BEST ALL -ROUND Bang & Olufsen Beosound Explore £169
When many of us think of Bang & Olufsen, we tend to imagine luxury interiors and swanky hotel suites. With Explore, however, the company has created a portable Bluetooth speaker tuned specifically to sound its best outside.
Constructed from flawlessly finished anodised aluminium – choice of colour is black, green or grey – the speaker is impervious to dust and rain and feels incredibly solid. At just over 600g, it isn’t featherlight, but good-sounding speakers rarely are, especially those with 27-hour batteries built in. After spending a few days camping with it, I’m determined to make it a permanent addition to my kit list.
Listening to Richard Strauss’s nature-inspired An Alpine Symphony, I’m immediately impressed by the speaker’s ability to sound composed and coherent, even in the middle of a field. Behind the aluminium casing, two 1.8-inch drivers do a fantastic job with the lower frequencies that sound full bodied without booming like a ‘party’ speaker. The other impressive aspect is the fact it pushes sound through 360-degrees, so no matter where you’re positioned, you’re still in the sweet spot. bang-olufsen.com