Reviews for B&O PLAY Beolit 12 by Bang & Olufsen

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 considering 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.

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.

Okay Let me say I was looking for a portable speaker to take on vacation. I looked and auditioned just about every speaker on this page worth trying. Finally came down to buying Beolit 12 after avoiding it due to the price. Well let me say when I first purchased the beolit I wasn't impressed but after giving it a chance to break in the speakers about 20 hrs ,I've got to say it sounds great , not quite as good as my zeppelin air but then again the zeppelin isn't really portable. So as far as truly portable it can't really be beat. Here's my quick takes - Sounds best at higher volume everything seems very balanced , really doesn't shine on low volume. Set up can be a bit of a hassle but once you get it everything works fine. So again If it's portable and high end sound your looking for and don't dwell on the price this unit is amazing and won't disappoint , If your looking for a awesome WiFi home unit go with the zeppelin air.

The superb sound that comes out of this puppy made me forget what a hassle it was setting it up. Not too much of a hassle - just not Apple-like simplicity. I love looking at it! It's so well designed, but why doesn't it have a remote to turn it on? There's an iPhone app for set up, but why can't it be used to turn it on and connecting to the network for Airplay without walking up to it? I applaud B&O for FINALLY yielding to Apple (for decades they've ignored Apple compatibility) but now they have to take it all the way and make the Beolit tie into WiFi automatically and offer an app for remote operation. Also, when it does connect to the network, it's supposed to give you a beep - but the volume default is lower than low, so I never hear it. But these are details in the scheme of things. This is one sweet little speaker and the physical design is fabulous.

I was finally able to purchase the Beolit 12 over the weekend and ever since my ears have been treated to deeply layered sounds. I have a very nice high end audio system in one room of the home but have been looking for something that I could carry with me throught the other parts of the house. B&O has done everything right in this product and I now have extremely high expectations for the rest of the Play line. Sound quality is abouselty astonishing considering the size of the product and easily rivals its only true competitor, the Zepplin Air. It surpasses the Zepplin in design and portability. Easy to setup and update through the iPhone/iPad app. I love people's reactions when they realize where the sound is coming from when they walk into a room with it in use. Treat yourself to something nice you deserve it...

this is really a great sound, best out of a such small and movable box ever.

Best speaker i ever have

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!?