Bang & Olufsen Beosound Explore Waterproof Outdoor Wireless Speaker (Green)

Early days, but very promising

My goal in acquiring a brace of these speakers -- in order to make a stereo pair -- was to allow me to listen to music while sitting in my garden. So far, I'm very pleased with the results; I've listened to some music (which, as various reviews have suggested, defaults to a somewhat bass-heavy roominess, but which can be tuned using the B&O app) and to parts of an Audible book. In both uses the speakers were very competent, and managed the 'infinite' sound field of the garden very well. As you'd guess, they are not noticeably directional, which is ideal for my purposes. Maybe one day we'll even have an outdoor party again, and these speakers will step up to provide a soundtrack; they certainly are loud enough -- I was conscious of not wanting to disturb my neighbors' in their back gardens, and kept the speakers (which, control-wise, act as one when stereo-paired) at a moderate level. I'm not fully in synch with the software yet -- it seems that when I turn the speakers off and later turn them on again, the stereo pairing is lost, but I don't think this is intended behaviour so I'll work out what I'm doing wrong. The final piece of the puzzle is getting Roon to recognize the Bluetooth connection as an audio output option so I can play everything I own over the B&Os; I'm awaiting the arrival of a Bluetooth dongle which, according to online lore, will let Roon 'discover' another option, and solve this problem. Fingers crossed. Overall, I'm very happy with this purchase -- they're very solid in feel, good to look at, and startlingly small. The colour match for the metal body, nylon straps and carabiner is remarkably accurate and gives a sense of attention to detail which I always find satisfying.