Bang & Olufsen Introduces the Beolab 8 Wireless Speakers, Starting at US$2,749

[TheLostSwede]

Whether it's the ultimate sound system in the home or a single point of sound, Beolab 8 can be used as a system speaker to create an immersive home cinema setup using the latest high-end Bang & Olufsen speakers or even heritage speakers dating back to 1984. Stereo pair two Beolab 8 speakers to create powerful and precise stereo sound for a high-fidelity music experience. Beolab 8 is also a stand-alone speaker delivering depth with an intense bass for its size.

"Our goal is to create powerful and immersive listening experiences for our customers. Beolab 8 provides exactly this. It is a scalable speaker that is all about flexibility, performance, and innovation", says Michael Henriksson, Vice President of Product Marketing at Bang & Olufsen and continues: "Drawing inspiration from the high-end Beolab range, our aim for Beolab 8 was to distil the acoustic essence of these impressive speakers into a compact offering that maintains the directivity and sound beam control for optimal sound reproduction in any environment. Bringing immersive experiences for every moment".




Excellence in craftsmanship
Beolab 8 is designed to look beautiful from every angle, no matter where and how the speaker is placed. The one-piece aluminium body is a fusion of a sphere and cylinder merged into a solid shape, showcasing excellence in craftsmanship from Bang & Olufsen's renowned Factory 5. Designed with either Danish manufactured wooden lamellas or a fabric front, Beolab 8 follows the same characteristic design of Bang & Olufsen's Beolab and Beosound products including Beosound Theatre, Beolab 28 and Beolab 50.

In between the outer aluminium shell and the inner core of the speaker, the interplay of light and shadow create a visually lightweight appearance. In keeping with Scandinavian design principles, where form follows function, the shape of the speaker dually creates an aesthetic object and enhances the acoustics of the speaker. The glass interface on top of the speaker creates a perfect curve that guides the user's finger along the surface effortlessly.

Each of the four stand options are slender and sculptural, utilising Bang & Olufsen's expertise in aluminium manufacturing. While the table stand is designed to create a floating illusion, the discreet ceiling bracket and floor stand are polished to perfection.

Powerful, immersive sound
Tuned by Bang & Olufsen tonmeisters, listeners can enjoy the sound quality of a Beolab speaker thanks to its three-driver setup consisting of a 16 mm tweeter, 3" midrange and a 5.25" woofer. Building on the heritage of the iconic Beolab 17 speaker, Bang & Olufsen tonmeisters carefully selected drivers that maintained the same performance and sound quality of these speakers.

However, the performance in Beolab 8 is significantly improved thanks to the incorporation of beam width control, room compensation, adaptive tuning as well as ultra-wideband technology.

• The speaker's beam width control allows users to seamlessly switch between two listening experiences. Beolab 8 offers the ability to narrow down with precision audio to optimize the sweet spot for the listener. Alternatively, users can choose to go wide and diffuse sound throughout the room whilst the front LED's on the speaker display which sound mode status the speaker is in.
• Beolab 8's Room Compensation feature provides an optimised soundscape based on a room's unique acoustics. The speaker carefully maps its environment to deliver crystal clear quality no matter the size or space of the room. A neodymium motor allows listeners to enjoy a soundscape adapted to their surroundings for full music immersion.
• With adaptive sound tuning, Beolab 8 adapts to its own configuration by using sensors to detect the front cover and fine-tune the sound for optimal performance. This is made possible through small sensors in the speaker and magnets within the cover which allows Beolab 8 to detect the type of cover and automatically apply the appropriate tuning.
• Utilising ultra-wide band technology, Beolab 8 does more than just adapt to the room it is placed in. It can also direct the acoustic sweet spot based on a user's phone location via the Bang & Olufsen app, ensuring immersive sound for a dynamic sweet spot experience.
• With Bang & Olufsen's Mozart platform at the heart of the product, Beolab 8 as a stand-alone product can connect easily through WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3. And with Powerlink, both wireless and wired built into the speaker, Beolab 8 is a true system speaker, providing a connection to Bang & Olufsen TVs and sound systems dating back more than 30 years.

Design that stands the test of time
Beolab 8 is designed to stand the test of time: using quality materials that age gracefully, continuous customisation options and easy upgradability over time, long term serviceability as well as the replaceable streaming module to ensure that Beolab 8 can adapt to the latest technology standards. The speaker is designed using Cradle-to-Cradle principles - a design philosophy which allows products to be proactively designed for a circular future. Beolab 8 is pending to complete Cradle-to-Cradle Certified.

Pricing and Availability
Beolab 8 is available in an array of customisable colourways.

Choose from: Silver / Natural Aluminium, Gold Tone or Black Anthracite, and combine with speaker covers in oak, light oak, dark oak, or fabric.

Prices start from: 18,490 DKK / 2499 EUR / 2199 GBP / 2749 USD

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Vayra86]

Insert epic facepalm meme here

2499 times

 

[TheLostSwede]

Insert epic facepalm meme here

2499 times

You do at least get a pair of speakers for that money...

 

[Chrispy_]

There's a B&O showroom near me and it's the most pretentious overpriced nonsense I've ever seen. I avoid B&O and B&O apologists because it's clearly just a status brand at this point.

Manufacturing quality is good, as you'd expect for such expensive hardware, but acoustically these will likely be outperformed by unglamourous looking hardware from actual recording-studio brands like Yamaha, Beyerdynamic, AKG, Audio-Technica, to name just a few - and at one fifth the cost, too.

 

[aktpu]

Nice design, if I had Fractal North, these might be a worthwhile upgrade

 

[Chaitanya]

I remember on Top Gear one of 3 presenters joked saying B&O are just rebadged Phillips products. Looking at those prices it might be a speaker set for pretentious.

 

[claes]

I dunno, B&O is generally well regarded in the audiophile world. They’re not going for reference, but if you’re spending that much you probably know that, and the features are more than novel. What do I know though I’m just using some AKG’s from the 90’s

 

[Dragam1337]

B&O is a status symbol, and that's pretty much it. For the people who are already wasting millions on cars and houses, wasting money on speakers like these are pennies.
Any person who is even just slightly sensible would never purchase a product like this.

 

[nguyen]

B&O always hurt my ears, probably due to the higher frequency range

 

[Chrispy_]

B&O is a status symbol, and that's pretty much it. For the people who are already wasting millions on cars and houses, wasting money on speakers like these are pennies.
Any person who is even just slightly sensible would never purchase a product like this.

"Prestige pricing" is the economic term for creating exclusivity by pricing products so far beyond what is reasonable that they become demonstrations of wealth first, and the functionality of the product is secondary to that purpose.

 

[FoulOnWhite]

Yikes, they better sound damn good

 

[KrazyT]

At least, design isn't bad (imo)

 

[AusWolf]

Upon first look, I thought it was an air filter for a car.

 

[redeye]

so beautiful, yet sooooo expensive….

here in canada, us… add “se” to b&o and you get the “kinda” same stuff, but wearing a burlap bag as clothes, lol.

 

[Chrispy_]

Yikes, they better sound damn good

They're going to sound fine. 5.5" woofer will perform down to ~75Hz or so and the other two drivers combined with a DSP should ensure that it's capable of sounding great and be tuneable to taste. The fact they're small does limit how good the bass is going to be; at 5.5" the laws of physics are what stop them from producing <75Hz or so with any level of accuracy or decent response.

It's a smart looking package and I doubt there are many alternatives that bundle this specific combination of features together in one standalone box, but the tech that manages all of the features isn't new or proprietary, it's commodity stuff that is available cheaply on the market. DSPs capable of doing room correction and beamforming like these B&O speakers are just a fraction of the included functions of relatively cheap home cinema receivers (under $500).

The thing about sound quality is that you don't have to spend very much to reach the plauteau of diminishing returns. The perceived sound quality/cost graph looks something like this:

Beyond getting the basics right such as covering the accepted frequency range without harsh spikes or troughs in the response curve and applying DSP for room correction, further spending is really more about adjusting the sound to taste, rather that accurately reproducing the source material.

For bookshelf speakers like these, you should be able to get the basics right (ie, reach the plateau part of that graph) by mixing and matching a couple of capable budget speakers to a half-decent amp with DSP for about $400-500. Maybe call it $600 if you want wireless powered monitors and a wireless-capable receiver, though I personally think that's dumb because even these B&Os aren't true wireless; you still need a power cord, so if you're hiding cables under the flooring you might as well route proper speaker wire too.

 

[RH92]

You do at least get a pair of speakers for that money...

For that sort of money i need my speakers to sing me a melody for wakeup , bring me breakfast and coffee to my bed and have my clothes ironed .

Jokes aside not gonna lie design is good but that's pretty much what you pay for that sort of money .

 

[AsRock]

Hell no, i'd buy some old Infinity's for that kind of money, never liked the sound of B&O.

 

[dyonoctis]

There's a B&O showroom near me and it's the most pretentious overpriced nonsense I've ever seen. I avoid B&O and B&O apologists because it's clearly just a status brand at this point.

Manufacturing quality is good, as you'd expect for such expensive hardware, but acoustically these will likely be outperformed by unglamourous looking hardware from actual recording-studio brands like Yamaha, Beyerdynamic, AKG, Audio-Technica, to name just a few - and at one fifth the cost, too.

B&O was never a brand about value and pure performance. It's all about the design (and a sound that isn't bad). Buying B&O is like buying designer furniture. You don't do it for the "value", you do it because you look for something that will stand out visually. Seems shallow for some, but the world is interesting because we don't share a common mindset about everything

 

[venturi]

is it just me or first impression is that of an oil filter cut away in appearance?

 

[Vayra86]

You do at least get a pair of speakers for that money...

OK, Stereo Facepalm then

 

[claes]

They're going to sound fine. 5.5" woofer will perform down to ~75Hz or so and the other two drivers combined with a DSP should ensure that it's capable of sounding great and be tuneable to taste. The fact they're small does limit how good the bass is going to be; at 5.5" the laws of physics are what stop them from producing <75Hz or so with any level of accuracy or decent response.

It's a smart looking package and I doubt there are many alternatives that bundle this specific combination of features together in one standalone box, but the tech that manages all of the features isn't new or proprietary, it's commodity stuff that is available cheaply on the market. DSPs capable of doing room correction and beamforming like these B&O speakers are just a fraction of the included functions of relatively cheap home cinema receivers (under $500).

The thing about sound quality is that you don't have to spend very much to reach the plauteau of diminishing returns. The perceived sound quality/cost graph looks something like this:

View attachment 312686

Beyond getting the basics right such as covering the accepted frequency range without harsh spikes or troughs in the response curve and applying DSP for room correction, further spending is really more about adjusting the sound to taste, rather that accurately reproducing the source material.

For bookshelf speakers like these, you should be able to get the basics right (ie, reach the plateau part of that graph) by mixing and matching a couple of capable budget speakers to a half-decent amp with DSP for about $400-500. Maybe call it $600 if you want wireless powered monitors and a wireless-capable receiver, though I personally think that's dumb because even these B&Os aren't true wireless; you still need a power cord, so if you're hiding cables under the flooring you might as well route proper speaker wire too.

This is all true and, again, B&O has their own curve that you either like or you don’t, but you’re forgetting all of the tech that goes into their products. These don’t just offer room correction, the “sweet spot” follows you around based on your location. Obvs this is a huge turnoff for many users here, but it’s more than just tuning drivers.

 

[Minus Infinity]

Looks like a K&N air-filter. Ugly as sin.

 

[Chrispy_]

This is all true and, again, B&O has their own curve that you either like or you don’t, but you’re forgetting all of the tech that goes into their products. These don’t just offer room correction, the “sweet spot” follows you around based on your location. Obvs this is a huge turnoff for many users here, but it’s more than just tuning drivers.

I think you're out of date on how cheap and common active, tracking beamforming is these days.
It's in everything from mid-price soundbars (Razer) to smart speakers (Bose) to Bluetooth portable outdoor speakers (Anker, Bose, JBL) where I believe the tech first went mainstream as it was obvious to blast the music in the direction of the phone it was getting the Bluetooth signal from.

Active, Bluetooth-tracking beamforming is just a software license and all the tech it requires is in most Bluetooth speakers with any kind of modern software-based DSP. It's not made by B&O and it's not exclusive to B&O. They add it to their product just like anyone else.

My current Marantz HDMI receiver and my old Yamaha HDMI receiver both had static beamforming, and that's decade-old mainstream tech. My experience of both tracking and non-tracking beamforming is that it's subtle, and can detract from the audio quality as much as it adds. It has very little effect on low and mid-frequency sounds, as they're less positional and tend to fill the space the speakers are in. What it adds is >1KHz crispness which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how close you are to the Bluetooth signal being tracked, for drums it can manifest as distortion since the multi-KHz signals have such small wavelengths that the sweet spots radius is less that the difference between your pocket and your ears. Remember, if you're intentionally manipulating the sound waves from multiple sources to align the sound waves arriving at a point, you will get unwanted peaks and troughs either side of that target point, meaning that if you hold the phone just the right distance away from you, you will get the opposite of the sweet spot, it'll be the worst-case-scenario spot. This isn't opinion, it's the laws of physics and how sound waves work.

To the untrained ear I'm sure these B&O Speakers sound fantastic.
To the trained ear they'll sound good but the limitations of their cabinet size and woofer size will be recognisable.
There's a reason audiophiles poop all over B&O; They're not made for audiophiles to audiophile standards. It doesn't make them bad, just ridiculously overpriced (like a lot of audiophile stuff too, incidentally!).

 

[KrazyT]

Hell no, i'd buy some old Infinity's for that kind of money, never liked the sound of B&O.

I still have an pair of 20+ years old Alpha 50 as a main stereo LS

 

[AusWolf]

I think you're out of date on how cheap and common active, tracking beamforming is these days.
It's in everything from mid-price soundbars (Razer) to smart speakers (Bose) to bluetooth portable outdoor speakers (Anker, Bose, JBL) where I believe the tech first went mainstream as it was obvious to blast the music in the direction of the phone it was getting the bluetooth signal from.

Active, bluetooth-tracking beamforming is just a software license and all the tech it requires is in most bluetooth speakers with any kind of modern software-based DSP. It's not made by B&O and it's not exclusive to B&O. They add it to their product just like anyone else.

My current Marantz HDMI receiver and my old Yamaha HDMI receiver both had static beamforming, and that's decade-old mainstream tech.

Why would you want to blast the music in the direction of the phone? Isn't the point of the Bluetooth speaker technology that you can put your phone down and still listen to music? At least I don't have my phone in my hands while I'm cooking.