B&O PLAY Beolit 12 by Bang & Olufsen

• "Not bad, not bad at all"

  5.0 out of 5 stars

  Pound for pound, the B&O Beolit 12 is one of the best AirPlay-enabled speakers out there.
  
  I recently sold my $35,000 Naim audi o system, which was largely collecting dust in today's Apple-driven media environment. This little gem does a great job at replacing that system in a state-of-the-art audiophile-quality package.
  
  In my opinion, the Beolit 12 is just as impressive as the iPad and the iPhone themselves. Hearing is believing. … More (Read full review)

  • Written by JAMES A F from New York
  • Feb 4, 2012

  136 of 166 people found this useful

  Was this useful? "Not bad, not bad at all"

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• Good sound, portability is the best feature

  4.0 out of 5 stars

  I purchased this unit 4 days ago and have been playing around with it quite a bit over the last few days.
  
  The sound is good con sidering its small size. Bass is surprisingly powerful. For reference: although it costs more than the B&W Zeppelin, the sound is not nearly as good. Airplay setup was easily accomplished albeit a little annoying as it takes about 2-3 minutes from turning on the WiFi feature for the device to be available either to set up or to use via Airplay.
  
  The best part of this device is the portability! The Zeppelin is what I would consider somewhat fragile, particularly the iPod dock. This B&O unit is built more like a tank. The battery life is very good particularly when connected via USB and the sound is "large" enough to be usable outdoors. It's cool to be able to walk around the house with this device connected via Airplay to my iPod Touch. I have not had any issues with WiFi connectivity, but I have a small house with the newest Airport Extreme hubs so I get terrific signal throughout the house. … More (Read full review)

  • Written by David M from Salt Lake City
  • Jan 30, 2012

  124 of 148 people found this useful

  Was this useful? Good sound, portability is the best feature

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• great sound, amateur cabinet design

  3.0 out of 5 stars

  You store the cord behind a little door on the back. Great. However, the door is held in place by a 7¢, plastic clip that the cord easily catches on when you're folding it back and forth to stuff in the little recess. When this happens, the 7¢ clip breaks.
  
  The 7¢ piece is not user replaceable, of course. You must take it to a B&O dealer, who then ships it off, and in a few weeks (how many they don't say) it comes back, you return to the dealer to pick it up.
  
  This is an $800 speaker. I would have gladly paid $805.00, if they had made this clip out of a suitable material, such as spring steel. It's ridiculous to put so much effort into sound design, and so little into practical design. … More (Read full review)

  • Written by BRENT B from New City
  • Oct 23, 2012

  90 of 95 people found this useful

  Was this useful? great sound, amateur cabinet design

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• AirPlay Connectivity Problem Resolved

  4.0 out of 5 stars

  I can only echo the many other positive comments about the sound of the Beolit 12. The bass is truly amazing for such a small box, although the stereo separation and imaging are understandably not as good as in the Bang & Olufsen A8 speaker, where the drivers are larger and more widely separated.
  
  At first, I had the same wi-fi connectivity issues that others have reported. I achieved some improvement by simply updating the firmware to the latest version, but still had some occasional dropouts and could not move the Beolit 12 very far from either my Airport Extreme or Time Capsule without loosing the signal entirely. l eventually replaced the aging second generation Airport Extreme with the latest generation Time Capsule, primarily because I needed more storage capacity, and all my connectivity and range problems disappeared.
  
  It is clear that the Beolit 12 will connect much better to some routers than to others. It prefers to connect to my current generation Time Capsule, even if it is several rooms away, than to my older, previous generation Time Capsule, even when it is much closer to the latter. … More (Read full review)

  • Written by David G from Plymouth
  • Jun 2, 2013

  Was this useful? AirPlay Connectivity Problem Resolved

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• Good Sound, BUT!! AirPlay Issues

  2.0 out of 5 stars

  As others have said, the AirPlay is just not stable. Constant drop outs and shutoffs (Using an Apple Time Capsule BTW). I tried ad ding an Airport Express to reinforce the network signal but it did not help. B&O support actually advised me to try removing the Airport Express as they said it would cause connectivity problems (????). I did this and there really was no difference in the performance. It's VERY annoying to have an $800.00 dollar piece of equipment perform so poorly. … More (Read full review)

  • Written by Kevin G from Milford
  • May 21, 2013

  1 of 1 people found this useful

  Was this useful? Good Sound, BUT!! AirPlay Issues

  Yes No

• Sound is fantastic, airplay / wifi is terrible.

  3.0 out of 5 stars

  The sound quality is great, truly amazing for such a small and battery powered device.
  
  It works perfectly well with the 3.5mm jack and USB connections but what I was really excited about was the airplay wireless functionality. It started well but as soon as I moved the unit more than a meter from the router (2TB time capsule) it started cutting out every so often, more than 2 meters wasn't worth trying to listen to. Totally useless. I'm hoping there's a fault with this one, surely this isn't normal! I've updated software to no avail, B&o have been good so far, we'll see if its this unit or just poor electronics & wifi design. My iPhone has great signal all over the house and streams HD video so surely this should be ok!? … More (Read full review)

  • Written by Jonathan M from Malmesbury
  • May 8, 2013

  1 of 1 people found this useful

  Was this useful? Sound is fantastic, airplay / wifi is terrible.

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