B&O BEOLIT 20
A premium, portable and Bluetooth speaker with huge sound
It’s punchy, balanced and crisp across every genre. It’s seriously loud as well
Looking for a powerful portable speaker? The Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20 is worth considering because it’s one of the best Bluetooth speakers you can buy.
Far from being a compact portable Bluetooth speaker, the Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20 is a big, powerful device to use around your home and garden. It weighs about 2.7kg so it’s not a speaker you’ll be chucking in your backpack to take to the park with you.
Created in the classic B&O style,it’s made from sturdy polymer with an aluminium speaker grille wrapped around its body that is backed by classy brown mesh, and there’s a matching leather strap to carry it around with.
The biggest flaw of the design is that there’s no official waterproof rating, so if you plan to use it outside you’ll need to watch out for dark rain clouds or keep it sheltered.
In terms of battery life, you can expect to get about eight hours of music at so-called ‘typical listening volumes’ – we’d imagine that’s about halfway up. It’s nowhere near the best portable speaker for battery life, which is something to bear in mind if you plan to host people for a whole day or more.
One significant benefit of this speaker is that the top panel doubles up as a wireless charging pad to keep your devices topped up. So if you’re using the speaker outside and your phone starts to die, you can give it a boost and keep the music playing. Watch the battery, though.
You get booming full-bodied sound from the Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20. It’s punchy, balanced and crisp across every genre. Even podcasts sound great because voices come across very clearly. It’s seriously loud as well, the sound will very easily fill the space. Even when we whacked it up to full volume, there wasn’t any distortion and every track was just as clear as it was on 50% volume.
Considering how expensive it is, it would have been good for there to have been a few more features, like a microphone to use it as a speakerphone or even Wi-Fi connectivity to use it as a multiroom device.
If you care a lot about having a strong mix of style and good sound quality, the Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20 is sure to tick a lot of boxes. It’s a modern and powerful speaker that you can use around your whole home and garden without needing to hook it up to a power source. What this speaker does well, it does extraordinarily well.
The balance is spot on: the low end is punchy while the highs are crisp
You can always rely on an Audio Pro speaker to look the part. Scandinavian in style, their devices are perfect for a modern home. The Audio Pro A15 is proof of that; smart and stylish, it’s covered in a sleek mesh fabric with a brushed metal panel on the top. You can buy it in either dark grey or light grey, so it should fit in with most decors.
A ridged plastic base props it up and there’s a handle on the back to carry it around with, which is a good job because it’s quite a hefty device, weighing 3.4kg. It’s a portable speaker but it’s not one you’ll be taking out and about with you. If you do use it outside, it has IPX2 water resistance so it’ll survive light splashes of rain, but we wouldn’t advise letting it get too wet.
The Audio Pro A15 works with other multiroom devices by Audio Pro, Google and Apple. Setting up the device with your multiroom system is very easy – you just need to open the relevant Apple Home app, add a new device and then follow the on-screen instructions.
Made up of a 10W and 30W amplifier with a 1-inch textile dome tweeter and a 4.5-inch woofer, the speaker system is plenty powerful.
Like we have come to expect from Audio Pro devices, you get a powerful, clear and focused sound. The balance between frequencies is spot on, the low end is punchy while the highs are crisp and the mids are able to push through with enough force. There’s plenty of energy without drowning out any details. You can hear the depth behind each instrument and this speaker will quite easily fill up the room. The only qualm we have is that because of the design, you get a different experience when you stand behind it, so it’ll be best placed up against a wall.
The battery will last up to 11 hours of music at 50% volume, or eight hours on full, which is a good amount for this sort of device even though it hardly compares to some Bluetooth speakers.
We don’t have much bad to say about the Audio Pro A15, the only downside is the fact that it’s a bit too big to carry around. While it may not be heavy on features, you do get high-quality sound everywhere you take it. And you won’t need to faff around with your phone, just turn it on and start listening! If you already use Audio Pro, Apple or Google’s multiroom systems at home, this will be a fantastic addition to your set-up.
It sounds like any other Sonos speaker, but one that can venture outdoors
While it’s not the sexiest thing we’ve ever clapped eyes on, the Sonos Move sits comfortably next to the rest of the range despite being way more rugged. There are three buttons on the back for setup, power and connectivity, and controls on the top to change volume, mute, skip tracks and turn Alexa or Google on and off.
It is set up via, and runs on, the same app as all other Sonos speakers. It can thus access all the same streaming services as any Sonos speaker. It also supports AirPlay 2, and has your choice of Alexa or Google Assistant on board.
The Move is not waterproof but it is water and dust resistant to an IP56 rating. That means it can put up with heavy rain for a limited period, but not total immersion in water. As far as we can make out, you can put it in a humid bathroom or take it to the beach so long as you keep it out of salt water and don’t literally bury it in the sand (which we’re guessing you wouldn’t do).
Its battery life is 10 hours of music playback, with a power-saving mode keeping it alive for five days if you don’t use it. The battery is user-replaceable, albeit with the use of a screwdriver, and you can get replacement batteries direct from Sonos.
The Move has either a pleasing heft to it or is way heavier than most portable speakers, depending on your viewpoint. The ‘handle’ – a large recess on the back – is comfortable and easy to grab, however.
While you can quibble about the overall portability of the Sonos Move, the genius of it is that it sounds and acts just like any other Sonos speaker, but one that can venture outdoors. Audio quality is comparable to the Sonos One when you’re on Wi-Fi and it doesn’t lose too much definition when you go outside and switch to Bluetooth. As with many Sonos speakers, you can even pair two Sonos Moves into a stereo pair, although only over Wi-Fi.
As the Move is not designed to stay in one place, there’s a nifty feature on board: Automatic TruePlay. This re-calibrates the speaker every time a built-in accelerometer tells it that it’s been moved. Alexa’s far-field mics set about analysing the sound bouncing back to it from walls and furniture, and adjusts the sound to suit. The results are genuinely impressive.
The Move remains a truly excellent speaker. If you’re in the market for a weather-resistant, rugged speaker that can also perform just like an indoor Sonos speaker – and doesn’t look so weather-resistant and rugged that it becomes ugly – it’s a great option.