The Beosound A5 portable speaker, which our enthusiastic tester Geir Nordby described as “a musical handbag”, is now available in a third version. Where the first two versions had natural surfaces in woven paper fibres and dark oak lamellas respectively, the new Beosound A5 Spaced Aluminium has a more immediately recognisable, industrial aluminium finish.
The recognistion is only skin seep, though. Because the designers in Struer have been enjoying pushing their own boundaries in metalwork. What looks like a perforated metal front is actually the opposite. On closer inspection, the ‘holes’ turn out to be more than 3 500 small aluminium discs mounted ‘floating’ on a dark and acoustically transparent background.
“Normally the circular shape is the hole where the sound flows through the front of the speaker, but here we have reversed the idea and made the circular shape the central attraction where the sound flows out around,” says Michael Henriksson, Vice President Product Marketing.
Launched in April 2023, Beosound A5 is intended as a cross between portable and home audio. It is designed to be easily carried from room to room, and thanks to an IP65 certification, it can also be taken outdoors.
New features coming soon
In addition to a new look for Beosound A5 in Spaced Aluminium, new software updates are planned for the portable speaker. The updates will open up new possibilities via Bang & Olufsen’s Mozart software platform.
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Automatic stereo pairing via ultra-wideband technology is enabled in the new software update, which means that two Beosound A5 speakers can be automatically paired when they are within range of each other. Using the Bang & Olufsen app, Beosound A5 can also be seamlessly integrated into a Bang & Olufsen system.
Availability and price
The advanced design comes at a price. Beosound A5 Spaced Aluminium adds a third to the price of the already expensive portable speaker. It is available now for €1,399.
