I bought the speaker a few weeks ago on sale for €195. It is my third speaker, the first was a JBL Flip 3, then several years later a Sony SRS-XB23, and now the B&O. The B&O is from better to much better in both sound and build quality compared to the other 2 speakers I have, and I can compare them directly. In this sense, the extra money makes some sense. I would also like to mention that the unboxing was very nice and strongly reminiscent of Apple products. The B&O app plays a crucial role in the speaker's performance to the point that if the app didn't exist, I would return it. The app's functionality is excellent, though the user interface is not to my taste at least. However, I want to emphasize that when the JBL and Sony were purchased, they were €100 speakers and not €200. I am quite sure that if the same money had been spent on JBL or Sony (especially JBL), then perhaps the better speaker would have been the JBL. The A1 Gen 2 was replaced a few days ago by the Gen 3 for €350 if I saw correctly. I would not advise anyone to spend that without looking at similar offers from other companies.
