Few companies have mixed style and performance over the years as well as Bang & Olufsen, and its separate B&O Play line follows suit. The $249 B&O Play Beoplay A1, the most affordable Bluetooth speaker in its lineup, delivers excellent audio in a refined, portable design. True, this is a mono speaker, but it has a dedicated woofer—as a result, it produces rich bass response that few speakers this size can even come close to. If your budget allows, this is one of the best-sounding outdoor-friendly Bluetooth speakers we've tested, and it earns our Editors' Choice award.

Design
Available in black, deep red (which is really more of a clay), moss green, or off-white, the circular, 5.3-by-1.8-inch (HW), 1.3-pound Beoplay A1 is designed to be durable. Sure it's stylish, but B&O Play makes it clear the speaker can also take a beating. In fact, it may be one of the few products we've seen advertised with dents and scratches on its face—the company wants you to know that the grille and the aluminum-and-polymer frame may get beat up over time ("every scratch tells a story," according to the marketing materials), but the speaker will continue to operate without a hitch. True to form, it has an undeniably solid, rugged feel.

Beneath the grille, both the tweeter and woofer deliver 30 watts each—impressive for a speaker this size. True, it would be nice to have stereo audio, but you can argue that stereo separation in a speaker this size doesn't matter nearly as much as decent bass response, which is a rarity in the portable Bluetooth realm. We'll discuss this more in the next section.

There are controls along the outer panel of the speaker for power, volume (which works in conjunction with your device's master volume) and Bluetooth pairing. There's also a microphone button for answering and ending calls, and a music button that automatically connects to the most recently used sound source and plays audio immediately.

An LED battery status indicator near the power button tells you when you're running out of juice. It's a slight bummer that, given the inclusion of the not-quite-necessary music button, there aren't controls for track navigation, a far more practical and common need—you have to select and skip tracks on your mobile device itself.

The Beoplay A1 is relatively light on accessories. You get a micro USB cable (which is easily five times the length of typical charging cables) and a leather lanyard that comes attached to the speaker. A protective carrying pouch would've have been nice to see here, given the price. There's also no included 3.5mm audio cable for the aux input.

B&O Play estimates the Beoplay A1's battery life to be about 24 hours, which is fantastic. Your results will vary with your volume levels and your mix of wired versus wireless playback.

Performance
Admittedly, some readers might scoff at a $250 speaker that lacks stereo drivers. But the argument for mono in a speaker this size can be summed up simply: With such a small frame, you're likely to have virtually zero stereo separation anyway. Rather than include a second midrange driver and deliver stereo audio with very little bass response, B&O Play brilliantly includes a second driver, but opts to make it a woofer. This results in probably the most accurate, powerful bass response we've heard in a portable Bluetooth speaker to date. There's no passive radiator here, just two dual amplified drivers, one dedicated to handling the lows and the other the highs. It's a simple solution, yet one we rarely see. And the speaker gets very loud for being so compact.

On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife's "Silent Shout," the Beoplay A1 delivers excellent bass response for a portable speaker. The woofer can reach down to 60Hz, which is impressive for the size, though it's still not low enough to recreate much of the sub-bass wallop this track packs. At top volumes the bass doesn't distort, but you can hear and feel the woofer working overtime; at more moderate volumes, the bass is still quite powerful and the woofer sounds more relaxed.

Similar Products

Our Current Picks for 301 The Best Bluetooth Speakers

Bill Callahan's "Drover," a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better idea of the Beoplay A1's overall sound signature. The drums on this track can seem unnaturally thunderous on bass-forward speakers. Through the Beoplay A1, the drums are wonderful, however—there's a robust, full sound, but they don't overpower anything else in the mix. Callahan's baritone vocals get the perfect blend of low-mid richness and high-mid contour. The high-end response delivers the percussive hits and guitar strumming cleanly and precisely. This is a rich, full sound with an emphasis on clarity.

On Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," the kick drum loop's attack gets a solid helping of high-mid presence to keep its attack sharp, while its sustain gets an impressive thump courtesy of the A1's woofer—it's by far the most powerful thing in the mix through the Beoplay A1. The sub-bass synth hits have a solid sense of depth, even if we don't quite hear them in their entirety. The vocals on this track are delivered clearly and cleanly, without an added hint of sibilance.

Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene in John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, sound lovely through the Beoplay A1. The higher register strings, brass, and vocals retain their typical crisp, bright delivery while the lower register instrumentation manages to sound robust and rich despite remaining in a mostly supporting role. Again, this is a supremely well-balanced, full-sounding sound signature.

One note: The Beoplay A1 can sometimes lop off the beginning of songs when you navigate to a new track. This is common, but shouldn't be an issue in this price realm.

Conclusions

Yes, the B&O Play Beoplay A1 is expensive, but your money is going toward a powerful, bi-amplified system that outperforms most small Bluetooth speakers we've seen. If the A1 is out of your price range, there are less expensive outdoor-friendly options with powerful bass response (though they use passive bass radiators)—check out the JBL Charge 3 ($74.99 at Amazon) and the Sony SRS-XB3 ( at Amazon) . In this price range, we're also fans of the Libratone Zipp Mini ( at Amazon) and the JBL Xtreme ($179.99 at Amazon) , but neither is quite as easily portable as the Beoplay A1.

It bears repeating: The Beoplay A1 is capable of getting louder than most portable Bluetooth speakers we've tested, and it delivers more bass response than a speaker this size can typically muster. Hats off to B&O Play. If I could have my pick of portable Bluetooth speakers to take on my next vacation, it would be the Beoplay A1, our Editors' Choice.

Best Speaker Picks

• The Best Outdoor Speakers for 2020
• The Best Soundbars for 2020
• The Best Wireless and Bluetooth Speakers for 2020
• The Best Bluetooth Speakers Under $100
• More Speaker Reviews
• More from Bang & Olufsen

Further Reading

• New Sonos Playbar Leak Hints at Redesign
• How to Use an Amazon Echo as a Speaker For Your Television
• How to Protect Your Home With Alexa Guard
• How to Control Your Roku With an Amazon Echo
• No More Bricks: Sonos Drops 'Trade-Up' Program's Recycle Mode