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Audioengine B1 Bluetooth - Really Surprised

For those of you who enjoy casual listening, and minimizing either financial outlay or the number of components it takes to get great sound, this post is for you.

I picked up the Audioengine B1 Bluetooth receiver to plug into our living room system, just sort of out of curiosity to see how simple I could make it for when my wife wants to use the system, or when we just want to listen to Spotify without wires across the living room. What a great little device - it never drops signal, and it sounds fantastic. And this post isn't specifically an endorsement of the B1 (or of Spotify specifically) as much as an endorsement of the idea of the B1 - from what I've read many of the Bluetooth devices from $100-250 all sound nice, with just differences in connections, signal range, etc. so you can pick your favorite brand and do the same thing.

The cool part is the simplicity it allows - with only three components...

- Speakers
- Integrated Amp
- Bluetooth Receiver/Dac (analog out into the integrated)

...not including the iPhone/Android/iPad which most people have anyway, you can listen to millions of songs without wires, without leaving the couch, and with sound quality that will probably surprise many others like it surprised me.

We'll play Scrabble and make it a game of musical-torture - whoever wins the round gets to pick the song and "torture" the other (I'll pick '70s AM-Gold love songs, she'll pick Nine Inch Nails) - but that would be tedious with CDs. With Spotify on the iPad, we can pick songs in seconds, no wires, the signal never drops, and it sounds much better than I expected.

I went into it with an "I'll just return this when I discover how limited it is" mentality, so this was a cool discovery for us, and definitely a keeper. Not that changing CDs (or LPs) is all that difficult, but being able to pick from 20 million songs using my iPad while planted comfortably on the couch, and without any wires, is really fun and I wish I'd tried it sooner.
128x128bcgator
bcgator's avatar
bcgator OP
355 posts
 
Hey Mattmiller, how have you been? Things here are great...my system still sounds fantastic. How much does that hurt, that all of your moronic, myopic, arrogant and grammatically-challenged posts have done nothing to change that? Let's review...I post about something good happening with my audio system, something that other people that may not have the affluence that you have may benefit from, and you thought that the most constructive and helpful thing you could do was threadcrap. Think about it...that's all that really happened. I was happy, you were mad that I was happy. It doesn't get any more complicated than that. You were unhappy that someone else was happy. What an utterly miserable human being that makes you. Facebook? So now unless someone is prepared to drop $40K on a system, they should leave Audiogon? Let's see how others feel about that...I have a pretty good feeling that in demographic terms, you're outnumbered here.

If you want to continue crapping in our thread, feel free...dealing with you is like a cat toying with a field mouse. I can do this all day long.
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mattmiller
1,502 posts
 
bmdduck
99 posts
 
A lot of people in this world would love to have a Prius but can't afford one. I drive an old Civic cause my kids all need new shoes.

I don't have a Porsche twin turbo, but if I did I would keep it in the garage and drive it as often as possible. Not just listen to it.

I think I'm gonna go check out the Audioengine.
bcgator's avatar
bcgator OP
355 posts
 
Hi Bmdduck, I remember last year you were looking for speakers and an integrated for a 20x20 room - did you ever finish that system?
schubert
7,386 posts
 
A lot of people in this world would like to have shoes and a decent meal but can't afford it.
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