B&O’s New Speakers Are Insane, and So Is the Price

Aluminum, oak and approximately all the watts

August 9, 2017 9:00 am

As they’ve taught us time and time again, “quality” in Danish is Bang & Olufsen. Or, if you want to be more precise, kvalitet.

Meant to be a distant cousin of of the speaker maker’s monstrous 300-pound BeoLab 90 speakerthe BeoLab 50 is a 3.4-foot-tall standing speaker that’s crafted from a handsome mixture of aluminium and oak.

Incorporating some of the same technology that went into the BeoLab 90, the 50 has an unfolding design that features a specialized piece called an acoustic lens rising from the top of the speaker during playback.

Since the acoustic lens is adjustable, users can warp the sound delivery into a narrow beam for a solo listening experience or change it into a wide beam of noise fill up a room completely.

BeoLab 50 (4 images)

To further fine-tune the experience, an external microphone wirelessly linked with the base unit measures “the acoustical behavior of your room and creates a set of custom filters that compensate for reflections from walls and furniture in different listening areas.”  Very nice. 

Delivering 2,100 watts through seven drivers (three 10-inch woofers, three 4-inch midrange drivers and one 0.74-inch tweeter all packing 300 watts each), the speakers come in pairs that are priced at about $40,000.

If you have any concerns about the care that goes into the speakers, this should assuage ‘em:

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