LEVEL BEST - Bang & Olufsen Beosound Level

This refined and stylish portable speaker is packed with features and is built to be upgradeable – but it has some oddities too

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SPECIFICATIONS

Drivers 5 (2 x 4-inch woofers, 2-inch full range, 2 x 0.8-inch tweeters) Frequency range 39Hz - 23kHz Connectivity USB-C, Ethernet, line-in/optical combi jack, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, AirPlay 2, Chromecast Battery life Up to 16 hours Voice assistant Google Assistant Dimensions 348x230x56mm Weight 3.3kg

From £1,099 bang-olufsen.com

Aimed squarely at B&O’s audience of tech-savvy music lovers with an eye for design, the Beosound Level is a portable smart speaker that can be positioned on a surface upright, laid flat, or wall-mounted. If you’re looking for a stylishly understated speaker that isn’t understated on audio quality, it’s an excellent choice. Released in early 2021, the

Beosound Level costs from £1,099, which is for a model with a dark grey fabric covering and silver aluminium frame. That design looks good… but it’s not the right choice.

If you’re going to splash out on an elite Wi-Fi speaker, you should be looking at the version that comes with a more gold metal finish, and a wooden grille. It fits nicely in either a minimalist setup or a more busy room.

The design is interesting for a couple of different reasons – internally and externally. The most obvious way to position it is sitting upright, it looks great like this. It’s 34.8x23x5.6cm, so its thinness makes it fairly easy to find a spot for it on a shelf.