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’ve just bought a Beolit 12, second hand, for less than a tenth it’s original price and after reading a lot about that device, I thought that maybe some people would be interested in a « kind of » review of it, essentially because to my knowledge, there is no such speaker in the current range (Airplay and portable) appart the Beosound 1 which is a different league of price.
First the unit was sold as not working « because of too old wifi version ». Knowing problems with the recent version of iTunes refusing to connect to third party airplay speakers and the issues when people update their routers to 5Ghz networks without even knowing, I thought that would not be much of a risk.
Second concern was about the battery. After 8 years I didn’t expect too much of health from it.Indeed, when unplugging it at the sellers house, the unit turned off immediately.
Still got the unit, brought it back home and reset it. Set-up wifi and it worked.Put it to charge overnight and tested it the after and got the full 4 hours of play-back via airplay at mid volume. So far so good.
Then I read a thread about various version of the Beolit 12 which confused me: different stickers on the inside door but also different IP to configure (XX.1 or XX.22) and suspicion of different build quality. I wonder if it has to do with when the Beolit left the Bang & Olufsen range to become a Beoplay product. I don’t know.Mine was XX.22 with serial starting with 22 and .10 firmware, making me think it’s an early unit.
All this being said here are my comments:
About the sound: the Beolit 12 was described as truly good at the time. I find it good indeed, but i did find the Beoplay A1 more impressive with rounder bass and brighter trebles. The 12 sounds more common. They changed the speaker setup in Beolit 15 and after, maybe for improvement.
About the battery: so far it do work close to original specs - 8 hours charge for 4 hours play - I dont expect this to last long but I suspect the unit as worked mostly plugged to mains, then preventing battery cycles. I’ve not open the unit (still), but with pictures around it’s easy to identify the cells used by the battery (CGR-18650CG). The cells are actually difficult to source but not impossible. If the battery case can be opened the its would be possible to rebuild batteries. Hopefully the latter the better!
About wifi signal: if you ever read about the Beolit 12 you should know it has bad reputation on this. Surprisingly, I did not experience any dropout so far. The connection is stable even in the bathroom with door locked with an hi-res file streaming. My wifi, is Apple broadcasted and is 5Ghz/2.4Ghz mixed in a commonly network crowded area. I’ve moved around the unit but didn’t had any cuts. Again, hoping it will remain like that.
About the setup: quite easy and straightforward, well documented on the internet. The unit is slow to boot and to start wifi services so it may not seems as plug & play as some bluetooth units, but the process never failed on my different attempts.
By chance, I had the old Beosetup app in my store history but it don’t offers more than the integrated web server - same interface, same controls. The current B&O app also allows the configuration of the device but nothing more. The Beoplay app I have can’t see the Beolit.
Pros: Another B&O gadget obviously. Cheap nowadays. Has an ethernet port. Not as bad as internet could make believe which is a good thing. Beautiful. Remote controllable by beo4 (funny).
Cons: no wake up on LAN, if you start the music source you still have to power on the unit manually and because the connection routine is so long it can be a problem if the unit is used as a multiroom fixed speaker. Also, if on mains, you have to power it off manually even if the broadcast stops. I updated to .12 firmware which is told to make the unit remember the network, but I did not notice any difference. The sound (to me) is not as good as internet could make believe which is not a good thing. Remote controllable by beo4 (not that useful to me and quite annoying when you have another B&O product in IR range). The three drivers (one bass, two trebles) are located on the same side making the unit quite directional. I would have like treble and bass controls, but this is common to a lot of Airplay speakers.
Hope this helps.
Thanks for your review, i enjoyed reading it. I owned a white beolit 12 when it first came out. I liked the sound, and i can't remember if i found the wifi patchy but i remember it took a while to connect, but then i remember reading that it was because of the Apple protocol requiring about 45 seconds or something to that nature.
The leather handle on subsequent BLit 15 and 17 were never as thick and i enjoyed the thickness of the 12.