Are two B&O A1 speakers more than twice as good as one?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- I liked the Bang & Olufsen A1 2nd gen Bluetooth speaker when I reviewed it last year...but is it even more impressive when connected as a stereo pair?
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The Bluetooth LE connection that the Bang & Olufsen app uses to control the speakers is independent from the Bluetooth Classic connection that's used for audio. Because these are two different Bluetooth connections, you can pair the speakers with any other device, such as the Sound Burger, for audio and still use the app on your phone to set up the stereo pair.
I noticed that. I have both this speaker and some B&O headphones and I can be connected and listening to one, but if I use the app on the phone I can still access details about the device (like the remaining battery life)
Yeah I have a big speaker that does that too, it has two channel of bluetooth, this is a really smart way as I can let friends connect, pool up their Playlist and switch to their phone while I still control the speaker on my own phone.
This fact definitely better be included in the video, imo
Idk why, most BT speakers struggle with this function
I know that JBL has this function for ages, but nevertheless needs some tambourine dance every time
I wonder is it really so hard to achieve ?
Also various Chinese “true wireless” buds always had that problem
That was mentioned in passing. The main point is that the speakers forget the stereo pairing, and that it seems impossible to set this up without the app. It works when using the app.
Great review, as always! Our ability to discern information in a stero image is also exploited by Garmin in its aviation radios. One can listen to an airfield approach radio in one ear and the weather (ATIS) in the other.
You are joking right? Why would I want to listen to the two channels simultaneously? I'll select ATIS to get the current information and note it down correctly then switch back to the appropriate frequency and pass my request noting that I had the most recent information.
Stereo is two complementary signals that add up to a complete image. You are suggesting the equivalent of German in one ear and Portuguese in the other.
Please don't take up flying for a career.
@@AnthonyHigham6414001080 If they can process two information channels at once, I'd say more power to them. Anyone that doesn't may be free to use the interchanging method you describe, and in the 99.999% of non-critical situations, it is probably just as fine. I'd be fine with being a passenger on a plane either of you pilot.
DJs do a similar thing when cuing up the next song, jingle, etc - you have the current output in one ear and PFL (pre-fade listen) in the other.
Plenty of dedicated "professional" bluetooth device reviewers never even refer to the codecs, so this was a fantastic review! It's particularly good to know AptX Adaptive is a superset of HD and LL.
It's not. But it does include features from both LL and HD.
Bluetooth codec isn't the decisive factor, high bitrates of SBC also sound decent, AAC only sounds best on Apple devices, Android AAC sounds vary, but in general not as good as Apple, LDAC is the best on paper, in reality LDAC very easily gets signal interfered.
A professional music engineer will be checking during the mix process by switching between stereo and mono. It’s practical because many people listen to music on mono devices, but it also can be very helpful for making mix decisions, and checking for any phase cancellation issues in your mix. I do wonder whether some digital devices / codecs are better than others at streaming while mixing stereo down to mono and preserving all the information.
Amateur recordists who mix do this also not just for mono comparability but to find any phase issues that're disguising/masking some of the music.
i think it would be good to introduce the concept of „stereo” in general. people confuse it with what should be called „double mono”, calling - for example - amiga music capabilities „stereo”, when in fact they aren’t. it’s not about playing some instruments through one speaker, and some through the other (yes, i know there was this trend in the 60s), and this quite often remains an unrecognized feature.
Do they still do special "radio mixes" to send out to DJs on radio stations?
@@MadBiker-vj5qj that’s a good question, I’m not sure. I know producers will often send multiple versions out to be mastered though, like an instrumental, one with vocals a bit louder and one with them a bit quieter.
This echoes the experience I've had with B&O H9i headphones - great sound, great build quality but a hit-and-miss experience with the UI on the device. It would be nice if they included a simple hardware switch for selecting channels as they did with their active speakers in the past - sometimes the old-fashioned way is the best.
When I was a mixing enginner, I used to mix the song in mono first, trying to get everything in its place, in terms of frequency, volume and compression. Only when I was satisfied I would open the stereo field, that made it much easier to mix and to be compatible with most of the speakers that would play it back, because even though they are in stereo, the wideness of the speaker array, can change the sound, the distance to the source is also important. If you can make it good with one speaker, it will be great with two.
I came to say the same thing - I imagine (actually this is a fact) a lot of engineers think that process is nonsense since "everyone has stereo nowadays" and they completely ignore what you've described. I tend to fall into your camp on this but I would guess the mixes Techmoan was listening to were definitely done with a mind to stereo only, and everything opened up when he went to the second speaker. Also to add: what he's talking about at 10:26 or so is exactly a perfect example of why I say you should still optimize for mono in 2023 - if someone is far enough from the stereo speakers, they effectively become one "composite mono" source to the listener's ears, and you can compensate for that in the mix if you're considerate enough :)
So a compromise then is that it?
Make it sound good enough with one but a totally different experience with two or perhaps more? 🤔
People usually track a left and right guitar recorded separately, which increases the fullness.
If you ''quad-track'' and add a center guitar, it enhances even more. The same goes for vocals. The imperfections between the two tracks. Panned hard left and hard right make the sound fuller.
This is true. This is how I record my tracks. I'm no professional but it seems to make a massive difference to the overall sound
@@revivedfears alternatively, long history of ADT and similar. Waves makes a great cheap plugin replicating Abbey Road's bespoke device.
The issue of making a stereo mix compatible with mono playback is a very basic part of any mixing session. I am surprised though that even early recordings from the 1960's would have phase cancellation issues - I am sure people were aware of it back then.
@@martifingers greatly aware, how do you think you calibrate a tape machine's azimuth? you record a sine wave on the farthest tracks from each other on the tape and have them phase cancel, once they add up completely your azimuth is aligned perfectly
@@searchiemusic Thanks for the detail - I did not know that.
10:18 this is why I miss the Boomboxes of the early 80s... People used to think that some of the really long, oversized boomboxes' designs where simply about being "bigger is better" but there is a great deal to be said about the advantage of separating the speakers on a stereo setup. No matter how small mankind is able to compress audio equipment with advanced in electronics, our many years of evolution plays a big part in how we end up perceiving things.
ALL my audio is from the 70's-80's ...
Pioneer, Electro Voice, Marshall, Sansui, Wangine.............................
Now those same boomboxes go for a pretty penny right now, SMH.
@@TomKappeln Electro Voice? You've got some nice kit. 🙂
@@MadBiker-vj5qj Thank you !
I also have a tinitus ! LOL !
@@MadBiker-vj5qj : PS : I'm a German guy, living since 2019 in Poland.
I have a small ranch and over here the powerlines are really WEAK.
IF i power up to 2/3 the STREETLIGHTS are flickering ! (5000Watts RMS) lolololololol
I do miss the days when albums actually used stereo, as you say it seems most are just mixing for single speaker setups and it feels like we've taken a step backwards. As for these, much too expensive for my blood and I'll continue to enjoy music with a nice set of headphones.
Sometimes they went overboard though
it looks like we're heading backward to mono era again.
Agreed. Luckily there isn't much from the last ten years or so that I care to listen too anyway.
Not really, modern music still sounds much flatter when listened in mono@@Alberos
I believe that's down to another reason, the "loudness war". Where composers try to make their music as *loud* as possible. It's typically achieve by using a compressor to "compress" the sound, making the louder thing still stay loud and softer thing louder. In the end you get pretty much zero dynamic range where everything is so damn louddd lol.@@IsoMacintosh
Also means once the app is no longer supported I assume the speakers become junk.
Ah the old clothesline mounting option. So airy and refreshing 😁 Loved that!! Thanks as always for these Mat!
Compressing audio to squeeze through Bluetooth can't be as good as a wired connection (my assumption). Wired every time for me - speakers, headphones. I note these only go down to 55Hz so why would anyone spend £400 on something that doesn't replicate all the bass in the recording, and only uses compressed audio as an input? Because they are stylish perhaps, a "cool" house décor accessory? Not good reasons as far as I can see!
It's crazy how good small speakers can sound now, bass and everything.
yea years ago I was used to thinny sounding speakers and when I walked around in a local store I noticed a new small bluetooth speaker on the counter connected (Jam Classic) to a player playing demos when you pressed a button. I was amazed of the deep bassy sound and for the 25 Euros I decided to buy it. Since then the 'dollar stores' here sell them for a few Euros and they sound similarly good. I Guess it all has to do with the Neodymium driver magnets being used.
But no POWER !
A V8 engine is a V8 engine ... not a 1.3 Turbo
Consumer-level tech has just taken off in recent years. You've got smartphones with professional-level cameras and drones that can take shots that a few years ago would have required a helicopter.
There's small TH-cam channels producing videos that can rival the work of professional studios.
@@XX-121Exactly. Though it's amazing what sound you get out of very small speakers these days, they can't compare to a pair of speakers and an decent amp. You don't have to put too much money into it either, specially when buying used, which I would recommend, but I guess peoples concern these days, is space.
A pair of speakers and an amp takes much more space than a simple bt speaker and/or soundbar.
@@TomKappelninefficient big block aren't really powerfull. Also v8 doesn't mean big. There are 0.5 liter v8's
We had quadraphonic in the 1970's. Now our journey is to rediscover stereo?
The whole stereo thing is why I love the Teufel Rockster GO 2 bluetooth speaker I got! It's a stereo bluetooth speaker with some clever processing to make it sound more spacious and you can link two of them up as a pair just like the Bang and Olufsen one... so it goes from stereo to even more stereo xD
I despise bluetooth devices especially for audio. The latency, the syncing, and the fact that 99/100 devices are sealed and have a battery that will fail in a couple of years make these beyond terrible. Not to mention the added cost and complexity of the wireless guts.
I just tried this with the 2 JBL Charge speakers that I’ve had for ages, but never bothered to pair up… and you’re right, 1+1=3. Thanks for the heads-up!👍😊
This maybe relative to B&O bluetooth speakers; I found with a Bose bluetooth speaker the owner said it just stopped pairing one day and would not pair with his new phone. Basically, you can only pair so many devices, say 8. If you've been connecting loads of different devices, there's a chance that the bluetooth memory is full. I was able to clear all previously paired devices and the speaker worked again.
If he is correct that the green one is an ex-store demo unit then this could be a possibility.
@@AlexNZL - agreed. Also, Matt has many devices and him being a tech head, I imagine he has paired them all.
This was some useful information as I do have one of those speakers and had considered getting a 2nd one for stereo (which will have to be a different color since mine was the limited run Nordic Ice). Not being able to easily have them auto sync to stereo would be annoying. But who knows, maybe they will patch that sometime in the future.
The mixing thing, that explain why modern music sounds so "closed in" then. Add on the fact that they bang on the 0db all the time (loudness war). I found my ear just "tired" from listening to modern music at normal listening volume for too long (too long being 3-4 songs....), I have to turn it down to just about to hear the melody and I can listen to it longer. Old music that won't affect by the loudness war and has proper wide stereo space doesn't have this problem, I can listen to it at the louder volume. I wish modern world can stop heading this closed-in-loud-box way.... *sad*
If the original recording was engineered properly, the engineer would have taken phasing into mind and would have checked the mono mix to be sure nothing is being cancelled out
5:54 Yes, stereo recordings are getting mashed up in a single speaker, and you lose depth, width and height, as well as dynamics.
I picked out this speaker for my mom 2 years ago after i tried it out and its SO good for its size. I thought they couldnt be connected togeather though! 😊
It’s sad to know millions of millennials have never experienced good stereo sound from decent speakers larger then a soda can. Glad I grew up in the 70’s 80’s, 90’s were the best
Hell yes !
Cars and clubs
😁👍
In your house ? you will grow out of that :)@@preciadoalex123
Even budget car's have 4+ speakers. Calm down old man
just an old-fashioned amplifier, speakers, and a copper cable. Best sound you'll ever get.
And can still be connected to modern wireless devices with a Bluetooth receiver.
@@Lishtenbird That's exactly how I run the show. Denon AVR with everything necessary built-in. No more CD player, but iPhone over Airplay. Upstairs I have a DAC on my iMac on a Pioneer amplifier from the '90s
You know, everybody who joked about airpods being the death of high quality audio were laughed at back in the day.
Yet here we are with middling audio mixing (pun intended) and people thinking Spotify is as good as it gets for music quality. The daft part is that it's cheaper in the long run to buy CDs (not to mention better for the musicians), a USB CD/DVD drive to rip them, and a dedicated music player with a wired audio port and wired headphones.
Wires are still the best means to transmit data, _especially_ digital data. Remember that when the UK decides to pull something stupid like replacing the copper phone lines with VoIP and we're left with no internet when it rains.
I feel sad that so many people have never experienced a proper HI-Fi stereo system. I would only use bluetooth speakers if i am on holiday not for general use. For a little extra cost you could make yourself up a fairly decent used Hi-Fi system.
CAT
These are really powerful speakers for its size. 60W RMS is really impressive. I have Tribit Stormbox pro, 2 of them but the total output combined is 80W, both the speakers.
The Sony SRS-XB23 also has the stereo feature - but they actually have a physical button on them to do this. And they even feature a party mode that allows you to connect up to 100 of them together.
Nearly all of Sony's (and I believe JBL's) BT speakers have this feature.
@@nimoy007yeah, JBL has this function for ages
Even the lowly (entry level?) SRS-X11 has this, and claims to be able to resume stereo pairing after being turned off.
So does the XB13
I recently became deaf in one ear from an acoustic neuroma benign tumor so when I played songs in mono I noticed this mono "loss" you explained here right away. Luckily I found a guy who makes stereo headphones for the single sided deaf community called the "2E1 Headphones" (stands for "Two Ears in One") where both left and right drivers are in one ear can of the headphones and his website describes the same exact explanation you did here regarding mono versus stereo. Those 2E1 headphones with both left and right drivers in one headphone ear cup allow my one ear to hear in stereo again and is an improvement over hearing stereo converted to mono. For someone like me who went deaf in one ear whose hobby was hi-fi stereo headphone related these 2E1 headphones are a life saver for me. I am 100% nerve deaf in one ear so bone conducting headphones don't work for me (I recall your review on those for your hard of hearing father-in-law).
I have hearing loss in my left ear due to a damaged ear drum. I had no idea about those headphones. I need to go find these. I usually end up listening to my headphones too loud to compensate for the one ear. I also tried bone conduction as well and it still sounds the same as regular headphones. Those headphones sound like a godsend lol.
@@lauralulu4444 Yea, they are called "The 2E1 Headphones for the Single Sided Deaf Community" and and I highly recommend them - they have been a quality of life game changer for me. I can hear two stereo again with one ear with the 2E1 and I will never go back to mono!
Why do all smart / BT speakers look the same these days? B&O used to mle some really cool-looking, beautifully designed products. This OTOH looks like a £30 Google Mini. Disappointing.
As for the paiting issue, I listen to mostly older music so need something that makes the most of the separation rechniques used back then. I do have a number of BT speakers built into other things (mainly Google hubs, clocks etc) but rarely use them for music as i prefer to cast to a Chromecast Audio plugged into the Aux port of a decent amp or even just a 'home cinema in a box' surround system. Sounds 10x better than even paired wireless speakers and (in this case at least) costs a fraction of the price using secondhand kit.
I have the Beoplay A1 first Gen for over 5 years. On the first month of use, a friend of mine had an A1 as well and we gave a go at stereo… We were absolutely blown away by the results, wondering what kind of magic trick was happening before our ears. absolutely ear pleasing that everyone in the room could appreciate.
We both purchased another speaker immediately (in another colour to distinguish L/R). Definitely the sum of both is much better than x2 speakers.
Just to say that I am very satisfied to see we were not the only one liking it, and thanks you for sharing this with the community.
However, for me, with time, stereo pairing became harder and more finicky, often dropping music on one side or not playing if speaker were more that 2 metres apart. It did not do it at first.
Also,, my understanding is that the Beoplay A1 Gen 1 is better in sound quality than the Gen 2 (and this is the opinion of my B&O dealer too), I am not too sure if that is still true with the software updates.
Regardless, the sound in stereo pairing of Two Beoplay A1 Gen 1 may not be the loudest I have heard, but is is by far the best I have experienced with Bluetooth Speakers, by a long shot.
My wife bought a Tribit which seemed to offer decent sound for the size, plus it can double up as a powerbank in an emergency. when i heard that you can double these up, I got one for myself (use them for travelling, to improve the output from laptops/ phones). Paired up, they do sound quite impressive. A cheaper optionperhaps.
Which Tribit?
Micro 2
@@ferrari250lm
I do miss the puppets.
@Techmoan - As a TRUE test (musically), set the speakers equally WIDE out in distance & angle, and play 'Max Cooper - Order From Chaos' (TH-camMusic 'Song' ONLY version - for a slightly longer build up). Good quality headphones, or well set up home stereo systems are GREAT for this tpye of track. Yes, it is electronic type music, but, Max Cooper designs his music tracks to be also Binaural.... Man... The effect it gives! Sends shivers down my spine!! 👌 What he does with the (what sounds like) rain on a tin/car roof helps build up the effects nicely! Worth a try especially in AptX HD???... 🤔😏
😎🇬🇧
These speakers should still have an input jack so you can connect via cable if preferred with no app required for mono or stereo.
This is why it drives older stereo people crazy that so many people now are stepping down to small, mono Bluetooth speakers for everyday listening. When you go from two separate speakers down to one you lose more than half of the sound quality. Here's why I think that is the case:
Stereo - Real life sounds are almost never coming from a single point. Music in stereo still isn't very close to "3D sound," but it's much closer to the sound of a band radiating sound in all directions from multiple sources. Being able to project sound from two points, preferably on opposite sides of the listener, goes a long way toward simulating that effect. It may not, depending on the setup, create a very accurate "3D" effect, but at least it fills a space with sound that changes depending on where you are in the room and in which direction listeners turn their heads.
More Bass - Small speakers struggle to produce bass because they can't create enough pressure for the low frequencies to be audible. The lower pitch a sound is, the more air pressure needs to be created for it to be detected. The answer is to put more power and larger speakers toward bass reproduction. When you have two speakers you get twice the surface and twice the amplification to produce bass which means that low sounds will be louder and the lowest detectable sound will be lower.
Fidelity to Stereo Recordings - Most recordings now are stereo which can easily be combined into mono, but that causes a loss of sounds due to left-right phase cancellations . If single speaker playback could trigger a switch to monophonic original recordings this wouldn't be an issue, but of course it doesn't. So you get combined stereo which is not the same as a mono original, and that's not how the originals were usually created. Sometimes that has little effect, sometimes it has a large effect that really changes the overall balance of frequencies. With a single speaker containing two sets of drivers you can at least play both channels separately into the air, but the effect of cancellations caused by competing phases from the two channels can still occur in the air when the drivers are so close to each other, rather than electronically or even digitally, so the stereo to mono mixdown still occurs, albeit probably to a lesser extent.
-
I know a lot of children and young adults today have little or no experience with stereo sound for music listening outside of headphones. I think to many of them it seems like you have a choice between bad, tiny, tinny, remote sounding music out loud in a room, and really good sound from headphones. They don't seem to recognize the possibility or utility of high quality music reproduction in the open. It's sad to me that high quality sound in the open air is becoming less and less of a priority for people. I know priorities change, but I think people are really losing something of great value in place of the shallow conveniences of fewer wires and less floor space committed to audio. It's almost as if people are saying they don't need real fruit anymore because fruit flavored jelly beans are good enough. Even Hi-Fi is more like fruit jam or pie than fresh fruit. I just find "traditional" stereo Hi-Fi to be a really incredible resource for music enjoyment that small Bluetooth speakers can't fulfill. Headphones are great and I use them regularly, but that's a solitary endeavor. I hope as time goes by and more people get into high end headphones that they rediscover the enjoyment of Hi-Fi loudspeaker listening.
"so many people now are stepping down to small, mono Bluetooth speakers for everyday listening." On the plus side, have you _seen_ how this trend has dropped prices for old-style stereos in thrift stores? For those of us who still like things the old-fashioned way, there has never been a better time: I can get for €50 better quality than a bluetooth speaker costing five times as much. Add a €10 bluetooth receiver as a modern QOL improvement and you're set.
The stereo/mono thing has been well known since the 60's, why the true Beatles mono masters were so welcome. Stereo 'fold downs' to make fake mono tracks never work properly. Why these single speakers always sound worse than two paired in stereo and the main reason why modern radio stations sound so appalling.
Mixing and Mastering engineers put a lot of care into what you were asking about, it's called Mono-compatibility, which is basically just doing everything to ensure that the final song sounds great both in mono and stereo
You’ve just repeated what he said…
The stereo effect has more to do with than just having different instruments in different speakers. When you double track the same instrument and pan it to different speakers it gives a sense of width and "chorusing", and that's what you're losing when you collapse it down to mono.
Unless you did it while recording as the 60´s great mono recordings...
Excellent review, Mat. Well, done, sir. I always appreciate the high level of quality on all levels with your videos.
Another thing about stereo/mono: during stereo recordings, the sound from one side is usually also recorded on the other side, but with a slight delay because of larger distance (this becomes especially important in the case of the higher frequencies). When replayed in stereo this effect adds to the stereo experience, but when replayed in mono these frequencies tend to be cancelled out due to being in counter-phase, making it overall sound rather "dull"❗
'Immersive' techniques, yeah, that'd do it, though i'd expect the band & olsen to simulate a listener between the two channels and reproduce that sound instead. They might well do that to be fair as it is a simple enough way to improve your mono speaker. Various effects already rely on similar principles.
If they do indeed do that, the effect is more likely brain isolation, as techmoan suggests, as humans can 'concentrate' on one ear over another to pick out bits.
It'd be a worthwhile dissertation/thesis for someone.
That's fake stereo. True stereo is using a stereo mic or two mono mics on separate channels. Copying a track and put some milliseconds delay on it is dangerous because of phase.
I have listened to music while looking at a phase correlation meter and rarely does it go to negative side so not sure how common that actually is.
Great video as always. I’m often tempted to upgrade to a different Bluetooth speaker or smart speaker but generally am put off by the mono nature of these things! So interesting to see your opinions.
Buy a Bluetooth soundbar, if you can live with the elongated form factor. They are stereo by design, and come in various sizes.
I thought that was odd as well. Mono many have worked in the 1960's, but not in this day and age.
@@hermanmunster3358better still, plug a BT adapter into the aux port of an old stereo amp and speakers. Soundbars are marginally better than the mono speakers but still not a patch on proper separation that can only be achieved by spacing the speakers out around your listening position. And given that people have been ditching their old audio kit for a few years now because it 'takes up too much space' or the speaker wires look 'unsightly' in their mimalist grey modern interiors, its often much less expensive than buying a soundbar too.
The reason why a small pair of stereo Bluetooth speakers sounds a lot better than a single one of those speakers in mono isn't just down to stereo separation or phase cancellation issues when collapsing a stereo signal down to mono. Mono material will also sound richer when coming from a pair of the same small Bluetooth speaker. That's because most quality Bluetooth speakers - along with most other quality self-amplified speakers, from soundbars to boom boxes - come with fairly sophisticated built in equalization these days, designed to maximize performance (especially bass performance) without damaging the speaker. When you use two speakers instead of one, you halve the amount of work each speaker has to perform to produce music at the same overall volume. That gives each speaker a lot more headroom to produce sound accurately without overloading, especially bass, which is always a challenge for small speakers. The built-in equalization would normally start to turn down the bass - as well as possibly the treble - with a mono speaker when you attempted to drive them to a high volume. But with the stereo pair, each speaker is only playing about half as loud to achieve the total overall same volume, which means you can crank things much higher before the EQ steps in to protect the speaker and prevent distortion. You'll get a much fuller sound as a result, especially in the bass.
The fake surround modes featured by many modern surround receivers can produce surprisingly enjoyable sound for much the same reason. It doesn't work well just because of sonic spatial trickery, but because it spreads the load over more drivers, splitting the stereo signal out to the center channel and surround drivers. Each driver can therefore do a lot less work than if you were trying to reach the same volume with just the left and right speakers' drivers. You can play at pretty high volumes as a result, without pushing the individual drivers anywhere close to their maximums, keeping them in their low-stress sweet spots.
I'm glad my own impressions are confirmed; I was pretty blown away when I got a second one and paired them. You can set them up in a room and people wonder where the proper hifi is hiding.
Would it work well outside? I have a proper hifi setup at my house, but I have one of these for picnics, or the beach etc. I love it because it fits so easily in my purse, realistically I don't want extra volume because I try and be respectful to others in public - but I love the best quality sound even at low listening volumes. Would having 2 of these say on a picnic sound that much better than 1?
@@svm5543 I set them up in an outdoor patio area at a friends before he had his outdoor speakers connected, and people were wondering where all the sound was coming from. They were just lying spaced apart on the pavers.
I do hope the auto configuration part of this kind of multi-sink stereo Bluetooth setup gets improved a lot when the new Bluetooth LE Audio becomes mainstream. It supports this natively. Currently these are all proprietary hacks on the Bluetooth Audio standard afaik, so no wonder why it doesn't work universally.
BLE Audio relies on BT 5.2, which is still a long while off from becoming mainstream. Maybe in a few years, though...
@@MayaPosch Bluetooth 5.2 came out in 2019, it's supported on iPhone 13+, Intel AX210+ (11th gen+). The hold up was the codec, which is done in software anyway. The PipeWire stack on Linux can do it today as well as Android 13.
Great point about playing stereo music as mono, and how this affects the sound, something almost unavoidable with a Bluetooth speaker. Recording for stereo broadcasts I have to ensure mono playback compatibility, in general terms it's a matter of ensuring correct phase alignment across the mic inputs 🎶
In games you could choose mono or stereo but it must be harder for broadcasts.
Phase cancellation is an issue for mono. That's why it sounds muffled. If you take a look at musical instruments, like keyboards/synthesizers, they have two outputs: L/Mono, R. If you plug both jacks you get obviously a stereo sound. But if you want mono, you just connect the L jack. When R is not plugged, L switches to a special mono mode that makes all required changes to minimise the phase cancellation effects and still of course reproduces the R sound as well.
The problem with stereo organs and keyboards is that often they sound great in stereo but when a stereo recording of the instrument is played in mono it sounds strangely muffled. I have experienced this especially with a big Elka organ and some of Casio's synthesizers. What I do to fix this is that during mixing I reduce the stereo separation for these instruments by blending the channels together so that left is maybe 70% left and 30% right and vice versa. This of course makes the stereo effect a little less impressive but it sounds much better when played in mono. Because many people today listens on a mono speaker I have chosen to sacrifice a little of the stereo to satisfy the mono people.
@@organfairy I think you've made a huge mistake. The quality difference more than justifies two versions. Also, it can be mitigated in software, which i believe many devices do. The ones that do will will sound better with the stereo version than your adjusted one as you still retain huge amounts of degradation.
@@mandowarrior123 The way I see it mixing is a compromise. I know that some purist producers only mixes their products for people with good speaker systems. However, as tennant in the basement of the Tower of Song I cannot be picky; I have to mix my music so it sounds reasonably good on as many devices as possible instead of picking just the casual mono listener or the high end connoisseur. And besides I have never been criticised for the way I do my mix - as a matter of fact I have been complimented for their clarity where every instrument can be heard instead of being drowned in reverb and stereo antics
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Sony SRS-XB12 bluetooth speakers also have a function for stereopairing and from the experience i've had with those it does give a pretty nice stereo image of the sound. Allthough a bit bass heavy for what bass a mini speaker can provide
Yet another really cool video!!!!
I am irrevocably old school..my current audio runs a digital download through a guitar amp....
I have, in a prior life, fed a Thorenns Direct drive table right through a Fender Dual Reverb.....that can get loud....
So: good work!!!!
Me being careful with cash (tight) I purchased a A.s (acoustic solutions) mini blast 360 speaker for £35. I had enough on my Nectar points so I got mine from Argos.
Sounded okay on my sound Burger. I then read on the A.S box, if I had another, I can have stereo. So popped back to Argos and got another (cash this time) Simple and quick to match up. Make sure both speakers are on and press the M button on one of the speakers, bop the other makes a note when joined.
Then turn on the sound Burger and press the Bluetooth button button and the one on the Master A.s. mini blast 360 speaker causing them to mate!
Better still, they are like swans, they don't forget mating after turning them off.
I know people will be banging on about the super quality of a b&o speakers, but if I loose or damage a speaker I'm not £200 out of pocket, just £35!
I have tried these A.s 360's with Pink Floyd music from 1967 and the stereo effect is wonderful. Not like modern mixes which you might as well play in mono 😁
You went all audiophile on us for a while there!
CAT TAX! Show us more pics or video of your cat!
@techmoan
You touched upon a few things that improve stereo perception (in relation to one speaker).
Another thing that is always overlooked, and never even considered by people who used those speakers that contain a pair of stereo drivers in one box is DISTANCE.
The distance between speakers (relative to one and other) has an impact on how the sound is perceived.
Get your spacing right and you are listening to stereo as it was intended, get it wrong and you will get issues.
Look at any studio grade monitor set’s documentation and it will tell you exactly how far apart they should be ;)
I used to work in a warehouse of a supermarket in Sydney quite a while ago. The sound system was wired up so that the speakers in the warehouse got one channel, and all the ones in the shop got the other. They played WSFM, which was classic rock. I particularly remember how odd A Space Oddity and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds sounded when only listening to the left or right channel! Anything by The Beatles in fact, they'd put half the song on the right, and half the left until proper stereo with Abbey Road.
Oh man, anything by the Beatles hearing only one channel? Ouch. Did monkeys set up your sound system??
Worked in a KFC and the ceiling speakers in the restaurant were fed one side and the kitchen was the other side. I used to bring in Beatles CD’s….exactly as you think it would sound, unless you were standing between the kitchen and the restaurant. 50’s mono Elvis and Buddy Holly sounded great though lol
Most people today have never heard good sound. Limited by earbuds and phone since death of the real stereo around 2000 ish
The main reason stereo speakers sound better in separated pairs is because of the phase transducence influx properties causing interlacing response frequencies to induce linear plaining offset divergence.
Exactly.
This generation has no idea what stereo is. They accept homogenised sounds processed for MP3.
Get yourself a studio master recording source, a 200 watt per channel power amp and a pair of Acoustic Research AR-9 speakers and listen to the sounds we had in the 70's.
Your neighbours won't like you but you'll feel the music.
Start with Pink Floyd's Ummagumma to understand stereo mixing.
Yeah I have something similar with my dual HomePods on my TV (and dual HomePod Mini’s on my bedroom TV). Single speakers just don’t cut it no matter how good they sound. Adding the second speaker is a huge difference.
I almost didn't watch this - but pleased I did. That was excellent.
Please Allow Me To digress A Moment! That Is a Handsome 👁️Tuxedo Moggy On Your Lawn👍🙏
Since you have searched for a modern day boom box in the past, maybe have a look at the Sony SRS-XG500. I think it's the modern equivalent of an 80s boom box: Large but portable with all current day technologies. The price has drop to almost half since the release two years ago.
Interesting stuff. Also, I miss the post-credits sketches from The Moans.
Todays generation dont have a clue and dont care about audio quality, mobility and conformity are their goto´s.
They are happy playing the newest chartbuster from their streaminservice on their mobile phone speakers...
My soul revolts on this behaviour, but I fight a loosing war...
But the greatest losers are the generations to come!
PS. There is a reason why people are hunting for Mono records! @Techmoan that would be very interesting video for sure!
I think the obvious takeaway here is that we should never use one speaker for stereo music in the first place? Damn... I could have told you that a long time ago.. :D
Good point about modern stereo mixing vs stereo from the 60s and 70s. Hard ping pong stereo aside, I've noticed "remastered" old music tends to mean a more centred stereo image. Good for small systems and phone speakers but less than wow over hi-fi.
It was bound to happen, when people began to care more about convenience over sound quality. 2 into 1 is notoriously difficult to achieve, without some compromises.
This is why I much prefer to have my own music collection over relying on streaming. That way I don't get stuck with new remasters which often botch things like this, not to mention crushed dynamic range.
Giles Martin definitely hasn't made this mistake with any of the Beatles remasters
@@Blitterbug Some remasters are good, e.g. I have the 50th Anniversary Blu-ray for The White Album and Abbey Road, but that's the beauty of it - I get to choose what version I want to listen to.
I have 2 gravastar speakers, they remenber the last stereo pay they where in so in you turn on any of them first, it connects to the bluetooth device, then you turn on the second one and it connects directly to the first one, even if you change the order you turned them on.
But they are way overpriced for the sound quality... Wouldn't recommend if that's what you need, they are just gimmicky art piece
I have never liked single speaker Bluetooth speakers, which is why I ended up with a Sony because it’s true stereo from the 2 seperate drivers within the unit. Much better than the 90% of Bluetooth speakers that are single drivers mashing together the stereo channels.
There are many misunderstandings about stereo. Recording each of several instruments in mono and then using stereo to place them in different positions left to right, that's not stereo! Not real stereo, anyway. Most humans have two ears, so when we hear a sound, it sounds slightly different in each ear. So you only get real stereo when each instrument has been recorded through two separate microphones placed a suitable distance from each other.
My parents used to have an old Tandberg device that was a radio receiver + tuner, a cassette tape recorder and a record player. This device had a mono/stereo switch. I did a little experimentation with it. I'd put on a record with a recording of suites 2 and 3 by J.S.Bach played by "Herbie's Band" (the Berlin Philharmonics conducted by Herbert von Karajan - joke curtesy of the Irish flutist James Galway). I'd play the famous "Air" movement which consists of two parts, each repeated. I'd play the first part in mono and when it repeated, I'd switch to stereo, and it wasn't two or three times better, but simply infinitely better! It was like the ceiling opened and Heaven came through.
Your observation about two different radio announcers talking at the same time is absolutely correct, by the way.
Way too much to hassle just to get rid of a speaker wire , oh and whats that ugly thing sticking out it ....a WIRE ... Hahahaha
There's a fun Easter egg in Gorillaz's Clint Eastwood. If you listen to the part at the end of the rap where it says "It's all in your head" through a mono speaker the left and right channels cancel out and it's silent, so it really is _all in your head._
God if I had the money I'd be a complete B & P phile. .. I definitely shouldn't shout that though 😂.... I remember an old 90's set up that would move when you waved your hand or it... felt like a spaceship 😁
I think speaker separation is key for a good stereo sound. My mini component system had built in speakers that were right next to eachother, so i extended the wire on the right one and moved it so my TV is in the middle of them, and they went from pretty lame to absolutely incredible just from that.
Edit: I listen to almost exclusively 60s-80s music including the beatles and pink floyd, so that stereo seperation is key
My Subaru has the Harmon Kardon and btw that's the best thing about it, don't buy a Subaru but anyway the stereo is so clear I've heard things in songs I never heard before.
OK you have just shown us the advantages of utilizing Bluetooth and stereo, so here's the Big Question can you get Quadroponics with Bluetooth and how does that sound quality workout with today's modern Tech?!?
I still use good old-fashioned WIRED speakers for real stereo sound and no batteries to keep recharging!
I have searched high and low for the left right audio file you use but I just can't find it, where did you get it from?
This may be my gen X status talking but it truly annoys me that modern music production and design caters to the simpltons who are more than satisfied to play back their music on cheap tinny sounding bt speakers and screachy internal phone or IPad speakers. I generally keep my interest in older classic music anyways, which has that more natural sounding mix with much more obvious stereo separation, and I will always opt to enjoy my music on a system that takes advantage of that with big sound accompanying whenever possible.
True, that music made in the past used the stereo imagining much more than today. Recordings are biased around the center stage and rather limited scope. Most music I listening to are on the main Hifi system or in the car, not on a single speaker.
These are pretty expensive (depending on where you get them, or in which country you live), so I would look for other options that could be paired to make a stereo system. But i couldn't agree more: 2 individual speakers are always better than an all-in-1 solution.
Clearly hasn't listened to a decent hi-fi.
Two ears two speakers.
Can't believe we have to explain this.
Titchy speakers will always give you titchy sound, ask Metallica to explain.
I need a video conference between Paul and Techmoan. Paul at PS Audio, could answer a lot of questions. I see a podcast, type of video, that last 45 minutes, if not an hour.
The usecase for portable stereo sound like this is just extremely niche. If you need "free" sound around you, you're most likely moving yourself, in which case mono is better because it's consistent. To get the effects of stereo, you need to properly stay in front of the speakers... in which case they're most likely staying in the same space always. At which point you can just get proper wired bookshelf speakers, could be self-powered, and if you need wireless, hook them up to a car audio BT-to-3.5mm receiver with APTX that are out there for 20-30 dollars. You could probably even double this setup for another room, and that's still be cost-efficient considering that those won't die in one-two years.
3:50
Left Speaker: Left!
Right Speaker: Right!
Left Speaker: Left!
Right Speaker: Right!
Left Speaker: Left!
Right Speaker: Right!
Left Speaker: Left!
Right Speaker: Right!
Matt: Right.
Here's a question. Do you want both speakers to play exactly the same thing (that is in mono) thus winning a loudness battle or playing their own thing (ie stereo) thus adding enjoyment?
Moving twice as much air makes a HUGE DIFFERENCE......
Left speaker would be left, Matt. Everyone's speakers look the same on both sides ;)
You should try listen to End Titles by Daft Punk. In stereo it sounds great but in mono both signals cancel eachother out (and it sounds like crap)
Well, I guess there will be another techmoan initiated firmware update coming...
11:05 I also like to dry my bluetooth speakers after thorough washing machine cleaning
I'll go you one better; good stereo is superior to surround sound for TV and films.
Surround mixes vary a great deal, and many speakers are much more challenging to set up well. There's less choices to make about stereo.
That it doesn't remember that they are paired is a no-go. Who at B&O thought that that is acceptable behaviour for a premium product?
For the price of one B&O A1 you can buy two Minirigs and set them up as a stereo pair plus you can add a sub later on if you want more umph!
Not a fan of these little Bluetooth speakers…….however, the more popular they get, the more real hi fi bargains are available as people get rid of their old systems!
I remember playing a record in 1971 (so you're probably too young Matt :) ) that had the most difference between the left channel and right channel I had ever heard.
It was "Rosetta" by "Fame & Price Together"
In the verses Georgie Fame was on one channel and Alan Price on the other...and both together in the chorus.
Maybe there is another song with even more separation but I've always remembered this.
I have been wonderung why this isnt a standard feature of bluetooth...but someone un the comments says it is part of the next bluetooth standard. So when will that be a thing?
$240+USD (on Amazon currently) for one.. no thanks.
You used to be able to do this, Samsung took it away with an update.
I had 2 Bose hooked up that way. Can't anymore.
It’s so sad that we lost so much quality by “modern” tech. Nobody would by mono devices until 10 years ago. Quality lost against Comfort and Music is reduced to background entertainment.
To be fair, the IEM market has been bringing attention to quality back. Gear that's affordable enough to let people try out things and experience the difference is important if you want them to not just default to "it makes a sound, good enough".