Worst Value for Money B&O Product?
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We always look at the negatives as well as the positives on here, and even B&O admitted that our very vocal slating of not putting HDMI sockets in the original BeoVision 7’s was a real own-goal.
Yes, things have moved on – and to be fair B&O are pretty much on point with this kind of thing – but is there a product you look at and thing ‘Wow.. that’s pretty poor value for money if you break it down’
I suppose you could look at the TV’s with the LG screens, but you’re getting B&O design there. I think for me the worst value products have to be amongst the cheaply made earbuds and low-end headphones which are now thankfully discontinued, so….
My vote goes to the BeoSound Edge. I’ve never thought it sounded great, it’s impractical, cumbersome, easily damaged, and extremely expensive for what it is.
Your thoughts?
I think value for money is a matter of perspective.
I’ve purchased plenty of tatt (the MP3 Player Beosound 2 for instance). Beolab4s. They all have had degrees of good/bad value about them. I guess if you use them and not worry about the latest thing, they work out as well-used products that do a job and fulfil a need.
I do have concern over my Eclipse 65 MK1. I baulk at the thought of having to replace the whole thing if the panel fails.
You could also include the Beolab90. These are fantastic loudspeakers (I can barely listen to Beolab 3s in the office as their sound is so poor). These were purchased when affordability was easy (and still can be for me fortunately). However, one does worry of the cost of repair should these things start to fail. Mine now have just had their 6th birthday.
I have to agree about the Edge in terms of recent products. It just seems like design got a bit too far ahead of utility. Although, I have never seen one in person so perhaps the beauty is overwhelming in person.
The original BS2 (mp3 player) was “crazy” expensive and <gasp!> no display, but I used mine regularly for many years so I guess it wasn’t that expensive in the long run.
The one product I sort of wish I had never bought was the BeoLink Wireless 1. Lots of frustration (worked great until it randomly decided not to), and then I doubled down and bought a couple used ones, and still couldn’t get them to work reliably. I’m afraid to sell them since they don’t work, and I guess I probably missed the window on selling them.
I would also say the Edge,
The Beovision Contour, is a very simple Bevision compared to Eclipse and Harmony.
But they do sell a lot of them, so people are clearly interested in paying just for design.
This is certainly a personal feeling, and in my case, I can list these:
Essence mk1: too expensive for what it was, few features, B&O helping it die faster
Beosound 3: expensive, heavy for a portable radio, fragile top panel
Beolab 5: far too expensive, fragile, mediocre dealer to say the least, anxiety-provoking. Here it’s the global experience, not the product alone, that has worst value for money.
Beosound moment hands down… Then literally every B&O speaker…
I have a pair of BeoLab20 and I hate them, really hate them because the DSP does very funny things with the bass and it depends on the genre you’re listening to.
I have couple of B&O Palatial speakers in the other room with an SVS SB-3000 subwoofer and I can assure you that they sound much better than my BL20s…
I don’t have a full overview of the B&O portfolio dating back decades so I am going to assume we are mainly discussing the current line-up and products from 1 or 2 generations ago. For me any B&O TV is crazy expensive when comparing to regular TVs but of course I do understand the craftsmanship going into them and that they are not just a TV but also speakers. A Contour is much more appealing to me than a Harmony or Eclipse but I don’t watch TV these days so I don’t care about them.
On the speaker front it is also a bit relative. Within the current line-up I think the Emerge should deliver more punch for the price. For the price, even the black one should have more performance. It is easy to overlook this colour option when the oak version is even more expensive. Comparing to the sound of the Beolit 20 it is way less powerful and I am not sure the design is so much worth a price tag that is 1.5/almost 2 times that of the Beolit 20. I do like the oak one though.
Looking at the Beosound A1 Dune edition, I seriously cannot appreciate it the way 100 people find it justified, when I feel like some of the standard options for much less are actually prettier and more balanced in their overall looks.
Personally for me it was more worth it to spend more on a Balance Bespoke, so that supports the idea of the conversation being based on personal preference.
I’m also going to compare the current Beosound 2 to itself. It is definitely less value for the money today compared to last year.
Then we’re into price increase territory…
I have to agree on the Beosound 2 MP3 player. I have one as my wife bought me one as a Christmas present but I have never used it and it’s only ever been out of the box for me to go “oooh” and “aaah” over it. That said, i still can’t quite bring myself to sell it!
You missed the window on the BS2 mp3 player. A few years ago (2014?), they were selling for silly money in Japan or China. I recall seeing a “sold” ebay listing for ~$1000.00. Alas, I didn’t bother with trying to sell mine because it was slightly damaged, and I have misplaced the dock somewhere (at some point I started using the travel charger exclusively). Lately, I’ve seen one listed for $200, but not if it was triggering any bidding action.
my vote goes to the beomaster5.
basically a totally outdated pc. hooking this up to the local network or -much worse- to the internet in 2022 is insane, since windows xp didnt get any security updates since 2014. some enthusiasts are installing antivirus software on this thing, because they believe this would fix this. as an it-guy i can assure you: no, it doesnt. using it as standalone device is completly pointless. also, i dont understand why they put a custom proprietary bios on this thing. swapping the harddisk or the motherboard is a pain in the back this way. there is no reason for something like this, except enforcing you to visit a branddealer. the casing is an other story: it has some kind of rubbery layer on it. nearly impossible to find one in good condition these days, since the rubber doesnt age well. btw. what material is this? is it healthy to touch this after 20years, without instantly diying on cancer? maybe an exaggeration, but you get the point. then there is power consumption. A whole pc, just to listen to some music.
its sad. the beosound5 which comes with it, is such a nice display-controller-unit.
Current
Beosystem 72-22
Beogram 4000c
Yet I’d love to have them
Also
BeoSound Emerge
Past
Beoplay A3 iPad speaker dock hands down
My vote goes to the BeoSound Edge. I’ve never thought it sounded great, it’s impractical, cumbersome, easily damaged, and extremely expensive for what it is.
Sadly Lee, I’d have to agree with this. Luckily my Edge was good value at £1450 (a few years ago), but I almost never use it. The sound is just, odd. BeoSound 2 runs circles around it, as does my Balance.
In theory, the Edge should be as good as the A9 or close. It’s no comparison.
I’d nudge the Halo towards ‘worst value’ as for me it does almost nothing of any worth. It’s one of those strange objects we think impresses our friends, when really you have to get off your backside, walk over to it, then pick something on it’s fiddly UI, move a manual wheel….only to find the battery has died, again. I now have mine permanently connected to a USB cable.
And all this for £700. Sometimes I think I’m a mug to buy these objects. It would have been awesome in 1992. But I do think some B&O users still live in 1992.
Design, sound and price are subjective and vary among us, which leaves us functionality. I think products with poor functionality are the ones with the least value. Many here suggest BS-Emerge is a failure, yet it has an excellent design and functions pretty well, although a bit pricy. The same goes for Beosound Edge; it is unusual and sounds different, but it works, so I wouldn’t suggest it is a failure. On the other hand majority of B&O TVs (from their early LCD panels and onwards) feels extremely overpriced, have many bugs, and are not exceptional in any other way than their design for which they come with a price tag that is 7-8 times higher than similar technologies. That is not expensive, it is simply madness to pay around 10,000 Euro or more extra for an LG TV combined with Beosound Stage, worth less than 2,500 pounds (especially when you can put together them yourself, minus the sleek positioning of the speaker). I understand that as a small company it costs a lot to compete with big brands such as LG or Samsung. I believe they shouldn’t. Instead, they should focus on what they are good at, which is sound and design and to certain degree integration (if they can manage to handle their software issues). I can’t wait to see the new Beosound Theater for example, which, according to rumours, is moving in that direction. So B&O TVs are the least valuable products to me.
Tend to agree – my BV12-65 is still going strong. as is my Avant 55.
Unless they produce a one piece BV of outstanding design, like the BV11 / 14 form factor, then I cant see myself buying a BV again. We’ll see how good / sensibly priced the Theatre is.
Worst value has to be the Moment, simply because it was buggy, laggy, fell short of its promise, and even when it worked was a pretty limited music experience device.
So much hate for the Moment! I absolutely love mine – I’m listening to music on the one in my office as I type this message. It’s a gorgeous device that works great for what I do with it.
But to be fair, I bought both of mine used and knew what I was getting into. I can imagine I’d be upset if I purchased it based on the promise of specific functionality that never arrived
Beosound 5:
Beautiful but the rotary dials were a pain in the ****.
Hardware that was 10 years out of date on release.
Dust under the glass despite replaced seals again and again and again…
Expensive, fancy, rubbish.
For me it’s definitely the BeoSound Moment. I don’t think I was an early adopter, but from the appalling quality of the software I certainly felt like one.
- For about the first year it DID NOT WORK AT ALL. Whenever I tried to play something it would give an error.
- After many software updates it was finally able to play songs, but was extremely unreliable and would randomly start skipping everything in the queue.
- It had to be factory reset about once every week because it would gradually get slower and slower until it froze up.
- The Jukebox would randomly disconnect from the SoundHeart and would need to be power-cycled a few times to get things connected again.
- The Deezer integration was SHOCKINGLY bad. It created entries in your “collection” for every track liked, causing lots of albums to show up with only a few tracks in them.
- It also tried to merge your Deezer and DLNA libraries, which caused weird things like albums to show up with extra tracks (the full album from DLNA plus the liked tracks from Deezer). As a result I ended up unliking everything on Deezer to make it semi-usable.
The rewrite was a massive improvement, but it’s still only beta quality.
For me it’s definitely the BeoSound Moment.
. . .
The rewrite was a massive improvement, but it’s still only beta quality.
I own two, but I bought the first one just about a month before the rewrite and the other a year later, so I didn’t have to go through that miserable experience. I really love my Moments, I just wish they hadn’t abandoned the product – the hardware platform has so much promise. All the home automation they’re trying to squeeze into the Beoremote Halo would work much better on the larger screen of the Moment .
For me the Beosound 5 encore is the worst value for money, it was already abandoned when it hit the market.
Mine still has the factory firmware from 2011, never had an update.So when I use it is on my guest network so that it doesn’t compromise my regular network
It only plays Beoradio and the music from my Synology NAS, no Deezer, Spotify or Tidal.
And I can connect a Chromecast Audio dongle to it and tuck it away behind it.
But I really like the looks and operation thru the wheels and lever, I never used a remote control with it.
It is beautifully made, but the software is so bad.
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