ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
I recently noticed that the BS1 "New York Edition" (or "Graduated Black" according to the B&O app) is on sale for $1200 on the US b&o website. I just picked one up, and maybe you should, too . Don't know how long this sale will last... Seems like they must have misjudged the demand for this "limited edition" color.
For the last few weeks, I've been kicking around buying a Level vs. BS1 vs. BS35 vs. Stage to replace or supplement a BL3500 in my kitchen. I narrowed it down to supplementing the BL3500 with either the BS1 or Level, and decided to take the plunge with the BS1 because it supports NL, the design probably works better in the kitchen and, or course, it is at least $300 less.
I now have 100 days (another new promotion in some countries) to make up my mind if the BS1 is "good enough" or should I upgrade to the Level (and gamble on NL being delivered some day)?
I must say that I always felt the BS1 sounded weak when I first heard it (back in the good old days, when I had a local store to listen before buying), but, for the reasons above, decided to give it a try in my home. It's not nearly as bad as I remember. Although, in my pre-purchase research, I missed the part where the BS1 doesn't support Spotify Connect.
(You must take it with GVA; non-GVA in NY-Ed. color is listed as out of stock online.)
Hey! Congrats on managing to snag the BS1 on discount!
I totally get what you mean when you say that the BS1 probably works best in the kitchen; the design just seems rather kitchen-friendly. Personally I bought mine because of how easy it is to wipe dust down. My BS1 is permanently in my bedroom where there’s lots of dust from doing the bed each morning and so on, so one of my priorities was a speaker which would be easy to wipe down every week.
Having said that, I was never 100% happy with it acoustically. I find that this is a problem with every B&O speaker that employs a full-range driver exclusively (i.e. no dedicated midrange driver as with the BS2); the mids can sound rather muffled with some music genres.
I have similar complaints with my BeoLit17. Don’t get me wrong though; the BS1 can definitely sound great, it’s a blast with electronic music for instance, but anything with vocals — even metal — sounds “hmm.” So I find that I do need to somewhat limit the kind of music I listen to on my BS1. It isn’t really a big problem for me since I have plenty of other speakers and I listen to a wide variety of genres.
The Level will no doubt beat the BS1. I haven’t heard it in person yet but on paper the specifications are already much more promising. If I hadn’t bought the BS1 for my bedroom yet chances are I’d have gone with the Level.
If you use tap-to-join a lot though the BS1 is a clear winner since there’s just one big pad to tap at the top of the speaker.
Ultimately whether you like the BS1 will depend on what you listen to. I tolerate mine — not in a bad way though — but there are times I wish I could listen to my entire music collection on it. Despite my perceived weaknesses of the speaker though, I don’t regret buying it!
BeoAnna:the BS1 probably works best in the kitchen; the design just seems rather kitchen-friendly.
"Hey Stan, why is your pepper mill sooo big?!!"
FYI, as of February 7, the Anthracite BS1 went on sale at amazon.com for USD1330. ASIN = B0846L8WWZ (Non-GVA version, of course, because Alexa... Also outlet for $1179, if you're willing to chance someone opened it up & returned w/damaged packaging.) [Edit: Somebody is watching... Not 24 hours after this post, amazon's price went back up to MSRP USD1900, though the outlet one is unchanged. <insert "Twilight Zone" music here> ]