofers. So maybe the newer Beolabs can reproduce the sounds better.

There is another topic that could be of interest with regards to sound quality of a speaker. As a classic guitar player, I prefer using guitars with cedar tops for Spanish or “romantic” songs while I generally use Spruce top guitars for pieces by Bach or Mozart, etc. The reason for that is that Cedar is a softer material which means that the tones form the six different strings of the guitar are combined in a softer way (less separation), which somehow is preferred in the case of romantic songs while spruce, with better ability t separate tones provide more exact tones, which is preferred for many western classical songs.

The relevance of this to older or newer speakers “could be” that older woofers, because of their age, loose some of their agility, dynamics or ability to quickly jump form a frequency to another. For that reason the older speakers “may have” a softer/more blurred tone that could be perceived as warmer.

But, of course, this is just a hypothesis!

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Update:

Got the 2000-mA QI charging receeiver today and the BS-A1 is now charging as it should so the earlier problem dependen on the low capacity of the first QI charging receiver (1000-mA).

I’ve also tried it on a BS-Emerge, which doesn’t start at all. Actually BS-Emerge seem to be very specific to its power source. I’ve tried to connect it to three different USB-C chargers with capacities from 10 to 30 watts and it doesn’t react to any of them (the lamps on toop doesn’t turn on at all), which is strange. On the B&O charger it states different outputs (dependent to the voltage out) but neither of mine with similar outputs seem to work. So, it doesn’t seem like I can power BS-Emerge wirelessly, which will probabaly be the case for BS-Level as it requires eve more watts than BS-Emerge.

The good thing is that at least I can now charge my BS-A1s wirelessly.

I wish B&O could come up with new over-ear headphones that could charge wirelessly too.

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My apologies for geting of the topic but this issue is interesting from at least one more perspecitve.

beojeff wrote: “With the BLGW you already have all of the control you get from updating a BLI to PRO mode.”

From what beojeff wrote, It sounds to med that BLGW might “in generall” be a better choice for systems with both NL and ML. Is it so?

Are there any advnatages of having BLI or BLI-pro other than being future proof (at least for now)?

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Trackebo they are not in sync.

The BL-11 is connected through Beolink active and then NL/ML. The delay that I can hear is barely there and I’m looking for a ML-delay box, but for now I’m happy with the setup.

 

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Where can I find test-records?

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Thank you LeMirage for sharing your experience.

I find your comment about the BS-Edge very interesting and as I have mentioned in another post, I did consider to buy a pair myself but rejected the idea as I felt a pair of properly positioned BS-Edges would take too much space and also expose the speaker for possible accidents.

I also confirm what you wrote about paired BS-Balance. In my opinion, the bass takes too much of the signal register and you go missing som nice mid-range details.

Back to BS-Edge, unfortunately I couldn’t listen to a paired BS-Edge setting. Have you?

For know, and from my experience while listening to one BS-Edge, it probabaly is the most intersting speaker for the application I’m thinking of (if I rest the problem with palcement aside). I will try to listen to it paired. After all they are quite pricy and will most likely be discontinued soon and given that they are not Mozart based, no future updates can be expected, so it is a bit risky.

 

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Thanks Simon for your comment. It seems like most people only have good experience with BL17s and I will try to find a pair to carefully listen to although it will most likely become difficult as they have been discontinued for some time now.

Before I bought my Levels, I listened to a single BS-Level and a single BS-Balance and although Balance does have a bigger sound and able to convert more watts to waves (800 compared to 120), I would say that I like Level’s sound image better, which provides better separation and higher clarity while the bass produced by the BS-Balance is domineering and blurs out mid-range signals, in my opinion. I’m however not sure how they would compare in pairs but I must say that I’m happy with my BS-levels and addition of BL11, which compensates for the weaker BS-levle’s bass register. However, I’m trying to find a pair of speakers for a bigger room.

I have also done some careful listening to the theater and also it is a very capable speaker and has loads of possibilities, I beleive it needs ot be acompanied by several other speakers in order to provide a good listening sound image, which will become very expensive.

BS-Edge on the other hand seem to have both the power and the drivers to provide a big and clear sound image (despite its awkwardness in placement and lack of dynamic room adaptation processor).

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I would also love to hear about any experience with a paired set of BS-Edges!

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Thanks everyone for your comments.
Generally, I listen to classic music, jazz and some older music from 60-70s. What I really appreciate is not how loud the speakers are or how punchy bass they can deliver. What I do care for is clarity of the sound and the ability to separate different instruments and voices. BS-Level does that while they are not suitable for larger rooms.
Maybe I should just forget about the look of BS-balance and get a pair after all or wait for what will come next!

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I would like to use a pair for listening to music. I have a pair of BS-levels (+ a BL11) and a pair of BS- Emerges i two different rather small-ish rooms and thinking of  BL-3 or 17s or maybe  a pair of BL-Balance for a medium size room (<50 sqm). I have listened to Balance and like the sound but am not a fan of their looks.

I like the sound separation capability of BS-level (and to lesser degree the Emerge) but although they sound nice and clear, they are not made for bigger rooms.

Larger floor based Beolabs are not an option. I neither like their looks , the space they require or their prices.

 

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As I wrote in the original post, I want to see of I can use a wireless charger instead of charging the BS-A1 using USB-C cable. I could then just place the BS on a wireless charger not needing to connect and disconnect cables. The charging transmitter is not a problem while it seems like the wireless receiver I have does not allow enough electricity through.

Being able to connect the device to a wireless power source could simply allow for more clean, cable-less, and convenient placement of the more recent, small size Beosounds that use USB as power source

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Update,

BP-H9i charge just fine wirelessly. I haven’t  checked the Emerge or Level yet but I’m sure now that the 1300-mili Ampere Qi receiver is too weak for BS-A1 and most likely same goes for Emerge ang Level. I will order 2000-ma version and will update this post

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Thanks Mr10Percent for your comment. I have experienced the problem you mention, yet in the case of laptops, they are smarter and simply don’t charge, or let you know that the charger is not strong enough or both. In the case of simpler devices, they don’t, as it seems ot be the case for BS-A1. You are however right and the weird light signal (while charging) is almost certainly dependent on a non-compliant charging device.It is however curious as BS-A1 doesn’t come with a model specific charger but only a cable and should therefore be compatible with any USB-charger.

My charger devices (both the transmitter and receiver) should at least theoretically be compatible with any USB-charging device.

I’m using a wireless charging receiver (https://www.amazon.co.uk/UniQi-Wireless-Charging-Receiver-OnePlus-transparent/dp/B01J437ZXI) and a Xiaomi Mi 20W Wireless Chargingpad.

I will try to charge my BP-H9i, as well as BS-Emerge and BS-level (they are all equiped with a USB-C adaptor) and will add the information on this post later tonight.

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this is a doubble post

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One thing I learend from this forum (or atually the previosu one that is now archived) is that the choice of best speaker depends on lots of vairables but most imporntantly one’s preferences. We all have our favorite speakers and whether a Bosound 8 is the best or a BL18 is the subject for never ending discussions.

Personally I’m happy with all B&O speakers I’ve ever bought but if I could wish for a new device, I would wish for an updated NL/ML so it could become NL/ML/MCL compatible so you could connect a Beogram (or any MCL unit) directly through a DIN contact to your system, regardelss of the system.

B&O used to be about simple and elegant integration allowing you to devleop a system that works for you. That integration I mention is of course possible but only if you get yourself quite a few boxes  to enable all the necessary system transitions, like I did, of course, with loads of help from many of  you guys in this forum. It still took me several months to find all the required units and althoug the Solution does the job, It can’t be called elegant, not to mention tjhe fact that I need to hide most of the boxes as although many of them are beautifully made, they are not compatible in size and/or form.

Basically I wish they could sell us a box that included the commande unit of BM-65000 (or 4500 or 7000 , …, so it could communicate with a Beogram or Becord), a BLC, a NL/ML, and, a Beolink power box, a ML-delay box so the DSP-delay problem could be remedied, and finally a WISA transmitter. Since wihses are free, I also need the solution to be based on Mozart platform!

 

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The B&O seller in Selfridges told me (yesterday OCtober 20) that B&O is working on a software fix that can allow mozart based speakers to connect to BS-Theater. Could it be about a software update for Mozart?

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Could it be a low pass filter, extracting the Subwoofer frequencies from the rest, like the Powerlink outs on Beolab 2 or 11?

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Thanks, Guy; I’ve found a Beogram 5500 with an MMC2 at a lower price than what is on the market these days for an  MMC2 alone. According to the current owner, the BG is in excellent condition, so I will listen and probably buy it if it is in good condition. Do you have any ideas about inspecting a pickup besides listening to it?

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