Size comparison - Beosound 2 at left and Beoplay A9 at right.
#Note: Find full B&O review list at the bottom.
Let's begin with the summary of the biggest differences you should be aware of when comparing the Beosound 2 vs Beoplay A9:
- Beoplay A9 is able to crank out much stronger sound output (almost TWICE as much as Beosound 2) and it also looks prettier to most (this Nordic Ice Kvadrat color is especially liked by many - including me)
- Beosound 2 propagates the sound much better (almost TWICE the angle of Beoplay A9), and is also much more portable, much more versatile and a little bit easier to use.
Also, do make sure to check out the informative Beosound 2 vs Beoplay A9 chart on bang-olufsen.com.
The most important thing when it comes to speakers, the sound quality, of these speakers are comparable. Unless you have a PhD on speakers and studied these two for weeks, I'm pretty sure you won't notice a difference.
However...
If you own a spacious room (more than, say, 60 m² (645 ft²)), I'd strongly recommend you to disregard Beosound 2. Chances are, its power is going to suffer.
In that case, go check out my Beosound Edge vs Beoplay A9 article.
Here's the Beosound Edge vs Beoplay A9 vs Beosound 2 chart: https://www.bang-olufsen.com/en/us/comparison/products?slug=speakers&p1=beosound-2&p2=beosound-edge&p3=beoplay-a9
If you own a much smaller room, you need much smaller speakers. In which case you should stop reading this post and go check out my Beoplay M3 vs M5 article.
I contacted the B&O Customer Service about this and here's what they told me:
- Beoplay A9: 2nd and 4th Generation. I'm told that the A9 2nd Generation is no longer on production line and also, no longer available web-store either.
- Beosound 2: Received a complete revision in 2017. This is the most recent model of Beosound 2 on B&O's web-store.
I'm also told that although these previous revisions are discontinued, customer support is still being delivered for them.
Information in this post applies only to the most recent models of Beoplay A9 and Beosound 2.
After all, B&O is always a safe bet when it comes to sound quality - especially with high-end products like these two.
At a whooping four figures, these speakers are far from cheap. So I'd recommend you to read this post entirely. But if you want a quick summary, here it is:
If your new speaker will take place inside a mostly 50-60 square meters apartment flat, then Beosound 2 can mostly be a better choice. Any room larger than that and Beoplay A9 can be more suitable - especially for detached houses.
Let's dive deeper.
Sound quality, strength & propagation
Let me tell you something right off the bat.
The sound quality performance you'll end up getting from a speaker will always depend on your room acoustics - particularly room dimensions and speaker positions.
The impact of the combination of these two is actually so strong that in most cases, it doesn't even make sense to utter a single word on sound quality without speaking of them.
This is also why it's not unusual to see completely different reviews of the same speaker.
In one case the speaker might be placed in a sweet spot inside the room and hence the user might be satisfied. In other cases the same speaker might be ill placed and hence user might even have returned it.
The point most people miss here is that it mostly isn't even about the engineering behind the speaker itself. It's about where you place the speaker inside which room.
So, in order to solve this problem, I've partnered with Acoustics and Audio Engineering PhD Andrea Cicero from AC Acustica and created Soundton - a simple, 2D, browser accessible online speaker placement calculator.
With Soundton, now there's a way to figure the sound quality of most speakers before you buy them.
Read more about its working principles at soundton.com/documentation/.
The end colormap provides you the locations with the best (green) and worst (red) acoustics.