Bang & Olufsen has a few construction sites since years:

- reliability
- quality (Made in China... and yes, the Chinese people don't want to have products "Made in China", too, if they spend money for a specific brand!)
- design (since David Lewis passed away... you clearly see that loss in their product design)
- software
- marketing

... and there's absolutely no visible sign of change! The CEO and management don't seem to care for the company.

I bet that there are more than enough great people like e.g. Geoff Martin working at Bang & Olufsen and they should have the chance to built the products to be proud of like they did in the past. If Geoff quits or retires from Bang & Olufsen they can stop producing speakers, too. 😕

Just a quick note on this -- large cities in the States have had dedicated stores going back to at least the 1980s (Chicago, San Francisco, NYC).  It would be worth trying to come up with a history of the company's sudden rise and fall, at least in number of stores, in North America. I think it coincided with the push for B1 stores worldwide -- part of the boom of the late 90s.  Suddenly Chicago went from having one main dealer, on Oak Street, to having one on South State and elsewhere.  Similarly, the old Upper East Side store in New York had a UWS, Soho, and other internal competitors.  All this did not end well in the post-2001 world. Coupled with the rise of online retailing and the shift towards digital music, this over-expansion seems to have been a really bad idea.

Am shocked to see we are down to 11 non-cobranded stores in the USA...

I'm seeing other severe problems brewing. No product inventory (which is acceptable when delivery times are reasonable) with unreasonabley long delivery times. My dealer was furious that B&O corporate took over three weeks to ship me a Moment. There is no longer tech support for the U.S. Yes. I said it as I meant it. After closing tech support in the U.S. and routing all calls to Denmark, it is no longer possible to get through to tech support. I've tried many times. Nothing.The call gets a recording that says all lines are busy and just terminates the call. Thus, there IS no tech support for the U.S. Only 15 trained dealers and no tech support. Not a good sign.

Gloom, doom, gloom... 

A business that can't make money has to close.  Do these closings mark the beginning / continuation of a "death spiral" caused by lowering brand awareness,  quality, uninspired products or a "generational" change in market conditions (creative destruction)?   It is probably a combination of both, but Apple is the only consumer electronics brand that I can think of that has a thriving physical retail presence (and B&O is no Apple).  In the US, Best Buy is hanging by a thread and is probably being supported by Samsung, LG and the like so Amazon is not their only major retail outlet (similar to the way the toy companies supported ToyRus while it was dying).

Clearly, the retail world is changing. How many high-end boutique audio brands have their own stores (none that I know of)?  Do you keep banging your head against the wall and wonder why it hurts, or look for a different way?

I've said this a few times over the years.  I definitely do not have the answers, probably because there are no easy ones... 

Good luck B&O.  I hope you find your wayway...

The Pasadena store closing is part of a bigger plan. The Rodeo drive store (formerly corporately owned) is now privately owned with huge improvements in the works.  Additionally a brand new B&O store, owned by the same private owner, is opening next Wednesday 11/15 is Costa Mesa.