Bought an Edge…..My initial impressions:
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Always loved the design of the Edge, much more then A9, Balance, Level and stage. Until now I had two Levels stereopaired, for sure like the design (gold oak) but the part of the living room where music is needed a single device seems to fit better.
I still have the Levels and obviously need to do some extensive listening before I can decide what speaker(s) can stay….. This post is mostly about the user interface and first impressions, about the sound I will post on a later moment.
$$$
To be quit honest, the Edge is nice, very nice, but not €3250 nice….
So my favorite colour showed up on the used market, brass with parisian night cloth (very dark blue) for about half MSRP and decided to give it a shot.
But….the OEM floor stand was missing….
So the floor stand mission began. The MSRP for B&O’s own floorstand is 325€, and looking at some images i was wondering why the h….l this “device” costs that much. I decided to phone a dealer and ask the same question as well as delivery time . The answer was interesting: “the floorstand is expensive sir because all the electronics for the roll volume control is integrated in the floor stand”
Really?!
Well we know better, that’s not the case. All the motion sensors required for the roll volume control are built in the Edge itself. The floorstand itself is NOTHING but an absolutely ridiculous overpriced piece of steel with the most lowtech spring mechanism built in. Just to have the Edge stabilize to it’s center position when the volume control roll feature is used. But exactly this same floorstand could have been included with the average Ikea rocking baby-chair and then probably would have costed 15€…..
But I wanted one anyway, so forked out the 325….About the Edge setup:
A few weeks ago I asked the question here if google home could actually be bypassed when setting up an Edge. All the info on the B&O PDF manuals and official B&O youtube setup video’s clearly state google home is a must.
Well, it’s not! Thanks to what Millemissen posted in my initial thread I knew there was a work-around.
For the Stage B&O actually published the workaround but this procedure also works perfect for the Edge!
The previous owner only used the Edge on bluetooth so was behind two firmware updates. Updating the firmware gave me the creeps. There wasn’t really a clear status info screen about the the update progress, just a short “downloading” “installing” and “restarting” that took quit a few minutes without a moving percentage progress bar or anything like that. But it all worked out well.
So how does the rolling work? Well, it’s a nice gimmick but I will not use it for sure. The feedback with gorgeous smooth LED bar is super nice, but why did they not make that touch sensitive just like the two FWD and Back track skip buttons?! So much more satisfying then the rolling trick….
Solution 1 : Paired up an essence remote, and that works so beautiful! The essence remote works on low energy bluetooth but still volume response is almost instantly , super smooth and 100% accurate.
Rotating the essence wheely and then instantly seeing the LED bar following it’s motion, so beautiful and unique ! Much much nicer then seeing the dots move on the Level when using a Halo or Essence for example.
(@B&O I have said it before but why did you not make the essence remote in brass colour, HUGE mistake, you could have sold loads of them)
Solution 2: Paired up the Halo, noticed a very subtle lag but acceptable.
Important detail is that with the Non-mozart products like an Edge for playing internet radio Tune-in is used from the B&O app instead of B&O radio. With the Level I programmed the four presets in the B&O app, with the Edge this is not possible! Best workaround is just manually search your four favorite radio stations within TuneIn (within B&O app!) and press and hold one of the four presets on the Halo screen to program your it to your favourites. With the Level and other Mozart speakers this does not work , then you must configure them vis the app, rather confusing to be honest.
But once programmed it works pretty well, a big bonus is the satisfying confirmation beep in the Edge when a preset is selected and activated. Mozart speakers don’t do this. Maybe people find it annoying but i prefer the beep to be honest.
Another rather interesting quirk is the mysterious power button. Please correct me if i’m wrong but any info on this button is impossible to find in all the Edge manuals. It is only displayed in one tiny image hidden somewhere on the support site. What does an on/off button do? Well it seems to switch off the Edge instead of being on standby forever, in these times an extra interesting feature. Funny is that you must sort of pet the front cloth of your edge to find the button!! After about 5 times you know where it is roughly without looking like an idiot petting his speaker……
People with the bronze Edge and taupe cloth need to wash their hands every time before switching off the Edge…..
Initial sound impressions:
The three directional settings in the app do have an enormous influence of what sound is presented to you. Front only is nice but a little underwhelming! Back only means discovering you have just bought a 3250€ Beoplay A1 XXL ……
But dual mode……Tadaa!!! Here we go, a very very rich immersive room filling sound. Next weeks I will start experimenting with the position of the speaker and all the beosonic settings. But just as with the Level for me the Party setting is a huge improvement compared to what B&O finds “optimal” setting.
What about the active bass port?
Interestingly enough when the speaker is off or standby the port is in the open position. Starting music on low volume closes the port, you can hear it’s movement but this in no way annoying. It’s powered by a rather silent electric stepper (??) motor .
But as soon you pause the music after a few seconds it opens again!
And once playing music with volumes above 60-65 percent (also depending base intensity in thr track) the port also opens. The difference in bass is very clear, with open port on 70-80 percent you get this real booming base but still sort of controlled .
This is it for now. Maybe nice to know anyone considering an Edge. Having searched the forums and archives seems that there not too many Edge fans over here…….but I certainly have become one!
Thanks for the review ?
Never consider an Edge, but I was quite impressed when I listened at my dealer when it was launched.
Could imagine it to be a conversation piece when you have a party ?
Thanks for sharing. I did consider buying Edge yet I couldn’t justify it since:
1- it is semingly difficult to place; simply where to place it, I imagine that it ideally needs to be placed so that both sides are pointing out, which makes the speaker not very practical in my case with European smal type of living room. Placing it against a wall or corner would probably absorb or worse distort the sound. How is yours’ placed?
2- the wheel control, although interesting seems a bit of long a long shot and would most likely not be used very often, The one I tried was not precise and needed an exact amount of tilting, which I found not very user-friendly. Do you use that function often?
Having tha above said, I still fancy having one, actually a pair, as I believe a speaker with that capacity (yet a bit more practical) is missed in the Beosound range.
The Edge is a funky speaker. A lot of purists have trouble liking it for the usual reasons but if you approach it from the perspective of high-end, bauhaus inspired boombox I think it starts to make sense. Clearly not meant to be a reference speaker with its odd (but very innovative!) acoustic concept but definitely more than adequate at providing more-than-loud-enough background tunes for partying and day-to-day life at home.
Glad the active bass port was called out here. This feature is by far one of the most overlooked innovations in the entire industry right now.
Isn’t it possible that there is just a general big misconception about using and enjoying the Edge? This is mostly fed by B&O’s failing marketing when the product was released and actually boosted even further by the optional wall mount ? This wall mount and the Edge being displayed as a clock in so many press images might have given the general public the idea this is the only suitable setup for a Beosound Edge?
But then there are the later A9 generations with drivers on the back as well…….but nobody is complaining about placement issues with that one! Because main reason for the back drivers was to give it a wider spacious sound as a standalone speaker right? (Using wall / corner reflection obviously). And that is exactly what the two drivers on the back of an edge are doing as well when placed near a wall.
It’s a guess but my idea is that quit a big part of the A9 users have it near a wall instead of free standing also maximizing performance of the back drivers.
The symmetric design of the Edge makes you believe it shouldn’t be placed near a wall but this is just not true. The beam control function in the B&O app with it’s (nice!) visual presentation perhaps also even emphasizes this assumed optimal free standing (hanging) position.
A9 (later versions with back drivers) and Edge have more in common then people might think, with the active bass port and huge bass driver as biggest differences obviously.
Could it be possible people at B&O dealers have listened to Edge and A9 with a wrong setting in Edge beam control resulting in a disappointing Edge performance compared to A9? Don’t remember what default setting was after initial setup but B&O with software/firmware reputation I wouldn’t be surprised that it was front only (the first of the three “buttons” in beam control!)
Beam control settings have a HUGE impact!
But this is just a theory…..
I have played a lot with the Edge and i just absolutely love the sound of it. Even at lower levels (bass port closed!) you can easily feel the bass in bass heavy tracks. I have only compared it to my set of Levels configured in stereopair but that’s a matter of apple’s and oranges due to the latter obviously having full stereo capabilities. So for the moment I use them both alternately depending on music choice, volume and knowing the neighbors being at home or not:).
Regarding the roll mechanism for volume control, i simply never use it, don’t like it at all. The Edge and Levels are both controlled with the Halo as well as a remote wheely. Can’t emphasize the brilliance of that nifty little remote enough for usage with almost any Beosound product. They should make a new MK2 (miniature) version of it clever commercially positioned between Halo and Beoremote ONE . And in more colours please!
LeMirage, you have a point there regarding similarities with A9. However, A9, due to the design of its feet, will automatically be kept from the wall at some distance. This is, of course, possible with the Edge too, yet due to the flat surfaces of BS-Edge and the fact that mid and tweeter woofers (which are located on the back of the edge) are distorted most close to a wall, you will not have a choice but to keep a reasonable distance from the wall. This future makes it difficult to locate the speaker safely.
It might have helped if B&O could add active room adaptation, similar to BS-Level or A9, for that matter.
Yet Edge is a beautiful speaker and innovative, and as I said, I would buy a pair if I just had a considerably large room to find functional and safe locations for them.
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